Need a new (mobile) phone - any suggestions?
Discussion
My old W850i has long since started to fall apart and now the nice people at Orange are giving me an upgrade.
It sounds like the choices are:
Nokia
N95
6500 Slide
Sony Eriksson
W910i
890i
880i
C902
I have no idea what the significance of any of these are. Are any of them particularly good?
I don't need any of the more 'bling' features, but I travel quite a lot, so something capable of playing movies (for public transport!) might be good, or even something with sat nav (for the rest of the time!)
Are the phone-based sat navs any good? Do you have to pay additional subscriptions for them?
A decent MP3 player would be good too (again, when I'm bored on the train...)
It sounds like the choices are:
Nokia
N95
6500 Slide
Sony Eriksson
W910i
890i
880i
C902
I have no idea what the significance of any of these are. Are any of them particularly good?
I don't need any of the more 'bling' features, but I travel quite a lot, so something capable of playing movies (for public transport!) might be good, or even something with sat nav (for the rest of the time!)
Are the phone-based sat navs any good? Do you have to pay additional subscriptions for them?
A decent MP3 player would be good too (again, when I'm bored on the train...)
cabby_gaz said:
just got a n95 8gb mate and i cant reccomend them enough, plus it has video playback, wi-fi and built in gps sat nav!
Is the GPS system any good?Plus, is it easy to convert DVD format videos to play on the phone? I know it sounds unlikely, but I find it ok watching TV clips on my current phone. For some reason Top Gear magazine's free DVD from a while back was the only media the shareware program I had would convert properly, but it was quite watchable.
Only other thing - battery life? My current phone will go for a couple of days at a time without charging and I rather like that.
Will look into moving networks. I must admit I haven't been hugely impressed with the charges from Orange.
The hardware on the N95 8Gb is great. Just a shame that the software was written by muppets. I've had one for a about a month now, and whilst it does everything I want, the way it does it seriously winds me up. Ericssons have so many little touches to make them easy to use, the Nokia has none. My biggest grumbles are
- It takes about 3 days to refresh the tracks in the music player. I'm only using 2Gb of the storage with less than 200 songs, but still, the updates are glacial. If musics a priority buy a walkman phone.
- No predictive text shortcut. I'd rather just hold a button down rather than go through 17 different menus thank you Nokia.
- In File Manager view you can't skip to the files beginning with, say, M. You have to scroll manually. Thanks again Nokia. (You muppets).
- The GPS gets a lock when its good and ready, not when you actually want tog et anywhere. Its better than the first N95, but then's so getting on a space shuttle and going up to the satellite itself.
- The camera is good but the stills don;t compare to the K850i.
- You can;t refresh a webpage by pressing one button, like you can on a SE. No, thank you Nokia for all these wonderful menus you are giving me.
I'd f
k Satnav off and get the C902 if I were you. If you want an easy life anyway.
- It takes about 3 days to refresh the tracks in the music player. I'm only using 2Gb of the storage with less than 200 songs, but still, the updates are glacial. If musics a priority buy a walkman phone.
- No predictive text shortcut. I'd rather just hold a button down rather than go through 17 different menus thank you Nokia.
- In File Manager view you can't skip to the files beginning with, say, M. You have to scroll manually. Thanks again Nokia. (You muppets).
- The GPS gets a lock when its good and ready, not when you actually want tog et anywhere. Its better than the first N95, but then's so getting on a space shuttle and going up to the satellite itself.
- The camera is good but the stills don;t compare to the K850i.
- You can;t refresh a webpage by pressing one button, like you can on a SE. No, thank you Nokia for all these wonderful menus you are giving me.
I'd f
k Satnav off and get the C902 if I were you. If you want an easy life anyway. cabby_gaz said:
just got a n95 8gb mate and i cant reccomend them enough, plus it has video playback, wi-fi and built in gps sat nav!
He said he has the option of the N95, not the N95 8GB which is considerably more expensive and a lot less buggy than the Vanilla N95If Orange do it then get the Sony Ericsson W760i, it has GPS and is a decent little phone, has the decent Walkman software too which would be good for journeys

Edited by H2DaE on Thursday 28th August 15:16
I test a lot of phones, and I find a silver N95 on the latest firmware pretty much as reliable as the black 8gig versions. The early firmware was pretty poor however.
Ran a silver N95 for 14 months or so, just replaced it with a Jesus phone.
N95 was a pretty good bit of kit. The iPhone knocks it into next week as far as being a designed package, but from a pure hardware and things it can do, the N95 has more tricks up its sleeve and a significantly superior radio.
Sat Nav on the N95 was ok, but cost money. I used it for a few days and then stopped bothering, but then I have little use for sat nav.
Regarding the Sony Ericssons, I have a whole load of new ones turning up shortly. I can't comment until I've played with them.
Ran a silver N95 for 14 months or so, just replaced it with a Jesus phone.
bodhi said:
- It takes about 3 days to refresh the tracks in the music player. I'm only using 2Gb of the storage with less than 200 songs, but still, the updates are glacial. If musics a priority buy a walkman phone.
I had about a gig of music and didn't see thisbodhi said:
- No predictive text shortcut. I'd rather just hold a button down rather than go through 17 different menus thank you Nokia.
Tap the '#' key to change input mode. Common on all Nokiasbodhi said:
- In File Manager view you can't skip to the files beginning with, say, M. You have to scroll manually. Thanks again Nokia. (You muppets).
Possibly, can't remember. I recall the search function being pretty good however.bodhi said:
- The GPS gets a lock when its good and ready, not when you actually want tog et anywhere. Its better than the first N95, but then's so getting on a space shuttle and going up to the satellite itself.
Later firmware enabled AGPS which hugely improved matters. It was still never fast thoughbodhi said:
- The camera is good but the stills don;t compare to the K850i.
Granted. In good light it's ok. In poor light there's little to compare with a SE and proper flash. The N95 did shoot really very good video though. I'll miss that.N95 was a pretty good bit of kit. The iPhone knocks it into next week as far as being a designed package, but from a pure hardware and things it can do, the N95 has more tricks up its sleeve and a significantly superior radio.
Sat Nav on the N95 was ok, but cost money. I used it for a few days and then stopped bothering, but then I have little use for sat nav.
Regarding the Sony Ericssons, I have a whole load of new ones turning up shortly. I can't comment until I've played with them.
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