New phone around the £300 mark.

What do you want from a phone? Personally I'd stump up the £400 for the Gamsung Galaxy S. It has good battery life and a great screen. However that's out of your budget so you probably need to start thinking about priorities...

- build quality
- size
- screen type
- etc.

£100 gets you an Orange San Francisco so if you can get a phone that does what you need for 1/3 of your budget, then that's boobs.
 
Sorry, I should have mentioned I don't pay VAT, so around the £400 inc Vat is feasible.

I'm looking for something no bigger than an iPhone, build quality is quite important too and I would like a touch screen. I'd like it to have good connectivity and a decent mp3 player interface/apps for mp3 playing.

I would love an iPhone but the stand alone cost is ridiculous and the only way to get it free is with a £50 per month, 2 year contract, they are also pretty fragile from what I hear.
 
Just been reading up on the Desire and it seems to tick all the boxes, but there's one thing that concerns me and that's the battery life. I've heard it needs charging daily, is that fairly common for powerful smart phones?
 
Rusty_Noob said:
Just been reading up on the Desire and it seems to tick all the boxes, but there's one thing that concerns me and that's the battery life. I've heard it needs charging daily, is that fairly common for powerful smart phones?
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Poor battery life is common to all the powerful smart phones. That's the trade off unfortunately. They're like little laptops and no laptop I've ever used has lasted that long off AC either.

iPhone 4 wins the battle of the 'big four' though, as its battery lasts longer than all the others.

I don't see the problem personally. Get a cradle by your bed and stick it on that every night.
 
Rusty_Noob said:
I've heard it needs charging daily, is that fairly common for powerful smart phones?
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Yeah, all the large display phone last a day if you use them fully, spare batteries are cheap and will fit in your wallet though (the iPhone 4 does get 50-90% more and can push 2 days with heavy use)

Seriously consider the orange San Francisco, unbeatable for the price (I'd take it over my desire given the opportunity again)

http://www.techradar.com/reviews/phones/mobile-phones/orange-san-francisco-901915/review
 
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Don't understand it myself either unless it's a purely financial decision. I have both sat next to me and the speed difference is very noticeable. Just swiping between homescreens on the SF feels sluggish compared to the Desire and it sometimes doesn't even register my swiping whereas the Desire can be sometime overly sensitive. The SF is running Modaco R3 with Launcher Pro. I bought the SF for my mum and she'll be more than happy with it but for me the Desire is worth the extra outlay.
 
Foyman said:
Don't understand it myself either unless it's a purely financial decision. I have both sat next to me and the speed difference is very noticeable. Just swiping between homescreens on the SF feels sluggish compared to the Desire and it sometimes doesn't even register my swiping whereas the Desire can be sometime overly sensitive. The SF is running Modaco R3 with Launcher Pro. I bought the SF for my mum and she'll be more than happy with it but for me the Desire is worth the extra outlay.
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Worth the extra £200+ really?
 
For me? Yes, but then I love Sense and it's features and having used the Desire I couldn't put up with anything slower. Had I come from my N95 straight to the SF then I'm sure I'd love it. Also, I slightly resent it as it's been a massive pain in reading Orange Sim Cards. On my third one now that, fingers crossed, seems to stay connected.
 
The Desire Z looks good too, I'm liking the qwerty keyboard on it given I have fingers like tree stumps, not sure how I would get on with a full touchscreen.

I wonder how much effect the 800mhz processor would have compared to the 1ghz on the Desire in terms of speed, it does have increased battery life because of it though.

Without VAT I can get the Desire Z for £365.95, and the Desire for £316.59, just about in budget.
 
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look around for a Galaxy S within your budget (or stretch it a tiny bit ;))

alternativly you could look at an iphone 3GS but i think a new simfree one of them is still well out of your budget
 
Desire Z's 800mhz processor is not directly comparable to the Desire's 1ghz CPU as it's newer tech. Apparently it's just as fast.
 
Robbie G said:
Dead link for me.

Really? Why?
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Whoops, looks like they changed the link. Edited with the correct one.

Why the Orange? There's loads of features I just don't really use on the desire, missing the extra speed for web browsing + flash would be a pain (it won't be long before you'll be able to oc the msm7227 to 800mhz, plus its got the same gpu) and I do love senseUI.
But I'm more of a bang for buck kinda guy and the sf is certainly that (this is overclockers afterall :D)
 
I ended up with a 2nd hand blackberry, the full touch screen one - not sure on model number. I got it for £50 from a mate, disliked it a lot! However, I got a Desire Z for Christmas, brilliant phone!
 
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