I am in the market (unknowingly ) for an upgrade from Orange since March.

Looking at the list of phones it appears I have "earned" the right to a serious free upgrade, or relatively cheap upgrade, such as Iphone 3GS 8gb for £139 (18 month conttract) or £59 (24 month contract) and £30 a month (I pay £30 a month now and happy with that)

Now I have no knowledge of apps, etc, and there could be free upgrades out there such as (and I am clueless on what they do)

1) Blackberry Bold 9700

2) Nokia 2730

3) Nokia E71

4) LG Pop GD510

and plenty more.

The important things to me I suppose are reliability and a decent camera. One with a good flash would be handy.

Oh, and just to be confusing, I have copied all the text of the types of phones in below. If any models jump out at you to avoid / aim for, please let me know.

Sony Ericsson Zylo™ tune in

Walkman® music player

FM radio RDS

internal memory 260MB

compare now show me more upgrade price: FREE

upgrade Sony Ericsson Xperia X10 Mini Lime all in one place

5-megapixel auto focus camera

Android™ operating system

touch screen

compare now show me more upgrade price: FREE

upgrade Samsung Galaxy Apollo i5801 Black fun functionality

3-megapixel camera

3.2-inch touch screen

Android™ operating system

compare now show me more upgrade price: FREE

upgrade Samsung Monte S5620 colour co-ordinated

3-inch, full touch screen

social networking and instant messenger

WiFi

compare now show me more upgrade price: FREE

upgrade Nokia 6303i step up

3.15-megapixel camera

MP3 player

FM radio RDS

compare now show me more upgrade price: FREE

upgrade BlackBerry® Curve™ 8520 Silver dedication is the key

free Orange RockCorps skin on payg as you go

BlackBerry® email

UMA technology

compare now show me more upgrade price: FREE

upgrade BlackBerry® Curve™ 8520 dedication is the key

BlackBerry® email

UMA technology

Bluetooth® 2.0 + EDR

compare now show me more upgrade price: FREE

upgrade LG Optimus in Silver it's quick

3-inch touch screen

Android™ operating system

3.15-megapixel camera

compare now show me more upgrade price: FREE

upgrade Samsung Wave S8500 surf the wave

3.3-inch touch screen

5-megapixel camera

HD video recording

compare now show me more upgrade price: £49.99

upgrade LG POP GD510 in black online exclusive on pay as you go

online exclusive on pay as you go

3-megapixel camera

3-inch, full touch screen

compare now show me more upgrade price: FREE

upgrade Motorola DEXT feature heavy

MOTOBLUR™ social networking

Android™ operating system

QWERTY slider keyboard

compare now show me more upgrade price: FREE

upgrade Samsung B2100 solid extreme

1.3-megapixel camera

Bluetooth®

flash light

compare now show me more upgrade price: FREE

upgrade Nokia E71 in black connected freedom

email

quad band

Bluetooth®

compare now show me more upgrade price: FREE

upgrade Nokia 2330 in silver simple and classic

VGA camera

FM radio

email

compare now show me more upgrade price: FREE

upgrade Nokia 2730 in black and silver fast web browsing

2-megapixel camera

Bluetooth®

3G

compare now show me more upgrade price: FREE

upgrade BlackBerry® Bold™ 9700 best of both worlds

BlackBerry® email

3G

UMA technology

compare now show me more upgrade price: £99.99

upgrade LG POP GD510 in pink online exclusive on pay as you go

online exclusive on pay as you go

3-megapixel camera

3-inch, full touch screen

compare now show me more upgrade price: FREE

upgrade Sony Ericsson Vivaz life in high definition

8.1-megapixel camera

SatNav

WiFi

compare now show me more upgrade price: £49.99

upgrade Sony Ericsson Xperia X10 Black here and now

8.1-megapixel camera

Android™ operating system

SatNav

compare now show me more upgrade price: £99.99

upgrade Sony Ericsson Xperia X10 White here and now

8.1-megapixel camera

Android™ operating system

SatNav

compare now show me more upgrade price: £99.99

upgrade Samsung Galaxy S in black super speedy

4-inch AMOLED touch screen

Android v2.1

HD video capture

compare now show me more upgrade price: £149.99

upgrade Sony Ericsson Satio™ feast your eyes

12.1-megapixel camera

