Mobile phone gee.. er.. experts: I seek your advice

[*Bob*]

Time for a new mobile phone.

The only *crucial* factor is that it is my only source of taking photos, being as I am too lazy to carry a dedicated camera.

It looks like a straight shootout between the Sony Ericsson K850i and the Nokia N95 (the new black one with 8Gb) - but a little online research has left me undecided as to which is best.

Can anyone offer any opinions?

[woodie]

Dont get an iphone . camera aint all that. Plus cant see flash content online.

[mockney piers]

get yourself down a shop and have a bit of a play with both of them.

Absolutely key for me on any phone is the interface. I started with Nokias but they went a bit awry interfacewise and I found them next to unusable.

They may be great now, I've no idea, but SonyEricssons for me have been the best (I'll refrain from mentioning my Samsung *shudders*). Currently on the P1i, camera is ok, but nothing to scream about.

[*Bob*]

My last three phones have all been SE.. all it took was a quick read of a few reviews - a no brainer. But the K850i doesn't seem to be drawing the same no-quibble praise. The interface appears to have been shaken-up and isn't to everyone's liking.

[lozzyloz]

The N95 is good. Nice big screen. Landscape mode and easy to operate one handed. Big drawback is the operating system which is a little slow (can be really frustrating when you want to take a picture) and sometimes needs rebooting (not as bad as N73 and N80). But then it is packed with lots of cool stuff including a bar code scanner (what the . . ?) GPS, Maps, 5mp camera, stereo speakers etc. It's also a bit bulky but it does look nice.

[*Bob*]

Cheers, Lozzy

Your the third person to mention the slow picture-taking thing, so I'm guessing it must be much more of a problem than on other phone cams. Perhaps I ought to stick with SE then - and leave the barcode scanning to the Somerfield checkout girls.

[Keef]

Thing I like about SE's is the fact the seem to have good shelf lives. A lot of my previous phones have started going a bit mental before a year is up. I've had my current one for almost 18 months and it's still going strong... Which reminds me, I need an upgrade in a month or 2... Keep us informed bob!

[barrymarshall]

Sony-Ericsson phones are great expect for one fatal flaw - if you are in predictive text-messaging mode it is impossible to spell words that are not in the dictionary without going out of the message into a separate sub-screen. It is little things like that that make the difference, IMO, rather than how great the camera is (which I never use anyway).

[dave]

I'd have to vote again for the SE option. Nokia have come along a lot since I switched to SE (about 4-5 years ago) but the N series are known within the geek - sorry - "expert" community for their bugginess. The N95 is no exception, from the conversation I had with a (very knowledgable and credible) bloke in a mobile phone shop last week.

If it's a camera which you mainly want, the mid-range SE phones seem to have the edge just now.

One thing I would suggest is that you avoid anything which has been customised by Vodafone - they tend to make every phone try to fit their standard menu structure/look-and-feel, which has crippled at least one phone for me (a SE m600i since you ask). All the operators do this sort of thing to one extent or another, but Voda seem to be the worst, and SE phones appear to be the worst affected, for whatever reason.

Saying that, I still can't convince my other half to move from her (non n-series) Nokia despite my praise of the alternatives...

[mockney piers]

Totally with you on that one Dave. I'll never know whether the samsung was dreadful or just the Vodafone developers.

Mind you, it can't be that hard to make a phone ring AND vibrate, rather than ring THEN vibrate.

I moved to O2 in the end so sick of those awful interfaces was I.

[lozzyloz]

N Series full of bugs!!?? Maybe that's why I've binned six since September. The N95 seems to be the only one that works half decently. Trouble is I'm so used to the menu structure that it really is awkward to use anything else. Mrs LL has a Nokia 6300 which actually is quite nice. Not flash but slim, feels nice and it works!

[Keef]

barrymarshall Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

> Sony-Ericsson phones are great expect for one

> fatal flaw - if you are in predictive

> text-messaging mode it is impossible to spell

> words that are not in the dictionary without going

> out of the message into a separate sub-screen. It

> is little things like that that make the

> difference, IMO, rather than how great the camera

> is (which I never use anyway).

Know what you're saying, but once the word is saved, it remembers it, so after sending texts in say the first month, it will pretty much remember your lingo.