It'll soon be time for me to upgrade my mobile phone and I'd like some advice pls from people 'in the know'.

I'm with Orange pay monthly and pay £15 per month. I'd like a fairly basic phone which has long battery life (most important) a decent-ish camera with a flash if poss, and is OK for surfing the net (a facility which I don't use at the mo, but will be getting some data minutes with my package, I hope).

Any ideas, pls? I'm not really au fait with phones as there is a massive choice which do so many things. I don't want anything which costs a lot as I want to keep my expenses down.

Thanks in advance.

Can't you get to an Orange shop and have a play about with a few? Some new phones are less than tactile. Good luck.

Get an iPhone 4

Yep, because that's a fairly basic phone around what the OP is paying just now, isn't it?

The iPhone is not a basic phone it is a smartphone. The op would be best to go to an Orange shop if possiable.

Not everyone is controlled by crApple's marketing hypnotism.

he could possibly pop into a o2 shop as my local has all the phones on display and you can play with them and find 1 that u like before going to orange and purchasing it

Vodafone do the Samsung Monte and the Nokia 5230 at £10. Or for £20 you could get blackberry curve, HTC legend or HTC wildfire.

As battery is most important to you, my advice would be to go have a look at the blackberry curve. I have one for work and the battery lasts 3-4 days for me.

As above, going into the store and having a look around and play with the mobiles on display. Also, I'd suggest having a look at their free magazine for ideas which stocked in their Orange stores.

Although I don't have them, I've heard many people recommend the Samsung Genio Touch and the Samsung Tocco Lite (both available from Orange) and they would seem to fulfil your criteria.

Thanks all. I will check these out and go to the Orange shop to look at them. I know that it's a different system for upgrading in shop from over the phone. I want a smallish candy bar type phone and not a touch one, so I'll see what's available.

Lucky you

In the last magazine I saw, they had a few Nokia and Samsung candy bar mobiles plus there's the new Sony-Ericsson Elm to look at. I'd also suggest looking at the individual reviews at Amazon, Argos and Revoo to see what users' experiences are and that way you can hopefully avoid turkeys.