It all depends on what you want out of getting a new smart ,do you take photos,do you text a lot or make a it of phone calls . I dont do a lot of txing or make a lot of phone calls, but I do use the internet a lot and I like taking photos and video of whatever lol . I personally use a samsung s7 had the s5 before it great handset . Only you can decide 😉

Sean

At heart I,m a Samsung fan but at the moment I,m using a iPhone 5, there are some good deals to be had at the monument on both the iPhone 4 &5 both quite 'pocket sized'. As to why i'm not using a Samsung it's simply that the one I had would not 'talk' to my car's hands free !

H

iPhones are OK if you can get past the "I hate Microsoft / Apple / Google etc" thing. My eldest son has a Samsung Galaxy S7 which is amazing and he prefers it to his previous iPhone.

No point getting one of these if you just phone and text. But with a smart phone, you get free sat nav (voice guided, turn-by-turn – free), Google, news (when waiting / on train / queue etc), emails, social media, ebooks, ME / MEW digital editions(!!), music etc etc.

I also use my phone to stream music to my workshop hifi, it's my alarm clock, I don't use a camera now (the iPhone is better then most compact cameras), online banking (the banks consider it safer than a PC), Apple Pay (unlimited, unlike contactless cards with only manage £30), remote control of the central heating, remote access to my NAS storage, remote control of the sockets in the workshop (turn them off automatically at 11pm each day), Find Your Friends shows where the kids are (if they let you),

Most of the couriers send updates on deliveries through email / text / apps which is handy.

Abroad you can use Google Translate to translate voice and text (from your camera) in real time from live video (try it – it's amazing and even works in places like China).

But if you want to make calls and texts, get a simple phone. Horses and water…..

If you don't want to spend a lot, get an older model iPhone or Samsung. Yo could get something pretty decent for £200 or so. You only need large memory if you want to store loads of music and video.

Murray

I bought my first Smartphone about 4 years ago (powered by Android 5). Up until about a year ago everything was fine, but then I started getting an error message every day saying "Cannot update apps – insufficient storage)". The phone had 4GB of main storage plus a 32GB SD card. I moved everything I could to the SD card and deleted everything I could from main storage that I didn't need or want. But the message continued everyday. Unfortunately, everything I didn't want couldn't be deleted or moved to the SD card, so I was stuck. There was only 500MB left of the main storage and 26GB on the SD card, but the updates wouldn't use the SD card.

The point of posting this is to warn you about getting a cheap phone that doesn't have enough main storage. Maybe later versions of Android are prepared to use an SD card as an extension to main storage, I don't know, but it's certainly something to consider.

I had a Samsung G2 on contract but now contract finished, continue using it as a pocket camera and an alarm clock.I was persuaded to upgrade to an S4mini also on contract. Both phones on 02 system.When the S4 went out of contract, I obtained a free card from 02's subsidiary and you get a choice of 1 month @ a time allowance of txts,calls and broadband, in what they call "goodybags", starting @ £5,£7.50, and so on, the prices increase with the size of goody bag, e.g., £5 =500MB. I find that even the above 2 phones with big screens not very good for texting or internet.Last year I bought a Samsung 10" tablet, ideal for what I am currently typing, bigger piccies.The mobs have removable backs so I can fit a fully charged spare battery obtained cheaply from Hong Kong.I understand that you cannot do that with Apple products.I have 2 cheap batteries for both phones, since they are diff. sizes.The tablet doesn't appear to open to allow me to carry out the same cheapskate trick, so I will probably have to get a new tab eventually.At least everything is auto back up so I won't loose it all like when desktop computer hard drive went t-up. I savve on internet allowance in the goodybag by only using that when out but switch to wi fi at home, as its a bigger allowance bundled with house phone on Plusnet, who I cannot praise highly enough.Hope the forgoing is of some guidance to you, Otley and others.

John

I purchased an LG X240 about a year ago and am very happy with it , its a little smaller than the samsung but looks very similar – measures 147 mm x 73 mm x about 8mm cost around $240 au and us unlocked so i can use what ever carrier i wish . One thing i do like is it has a removable battery so if it dies i can replace it easily enough . Forgot to mention 16 mp camera in the back and 8 mp in the screen so it takes nice clear pictures . I had the apple , samsung and a few others right in front of me at the store i bought it from so i could compare the specs and for the price this thing had just about everything the newest ( at the time ) apple and samsung units had , it is a little less on battery run time , runs Android 6 OS and had less onboard storage which is of no concern to me as i don't use it as a media storage device anyway .

I'm not sure what network type you get where you are , we currently have 4G but in the news yesterday that 5G is set to be up and running by the end of this year . A lot of people will rush out and buy new phones to keep up with the joneses so there may be some bargains in 4G phones early next year . Just watch out buying really cheap or fairly old models of phones ( even if they are brand new ) as they recently closed down the 2G network here and 3G will be next so older phones that use those older networks will cease to work . We had purchased some mobile barcode scanners that use the 2G network about 2 years ago and once they shut it down they were useless ! Cost about $3k au each – had to buy 6 of them and only got a year out of them before having to replace them !

Obviously if you buy the phone on contract it's going to cost you more. You often get a choice of how much down payment (if any) vs monthly payments, so you can easily work it out and compare to the SIM-free cost. So I always buy a SIM-free phone for cash from Amazon or Apple. If you can't afford to buy outright, perhaps you shouldn't be buying one?

I use Giffgaff which is part of O2 but the tariffs are the lowest as far as I'm aware. Even unlimited data and voice is only £20 but there are more modest plans and you can change up or down at any time. The kids manage fine on 2GB and of course, phones use wifi first if it's available.

Murray

Edited By Muzzer on 27/02/2018 14:30:38

Re: "Motorola will probably take one of the new micro-sims"
I think you'll find the one you need is called a "nano" SIM. Whichever phone you opt for, check the relevant SIM card size you'll need (quote):-

"Nano SIM is both smaller and approximately 15% thinner than the earlier Micro SIM (3FF) standard as well as the Mini SIM (2FF) cards that were ubiquitous for many years and people commonly refer to simply as SIM cards. … These days, it is not difficult to obtain a Nano SIM card directly from a carrier."

Nothing confusing there then

I have an "old" PAYG SIM, just pay for calls, at least one paid call per 3 months to keep it alive and NO monthly payments at all.

Does anyone do this now at all, I need another phone?

I have an Alcatel smartphone on pay as you go, it costs £60 new from O2 and does almost the same as an expensive one, I use the internet a lot with it and it comes with 4G.

Martin P