Decent budget QWERTY phone?

russ0r

russ0r

russ0r

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Joined
5 May 2006
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York
Alright fellas,
About to finish my contract on O2. Selling my Desire and I'm after something basic but functional.
I want something Blackberry-esque on a budget. It also needs to be usable overseas as I'm going backpacking around SE Asia later this year (this is 'quad band' I think?)
Needs QWERTY keyboard, wi-fi, and decent battery life. It'll be used a lot for e-mail so syncing with IMAP accounts is a must. 3G and GPS would be a bonus but not essential, ditto with facebook/twitter support.
I'm buying PAYG and have a budget of £150 max. Any suggestions? I was looking at the Blackberry 8520 but I see Nokia have a few options too? Are they any good?
Cheers!
 
Definitely the palm pre 2.

I became aware of that price this morning. Supports everything you require of it :)
 
dasyad said:
I think it is tri-band, but then again I'm not even sure that the Pre 2 is quad-band :p.

Blackberry or a Nokia might be the "safer" option.
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Pre 2 specs state that quad band is available on 2G, dual band on 3G:

Dual-band UMTS/HSDPA (850/1900 MHz)
Quad-band GSM/GPRS/EDGE (850/900/1800/1900 MHz)
 
Palm Pre 2 looks awesome for the money but the battery life is a major turn-off for me.
Any other suggestions?
 
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I liked the Nokia E5 I had which did all you require and can be had cheaply now.

I am looking for similar features to you but don't want to buy the same phone again, and the new Nokia E6 is too expensive. (I tend to lose phones often)

I was looking at the Samsung Galaxy Pro, which looks good and is £129 on 3 which is the network I'm on. But don't know much about it!
 
That Samsung looks nice GT3. I was reluctant to use Android again after the traincrash my Desire has been the last few months, but might be tempted by that.

Anyone on 3? Are they any good? I've only ever been on O2 and Orange. All-you-can-eat data for £15 a month on PAYG looks useful.
 
russ0r said:
That Samsung looks nice GT3. I was reluctant to use Android again after the traincrash my Desire has been the last few months, but might be tempted by that.

Anyone on 3? Are they any good? I've only ever been on O2 and Orange. All-you-can-eat data for £15 a month on PAYG looks useful.
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I'm on the three one package. 2000 mins, 5000 3 mins (most my mates are on 3), 5000 texts and unlimited data for £25 a month.

And I got that Samsung Galaxy Pro and it seems great so far! Sat nav works great on it too!
 
HTC ChaCha? :) looks quite nice :p

However it is around £230 so meh,

Palm Pre 2, or a cheap Blackberry would be good, The thing with the blackberry is i found you would have to get a blackberry data plan from your network if you did unlock it to use with say GiffGaff, and GiffGaff dont do Blackberry plans as of yet so...
 
DefiantAsh said:
HTC ChaCha? :) looks quite nice :p

However it is around £230 so meh
Click to expand...

What does it do that the Samsung Galaxy Pro doesn't? Genuine question, I played about with them in the shop and couldn't really see what the HTC does better. Plus the Samsung looks a bit smarter!

Very happy with the phone although thats probably because I've not had a proper smart phone before.

Making your phone to a mobile access point for the laptop is properly useful especially with 3's unlimited data! The google maps sat nav works perfectly both incar and onfoot, the facebook app with chat support works great and the ebay app which you can scan a barcode using the camera to create listings in seconds. The screen is big enough for everything I use a phone for, although I realise for browsing forums etc it's not ideal. But I much prefer having a proper keyboard, writing texts and emails is a doddle and despite having sausage fingers don't find the keys too small. Hell even the camera is fine for quick snaps for social networking etc - a lot better than previous phones that have had "5mp" cameras!

Overall well impressed with the phone for the price and suits me perfectly, just need to try and not lose this one!
 
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