New phone advice.

[Quindiana Jones]

Right.

I want a new, long-term phone that'll be able to remain useful over a 5+ year period. I found this one (http://shop.o2.co.uk/mobile_phone/Nokia/E90?lastPage=/mobile_phones/Pay_Monthly/viewall). Here's a review (http://www.my-symbian.com/s60v3/review_e90.php). By Pay Monthly contract (only thing available with it), I think the best one for me is a £20 one, giving me 200 minutes and 400 texts - plenty for me. However, the initial cost of the phone on that contract will be £200. Ouch. The real pisstake is that the majority of the other contracts are unnecessarily full for me (for example 1000 texts), and although I'd get the phone free, the per month costs are around £70-90, which on £120ish a month I can't afford. Stupid Burtons. NEED. MORE. HOURS. :mad2:

Anyhoo, my main problem is that I think I might just be doing a "OMFG NEW PHONE! WOW INTERNET! HOLY CRAP! KEYBOARD!" kind of thing. I've read some reviews and stuff, and now am thinking of this on the more practical side of: Crikey. This phone could last me ruddy ages, and could still compete years in the future. But I dunno.

With a 24 month contract of £20 a month and starting price of £200, it'd amount to £600 overall. I figure I make around £2880 in two years, and that's not including overtime and changes in my pay once I've completed certain things (like turning 18).

My main concern is what happens after the contract ends. I don't like contracts much, and prefer Pay As You Go. Therefore, I have never been on a phone contract, so know literally nothing. Someone tell me: What happens after a contract ends? Does it continue? Or does it just shut down everything and make me go "NO! MY £600 PHONE! YOU BASTARDS!"? In a perfect world, I'd be able to switch to PAYG after the two years are up. *fingers crossed*

I think this phone could easily last me bloody ages, so would be worth it in the long term. Also, £600 is pretty massive to me over a short term, but stretched over two years is easily manageable. Though a wee bit of saving is necessary for the £200 start.

So yeah, gimme your opinions. I don't wanna waste my money because of "OMG NEW STUFF!-ing, but I honestly think this phone could be worth it. There's also a nifty good point/bad point video (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CthE-8Poey0) on YouTube.

Take a look at them, and if you think I'm being a fool, tell me. Feel free to throw in any other better things or points or phones or whatever (regardless of network) if you know of any.

Cheers all. :love:

[o_O]

I've never been a fan of Symbian, so personally, I wouldn't go for it. <a href="http://www.istart.co.nz/index/HM20/AS3/AR210425">This</a> is what I use and would recommend for a smart device, but I'm not gonna try to sell that to you. :p

There's no doubt that Symbian's a solid operating system, and there is good product and software support. Clearly it's a decent phone, because the Communicator line has been going pretty much since the beginning of time. It has a decent camera and bluetooth/IR and wifi (which you'd probably use a ridiculous amount of if you have a wireless router since it doesn't cost money). :p

It only has 128MB internal storage with a 2GB max capacity for SD cards though, which isn't that great, especially compared to a few other Nokias. It does have GPS though, and is quad band so you can take it anywhere.

I think it's a good phone, and I wouldn't say you're wasting your money. Hopefully you'll use the features too - my first PDA phone was when I was in highschool, and being a kid, I didn't really need most of the business-oriented features like planners and stuff so it was maybe a slight waste of money. :p

[Quindiana Jones]

I do plan on using the majority of the features, including the business oriented stuff (like the planner).

Also, I use my camera a lot, so one thing I liked about this was the higher quality camera. However, I know that plenty of other phones have the same (if not better) camera.

In my excitement, I forgot to look outside the businesses. I later checked eBay and saw them going for more than half what I'd pay. Problem with that is that I never trust eBay when it comes to electronic goods. If I did get an unlocked one from somewhere else, it would be cheaper overall, and I'd be way happier because I could use PAYG which I prefer due to me being in full control of the money.

When it comes to complex technical jargon, I'm pretty retarded, so I plan on reading up on that so I get a better idea of what's going on.