Had enough of my crappy w890i constantly restarting/no ringtone (basically it's major common faults i should have checked out before buying the frigging thing), so i need a new phone.

A quick look and there is;
HTC Wildfire at £99.89 (i'm sure it was around £140 a few weeks ago...)
SE x10 Mini Pro Black at £109.89
Nokia X3-02 Graphite at £69.89.

Wildfire looks like the winner, although i don't really like the colour of it, what are your experiences of these phones?

Is there a better phone out there for around £100?

The Orange San Francisco seems to a good phone with alot of features for the price.

http://shop.orange.co.uk/mobile-phon...orange-in-grey

Yep, its a rebadged ZTE Blade and it seems to be far nicer than the Wildfire or the Wildfire S

Another recommendation for the Orange San Francisco from here.

However, you won't see how good it is until you slap on Gingerbread. I recommend Cyanogen Mod roms.

Hmm that only has a 3.2mp camera whereas the other 3 have 5mp.......

Plus the Orange on the back is unsightly, i will be using my Giffgaff sim.

My friend has it. Well, actually he got me to put Cyanogen Mod on his for him.

The Orange logo isn't all that bad. You'll forget it's there most of the time.

Personally I would go with the HTC Wildfire if you don't need a hardware QWERTY keyboard, if you do I would sacrifice the size of the display for the SE X10 Mini Pro or there is the SE Elm for £99 which to be honest with all the features it has (5mp cam, flash, torch, GPS, 3G you can't go wrong unless you like browsing the web.

Depends if you want a decent screen or a more decent camera.

Personally I'd have none of the above. In fact I'd prefer the £70 or so GT540 for its higher resolution screen or the SF.

The phone is poor on the OSF. However screen, speed, usability and overall Android experience is way better. If you absolutely need a good camera on your phone then look elsewhere but really it is so far ahead of anything else at this price you wont notice the camera.

Hi there. To me the best pay as you go smart phone is the LG Viewty Snap GM360.

I brought one yesterday in black (also available in Purple although not at my store) at my local Tesco were I work. They were selling it for £69.97 but I got the LG Viewty Snap GM360 for 55,48 as I had £7.50 worth of club card vouchers and my 10% staff discount.

The LG Viewty Snap GM360 has an excellent 5 megapixel auto focus camera that also has an LED flash and uses a Schneider Kreuznach lens.

The LG also has a 3.5mm headphone jack so you can use your favourite pair of headphones.

There is also a built in FM radio and you are also able to recored the radio.

I have seen plenty of mobile phones that have a built in FM radio but none that let you recored the radio which is a very nice and welcome addition.

You can also save up to 48 preset radio stations which is far more than my old Nokia 6303 Classic (which I still have) that I had before I brought my LG Viewty Snap GM360.

Thre is also a built in MP3 player and you can recored video.

I also think that the ringtones and message tones that come pre-installed on the LG Viewty snap are rather good.

The LG does not have 3G or Wi-Fi which I did not need so if you want to go on to the Internet or use wap services then you are reliant on EDGE speeds.

In the very short time that I have had the LG Viewty Snap GM360 I am very pleased with it and I can highly recommend it.

If you do decide to buy the LG Viewty Snap GM360 then I would recommend that you buy it on the Tesco Mobile network who share with 02.

I have been on Tesco mobile for years and I have never had any problems with them and there coverage is excellent.

Here are some links for the LG Viewty Snap GM360.

http://direct.tesco.com/q/R.901-8720.aspx

http://direct.tesco.com/q/R.901-8734.aspx

http://phone-shop.tesco.com/tesco-mobile/

http://www.lg.com/uk/mobile-phones/a...ones-GM360.jsp

http://www.google.co.uk/#hl=en&pq=lg...w=1674&bih=862

http://www.youtube.com/results?searc...nap+GM360&aq=f

And here is a case on play.com which I brouht my LG Viewty Snap GM360. It looks really smart.

http://www.play.com/Mobiles/Mobile/4...rlrefer=search

There is also the LG Cookie Gig KM570 which is also available on both Tesco Mobile and T-Mobile but the camera does not have a flash.

And the LG Optimus GT540 which is also available on both Tesco Mobile and T-Mobile only has a 3 megapixel camera and once again no flash.

And the LG Optimus Me P350 only has a 3 megapixel camera and no flash. But it does have Wi-Fi and 3G.

