Hey everyone!

I'm currently looking for a new phone. Normally I'd get one from my provider but since I want to cut my monthly costs as much as possible I'm going for a SIM-only connection when I get to renew contract (so no phone included). I'm not really sure what I want yet, so I was wondering if anyone can give me suggestions.

What it must do/must have:
- QWERTY keyboard
- Internet (mostly for reading mail)
- Candybar layout (like a blackberry, so no sliders/clamphones etc)
- Must be reasonably priced, the cheaper the better

What it shouldn't do/have:
- No keyboard - I hate onscreen keyboards. I don't care how good you think the iPhone keyboard is, I want a physical keyboard

Actually that's pretty much it. I don't need GPS (would be nice), I don't plan on installing millions of applications (it's not forbidden though) and I don't need superfast G3 internet or whatever (I'll only use it for e-mail and occasional webbrowsing).

Anyone got any ideas? I'm currently looking at the Blackberry 8520 and the Nokia C3-00, but I'm curious if there are any other devices that fit my wishlist that I simply overlooked. Hope someone can help me on this one :)

Weird, I was going to make a thread asking this too. Although I am considering the iphone, but I don't like on-screen keyboards neither...

Smartphones with physical keyboards are becoming pretty rare. I think the only major ones that have it are Blackberries and some of the windows 7 smartphones like LG quantum or HTC arrive. Both of those slide though, so I think you'll want a BB :)

I made the jump from physical to on-screen when i jumped from a Treo to an iPhone, and while I've definately gotten used to it, I was still faster on the physical keyboard. Still, I'm pretty happy with the iphone 4 (aside from the stupid at&t network) so it's worth the tradeoff for me.

I'm not a fan of blackberries, but I do use a BB Bold for work, and it's pretty nice as far as blackberries go. It should do everything you want it to do.

I've used the 8520 and would suggest you spring for the next model up 9X00 something I believe, they keyboard is MUCH better.
That's really the only difference as far as I can tell (camera and crap...but who really uses that except for random snapshots.)

The upside of the blackberry is BBM IMHO, quite a few people I know have it and it can often make things simpler. I'll admit I'm not really aware of the phone market and crap but your list made me think of Blackberrys instantly.

Might not be the best selections, but here are some of my picks. I don't know their prices though.

- Samsung Galaxy Pro (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7UvIikshMOQ) (Qwerty Keyboard but no directional pad. Up/down/left/right movement controlled by touchscreen.)

- Blackberry Bold 9780 (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JAXK4IS3H3k) (Blackberry has a lot of other similar phones. Do check their website out.)

- Nokia E5 (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6obd0v25AvY) (My preferred choice out of the three.)

Pretty hard to find a modern smartphone with a keyboard that doesn't hide it away with a sliding motion.

The Galaxy and Fascinate are crap. They freeze up frequently and have several performance issues. That said, the Droid 2 might fit your purpose, if you want the android platform, but you're sacrificing power for a keyboard, and it's a sliding hideaway. The Droid Pro does have one that's available though, but it's quite old.

LG's Windows Phone 7 is pretty good, but it's still on the startline, and I'm not certain how far the phone will go forward (and if it will suck as badly as Windows Mobile 6)

Honestly, I think you might like the Palm Pre the best, as it's cheap, but comes with a keyboard (Pixi doesn't has one integrated), and does everything you wanted above; the catch is that it's not actively developed for, so its appstore is quite limited at best.

If you're looking for something super basic and inexpensive, perhaps something like this (http://www.samsung.com/ca/consumer/mobile/mobile-phones/all-phones/SPH-M350ZAABMC/index.idx?pagetype=prd_detail). You'll just have to get used to the slider.

I really don't want a slider phone, they always rely on the touchscreen too much. Preferrably, I'd have no touchscreen at all.

I watched some youtube reviews of several phones yesterday. I'm less keen on the nokia phones, I guess I'm just not a fan of Symbian and S40. A lot of people say it randomly crashes and stuff. Kinda like Windows Mobile :(

The blackberry is looking up though. Affordable, good battery life and it just seems to run so smooth. And push mail :)

Nice, I started looking for a new phone with a physical keyboard too :D


I guess I'm just not a fan of Symbian and S40. A lot of people say it randomly crashes and stuff

I won't try to convince you as I'm a pro-Nokia/Symbian, but :

If you don't download several applications and/or modify the phone's system software, Symbian, WP7 or other OS won't crash (except "built-in bugs" corrected by updates).
In the other side, if you choose a phone that don't have built-in software you need, you'll have to install them...
It's like Windows on computers : You'll have more crashes when you install multiples softwares, drivers, etc...



- Nokia E5 (My preferred choice out of the three.)

For my part I'm wondering about the E6, the successor of the E5 (Today I use a Nokia 5800 eXpress Music). It has all functions I need (the best PIM softwares since my oooold Palm Vx, E-mail, Web browser...), with physical keyboard and a touch-screen (which is very useful sometimes) and is not so expensive (beside the fact that this phone is not sold yet :heh:).



Besides all these facts which are important, I think you should also rely on a model in which you are familiar to or in which you'll be familiar to quickly. It will determine the brand and the exact model ;)

I ended up buying a used Blackberry Curve 8900:

http://www.mobilephonereviews.org/uploads/Image/Blackberry-Curve-8900.jpg

So far I'm very pleased with it. It's fast, snappy and very very stable (unlike my WinMo phone which crashed yesterday when I was using it for navigation).

Very nice! A few friends of mine own a Blackberry. They keep trying to convert me to their ranks but I'll stick with my current phone for now. Back then, I was considering getting the flip version of a Blackberry XD
I'm also considering on looking into a Sony Ericsson smartphone with an Android OS sometime in the near future

Oh! Félicitations, nice phone!

I tried it, I like very much the "trackball" ^_^

I am sorry to come with a not related question. I don't want to make a new thread for my question and this thread is just called phones... so anything of phones?


In the U.S., the public phones can be use to call internationally to mobile phones? From New Jersey, New York, Massachusetts and Florida.

i use a curve! its aight, the internet speed is uncannily slow.

I am sorry to come with a not related question. I don't want to make a new thread for my question and this thread is just called phones... so anything of phones?


In the U.S., the public phones can be use to call internationally to mobile phones? From New Jersey, New York, Massachusetts and Florida.

For the few pay phones that are left, you can (011, country code, city code, and then the number) , but I'm pretty sure it requires a calling card. Never tried it using coins.

Thanks M!

i use a curve! its aight, the internet speed is uncannily slow.

That's because the curve series only supports GPRS and Edge, not 3G or 4G.

I use GPRS (We don't even have Edge here) and it's still heaps better than that crappy HTC Touch HD I used to have, even if that was running on 3G.

I actually used Whatsapp for a while but then it stopped working :(