Your cellphone?

I currently have a Nokia N97.



(That's not my one by the way)

It's a pretty awesome phone. The active home screen is a joy to use and the RSS feed viewer in particular is a top thing to have on the home screen. I have the three active slots set for Facebook, an RSS feed of Edge Online and a weather website, although I change the third one every week or so.

As you'd expect from a company that's been making web-enabled phones for at least ten years now, browsing is a joy and actually, for just looking things up it works quicker than my laptop. I've not really put much of a dent in the 8gb storage it has as I carry an ipod for music and photos just aren't that big, although the camera is pretty decent. The touch screen is the first I've used that I like and although when I got it I thought I'd mainly be using the full qwerty keyboard for messaging, the touchscreen keyboard is so easy to use I rarely use the flip now.

The email integration is rubbish compared to a Blackberry but it's ok for casual use but overall, you can't really beat Nokias for ease of use and functionality. The only thing I don't like about it is the battery life is a bit poor, it needs charging every three days or so plus if you put it in your pocket, even locked it flashes up a message to unlock it every time something touches the screen which runs the battery down even faster. A small gripe though on an otherwise top phone. I honestly don't believe there is a better phone currently available.

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Ha ha, I actually have the FFVII victory theme as the ringtone for a couple of my mates.

There's nowhere I can't reach.

But nobody actually pays for a phone do they?

Handsets are always, always free, unless you're an idiot and get a pay as you go one, in which case the extra money you spend on credit rather than having a contract suggests you're made of money anyway.

How ya doing, buddy?

I don't see your logic. How is Pay as you Go better in that case? Surely a cheap contract with an unlimited data add-on, given that'll you'll get a free top of the range phone when you sign up is a better option?

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Actually you're right, you can't get a Motorola Milestone (As the Droid is called here) for free but only because it's not available from any providers direct, you have to buy the handset seperately at the moment. They were supposed to be available on T-Mobile but they're not listed on their website yet.

Never the less, you shouldn't ever pay for a handset. If you see one you like and a provider is trying to charge you for it, you simply ring a competitor and tell them the deal the other was offering, then ring back the original ones with the counter deal. You should never, ever accept the first deal you're offered with mobile phones, play a couple of companies off against each other and I can guarantee you'll get any handset you want for free and probably pay far below the listed contract price.

The N97 I've got is supposed to be £200 with a contract and Three tried to charge me that so I rang Vodafone, asked if they'd give me a free one, they said yes so I rand Three back, told them I was leaving and they counter-offered me a free handset.

Seriously, don't ever pay for a phone.

Edit: I think we did, Sprout, but I still think you shouldn't be paying and I reckon with a bit of phoning around you could get what you want free over there too.

I was speaking idiomatically.

Well when you buy a phone here they're normally operator-locked (Although it's a piece of piss to unlock them, nomore than five minutes on Google) but most operators sell most phones. I guess exclusivity costs too much for the operators to bother. Either that or the phone makers themselves prefer their phones to be more widely available. As such, there are three or four people stocking each of the current best phones available so it's very easy to play them off.

What kind of toxic man-thing is happening now?

Fair enough, if you can get given the phone then Pay as you Go isn't quite such a bad option. I still maintain that if you're having to buy the handset a contract is cheaper in the long run.

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Ah, in which case I apologise for my naivite, I assumed the business model worked the same way there as here.

It's interesting that no company has picked up the Milestone yet actually. In general I couldn't really find any carriers touting Motorolas so perhaps the brand as a whole is out of favour here at the moment or something, or they're between deals. Either that or each carrier is limiting themselves to a couple or so smart-phones to avoid stock obsolescence.

What, you don't want my bikini-clad body?