Looking to buy a new mobile phone no more than £100...

[-mermaid-]

Okay, so a little about my history, I always have sony ericsson phones- had the K750i, C902, C905 and then had the Xperia X10 for a little while until I managed to break it! Generally got on really well with all of these phones, the xperia I had a love/hate relationship with but was sort of sad to see it go.

Generally I'm not a fan of touch screen phones, obviously most are these days so I'm willing to be dragged into the future.

As a student, I also use pay as you go on which I get 500mb of free internet per month. Using social networking apps on the xperia x10 seemed to consume all of this in no time & I'd soon find myself credit-less again, however I've returned back to my old K750i since that broke and use the 'snaptu' app for social networking all the time and never run out of internet! So bearing this in mind I'd like a phone that isn't too thirsty when it comes to chomping up my data allowance!

Aside from this I'm looking for something which has:
-a good keyboard (be it an actual one or just an easy to use touchscreen one)
-wifi connectivity
-half decent camera with light or flash (not talking digital camera standards but 3megapixels at least would be nice..)
-3.5 headphone jack if possible
-good social networking capability

...and that's it! On a pretty tight budget, don't want to spend more than £100- is this reasonable? If anyone can recommend some good phones that I might like I'd be really grateful! Thanks =]

[leanne_1987]

i got a san francisco phone, can only get it on orange but its a really good android smartphone and was only 100

[CarlJenners]

Hi Mermaid

Believe it or not, there are quite a few phones that will fit into your criteria, even with your price limit (which certainly isn’t unreasonable).

I’d suggest the following:

Huawei U8300 (Android)
LG GW620, Axis, Optimus Q, or Fathom (all Android)
Motorola FlipOut, CHARM or DEXT MB220 (all Android)
Nokia E5 (Symbian)
Samsung B7350 Omnia PRO 4 (Windows Mobile)
Sony Ericsson Aspen (Windows Mobile)

I think these last few have a proprietary OS

Huawei G6608
Micromax Q80
Samsung B5310 CorbyPRO
Sony Ericsson txt pro

Each of these phones has all the things you asked for, and I haven’t listed them with any sense of priority, they’re just in alphabetical order. The social networking integration is pretty much of a muchness these days; EVERYBODY wants it, and the phone manufacturers are providing it. Personally, I like Android phones for this (I used FaceBook, Twitter and Google+, as well as Google Mail) however, there’s no real difference across the mobile OSs these days, apart from a few small tweaks here and there, although, having said that, you might find Symbian a bit of a weak link in that particular area.

As for your internet usage, you might want to consider simply changing airtime provider to someone like GiffGaff, who’s internet usage packages have no limits (I’ve used over 11Gb myself with them so far this month – my month runs to 21st), and if you’re going to go for a newer phone that’s got more social network integration, it will start to add up. Unlike other PAYG deals, you buy a package from them each month, so you don’t keep the credit, but, for example, for £10 you get unlimited internet , unlimited texts (both truly unlimited) and 250 anytime minutes, which given that most other networks charge at least 15p a minute is technically worth £37.50. They have other bundles available that go up to 1500 minutes for £25. Calls outside your allowance are just 8p a minute, which is a third of most of the others and they only charge 20p a minute for 0870 and 0845, which is half what the rest stuff us with. If you order through an affiliate link (such as http://giffgaff.com/orders/affiliate/rhort) they’ll send you a free SIM with £5 of credit on it.

Hope some or all of this is helpful. Let me know if you need more info :)

[-mermaid-]

Hello, thanks for the replies =]

Leanne - Had a look at the san francisco, looks promising features-wise but am still reluctant to have a full touchscreen if I can avoid it!

Carl - I have to say I quickly googled a few of these phones and most seem to be similar slideout keyboard things which I'm also not a huge fan of, and the sony ericsson isn't available yet I don't think? I found the sony website to just say 'coming soon'.

So would like the add to the fussiness... currently available in the UK and preferably candy-bar style?

I have been looking the most at the samsung chat 335 and the nokia X3-02 at the moment, both look a little simple but I like their sleek designs and they offer what I'm looking for albeit lacking in features a little?

Can anyone comment on these or suggest from there?
Thanks =]