I hope that all this helps you. And good luck finding the right pay as you go smart phone that is right for you.

The LG Viewty Snap GM360 also has a built in FM radio and you are also able to recored the radio.

I have seen plenty of mobile phones that have a built in FM radio but none that let you recored the radio which is a very nice and welcome addition.

You can also save up to 48 preset radio stations which is far more than my old Nokia 6303 Classic (which I still have) that I had before I brought my LG Viewty Snap GM360.

I also think that the ringtones and message tones that come pre-installed on the LG Viewty snap are rather good.

Also the Tesco Mobile network you can triple your credit on pay as you go.

They tell you how to do that in the Tesco Mobile welcome book that comes in the box along with the phone , charger and earphones.

For triple credit the advert that has been running on TV says if you top up every month but I only top up when I need more credit so not every month and I still get my triple credit but the extra credit only last for a month then at the end of that month you will just have the amount of credit that you ask to be put on your phone when you top up with your top up card.

When you first make a phone call or a write a text message you will be using your free credit. When that runs out you will then be using the credit that you asked to be put on you phone using your phones top up card.

I just see the extra credit as a bonus.

And please post back on here once you have decided what phone you are going to buy.


And good luck finding the mobile phone that is right for you and I hope everything goes well.

Wildfire is out of the question, good pro reviews but the user reviews have been shocking.
SE x10 Mini Pro Black supposedly has a laughably tiny screen so won't be opting for that.
The Nokia sounds like it is a trial phone for keypad touchscreen hybrids so won't be going for that.
San Fransisco sounds like a whole lot of hassle for a android/sp noob with it's Orange bloatware. If it wasn't for that i would probably have ordered it..
LG viewty i have been looking at, i don't really care about the no wifi seen as i don't use it on my current phone either so it's no big loss. £60 on o2 does seem pretty good, but the user reviews aren't great.

Might have to bump my budget upto around £120-150.

Mini Pro screen is fine, my missus has that phone. Nothing wrong with it, makes a nice change from all the mahoosive Android phones.

San Francisco is easy and free to unlock and the "bloatware" isn't as bad as on other Orange phones.

Had I been going to Giffgaff (as I was planning on before going to O2) I was looking at getting another Mini Pro or the San Fran.

Rubbing it with a sugar cube will take that right off

I got a wildfire, sure it can be a bit slow at times and the screen resolution is not as high as some other phones. but it does what I want. I can make and receive calls, send and receive text, have a look on facebook and even browse the net. Not that I think browsing the net on any phone is enjoyable.

For the price it is a pretty good phone.

i see your happy with your choice, not sure how you can say its the best PAYG phone thow

In this day and age WiFi is properly a must and 3G plays a big part for social networking.

Another vote for standard wildfire. Its slightly smaller then slower then Desire but unless you are a heavy user you won't notice the difference. It has all the same apps and functionality including the excellent HTC sense interface and integration with e-mail, facebook, etc.

If you are a virgin media telephone customer they are doing a mobile deal at the moment.

What version of OS does the wildfire have ... I seem to remember it being very old (v1.6?) in which case the apps can be very different (particularly with the different screen resolution too) ... not really sure I would compare it the desire.

2.2.1, true there are some apps that will not work, but I have only found one so far, but then I am not a app person.

You can't compare the Wildfire with the Desire, apart from the fact that the interface looks the same, but then there is a difference in price.

There is a Wildfire S now, which have more memory, a faster CPU and slightly better screen resolution.

I like my wildfire, but then it is my first touch screen smart phone. I doubt I will change it unless it goes belly up, I will keep it for a few years.

The Orange San Fran just smokes any other Android smartphone at this price point IMO, apart from the camera.

There are some pretty easy step by step guides on how to unlock and remove the orange bloatware on the zte blade section of the modaco forums.

and http://sanfranciscoandroid.co.uk/

You can get the new Wildfire S in white from phones4u for £129.99 + £15 topup.The phone comes sim free so you can use any sim.Its running android 2.3.

Sorry but the Snap does not cut it against the Android phones. Why would you want to record off the built in radio? Seems a decent camera but poor OS.

The Snap is a phone, not a smartphone.

I've just bought an orange SF phone, followed all the instructions and it's now a beauty....

It's not hard, all you have to is follow the instuctions

If I remember it was 2.2 but you can root it and there are 2.3 roms available. I believe wildfire S has 2.3 already.