I am thinking of getting a phone on contract and after much reading have decided on either the HTC Desire or Sony Ericsson Xperia X10 from three on their Text 500 plan which is £25 for 24 months. Any views on which one is the best phone?. I would useit mainly for texting and the web.

HTC desire mate, u won't be disappointed

24 month contract

Read more reviews. If there is a 3 store near you, drop in and have a fiddle on working models.

Fnarr fnarr!

Agreed.

I'd choose the Desire without any hesitation. It performs better, has the better GPS and in my view looks better.

The days of SE making decent phones appears to have past for now and HTC are producing some of the better Android handsets at the moment.

HTC's user interface on Android is also much better looking and nicer to use than SE's meaning you'll have a better experience on daily use.

Ditto!

I have to say I largely agree with this. The Xperia X10 seems to be well-regarded, however, and I don't have personal experience of it, so I wouldn't rule it out without further investigation.

Have a look at the LG Optimus One - I have one arriving today and they are supposed to be brilliant.

I had an X10 for 2 months. It was dire!

Spill then... What was up with it?

HTC Desire

1] It is a more powerful phone in general
2] It currently runs Android 2.2, whereas the X10 is stuck on 2.1
3] The HTC Desire will be getting Android 2.3, the X10 is not leaving 2.1
4] The HTC Desire actually has fully implemented multi-touch

The only thing I'd say is, try and get the HTC Desire HD as it is slightly more future proof. 2 years is a very long time in mobile technology terms. God only knows what mobiles will be able to do by 2013!

There's no such thing as future proof these days, especially in smartphones with the current pace being for manufacturers to keep kicking each other in the nuts.

I'd recommend choosing the Desire or Desire HD only based on preference not simply on spec. There's no point having the handset that's better on paper if it's not the one you prefer.

I am not too bothered about keeping up with the latest phones as I have had my current mobile for 2 years now on payg, but I would like a good smartphone. Also saw three have the iPhone 4 at £35 per month, £69 upfront on their one plan deal for 24 months. I will have to go in a store and see them.

24mnths/£25 for a plain old desire?

£600 over two years.... main use text and web?

Get yourself an o2 PAYG....

Top up a tenner each month and get 300 xnet texts and 500mb web free... then spend your tenner on calls/calls bolt on.

Pick up a desire or x10 off contract for about £250... total over two years is £490.

Personally I'd recommend the Samsung Galaxy S which is a bit dearer than both the desire and x10.

Just be a bit clever about phones....

I had a Nokia 5230 - very basic phone.

I called 3 as I was coming to the end of my contract. They gave me:

600 Texts
75 Mins
2GB Internet

All for £5 a month on a 12 month flex contract, so I can upgrade with no penalty whenever I want. So I then bought a PAYG phone from 3 for £179 - LG Optimus One.

I then recycled my phone online and got £35.

So really, I get all of the above for £5 a month and a handset for £145.

Not bad at all.

not bad at all... that's an understatement, infact the understatement of the century!

Nice*. That's the way to do it - but the networks know well that 90% of people just cannot be bothered to go through all that.

3's reception doesn't suit everyone, either, so some additional research required there. I'm the type who would look all of this up.

I'm astonished by some of the terrible deals my friends tell me they are on, I just can't understand what was going through their heads when they signed up (aside from the sight of a new, shiny, shiny handset).



*I would prefer the texts and mins swapped round, as 20 texts a day is far too many for me, and 75 mins is nothing.

I also got £12 Quidco so the handset again was only £133.

What do you mean understatement of the century?! It's a damn good deal I got.

Keyboard kept missing clicks - 3rd party keyboards did improve this but shouldn't really have to install a 3rd party program to fix a basic phone function

Battery life was atrocious and inconsistent - would often report being empty and turn off but as soon as it came back on it was over half charged

Timescape often was slow and unresponsive - which is a shame as I did like timescape and how everything was linked together in one place

My data usage sky rocketed also from under 100Mb a month to over 2GB

There were other things but I've tried to put the whole experience out of my mind so can't remember what they were

Software updates may have fixed the issues now but its made me very wary of anything with the xperia brand on now which is a shame as the forthcoming play and arcs do look good

I've loved the X10 Mini, but it would be good to get 2.2.

I think a number of things have improved with software updates, but as Sony are so slow if I wanted a larger handset I would go with one of the HTC's.

I have the X10, and although I love the phone, I think you should really be getting something that will support newer versions of Android. I'm a bit disappointed that I'm now stuck with 2.1. And it'll probably put me off going with Sony E in the future.
If you aren't bothered about that, then I would recommend the X10 as a phone. The camera isn't great for 8MP, but HD video recording is flawless. It's a fast phone, reliable, with decent sound quality, etc. And with a few alterations in your usage, you can get about two days out of the battery.

I think that is what they meant. By saying it is just a good deal as an understatement. As in it is better than good.

I would prefer to go on contract and most are 24 months, few are 18 and fewer still are 12 (only Tesco mobile). Way I see it, on contract you paying for the phone and for the airtime combined. Also you have some haggle room if the provider messes you about. So the iphone deal not a good one?

Out of the two - the Desire by a country mile!

The Xperia is so buggy and is running such an old version of Android its not even worth looking at.

I have the Desire HD and its brilliant - a lot of my friends who have the iPhone are even considering changing to it!