3.5-inch 16:9 touch screen

HSDPA

compare now show me more upgrade price: £99.99

The one missing from the list is a HTC Desire

HTC Desire in black - out of stock..... Might email and log an interest in one if they are that good? Doesn't say a cost though. However, looking at the spec I am willing to be it is probably at least a £99.99 upgrade option.....

Don't buy on contract, buy it outright. Whilst initially it's more expensive, it offers by far & away the most flexibility.

By choosing this method you can then go to any service provider (O², T-Mobile, Vodafone, Orange et al) and ask them for a 30 day sim only deal, which is what I'm on with Vodafone & for £15pcm I get 300 mins (never use more than 45!), 3000 txts (never more than 50), 500Mb of Web access.

It may seem excessive for what I use but I can't get any lower for what I want. It maybe the perfect tariff for you though.

And if at the end of the day, I want to change providers I just give 30 days notice & I'm free to move on, I can also, if there's limited/no coverage in an area, switch sim cards & use a PAYG sim to ensure coverage. Life's more simple.

Blackberry Bold 9700

In a years time it will still work while a lot of those other toys will stop playing. Lesser models of Blackeberry are poorly equipped and have crap camera's

Anything Sony Ericsson will never be reliable same with LG as this will just be rehashed Samsung. Nokia have never really cracked the smartphone thing. The e71 is just a poor mans Blackberry.

HTC Desires are great but expensive and can be a bit shirty however they IMHO better than a iPhone in so many ways.

You had a look at the Dell Streak? Also see if you can get a price on a Blackberry bold 9000 (Slightly older 9700), reckon you can get a sim free for about £200 and then get a sim only 02 deal with BB thrown in free for £20 a month. This handset will do everything you want and it's bombproof.

Edited 3 August, 201015 yr by Decron

Don't buy on contract, buy it outright. Whilst initially it's more expensive, it offers by far & away the most flexibility.

But then if you lose it/break it/get it robbed you've lost £400

At least with a contract you've only paid £80 or whatever for the phone. The savings don't work out that much over 18 months if you buy it outright.

Look on moneysupermarket.com for good advice on contracts and phone costs.

So you claim on your household insurance.

So you claim on your household insurance.

Often this will result in a rise in premium that will put you out of pocket. It can also take weeks for payout/replacements.

You had a look at the Dell Streak? Also see if you can get a price on a Blackberry bold 9000 (Slightly older 9700), reckon you can get a sim free for about £200 and then get a sim only 02 deal with BB thrown in free for £20 a month. This handset will do everything you want and it's bombproof.

The Dell streak is only on o2 atm. also it is mahoosive is size when compared to all other phones as it is halfway between a phone and an ipad in size.

I know a lot of people who are happy with the htc desire, also with iPhones. The samsung galaxy looks quite good too. If you do a lot of texting and email writing than something like a blackberry will be perfect, if you want apps and games than something like the desire,galaxy or iphone will be good.

they will all surf the net reasonably well so it is all much of a muchness.

Don't touch an iPhone or any other touchscreen phone without giving it a good try out first. I have had an iPhone 3g on a 2 year contract since January 2009 but went back to my good old Nokia 6300 after a few months because I was so fed up with the very frequent mistypes. As soon as the current contract ends I'm going for a new Nokia with a normal keypad.

I now just use the iPhone as an iPod Touch.

I had been after a phone for the past year, don't like touch screens and the qwerty's on blackberrys were just annoying. Just got myself a blackberry 9105 pearl it has a normal number pad, so is easy to use and so far i'm finding it better than my old nokia n82

I would buy one of those fancy phones if they could make a nice cup of tea.