My mother and father are on about increasing their current package with Virgin, to the 30 Day Sim Only £12 per month contract consisting of 1200 Mins, Unlimted Texts and 1GB of Internet.

As they still have bog standard phones they could do with a smartphone to use their 1GB of Internet.

What would be a good smartphone to introduce to them? Preferably one that has good battery life.

All they would want to use it for would be for calling, texting, checking e-mails, browsing the internet.

You missed some vital information suck as the budget, no point me recommending a £300 phone when you have a £200 budget.

EDIT

Preferably less than £200 and maybe one with a QWERTY keypad but not a blackberry.

Nokia Lumia 710? £99 plus £10 topup (so £110) on Virgin at CPW. Will perform better than any Android at the same price point. No QWERTY keyboard, though.

Wont be getting a Windows Phone 8 update, obviously, but will work well for the requirements mentioned.

WP7 would be good as an easy first step into smartphones. The Nokia Lumia 710 can be bought for £110 payg from CPW. Or if they fancy saving some cash.:

http://www.hotukdeals.com/deals/noki...1295938?page=1

You get a free 710 250 minutes and 5000 texts and 500 mb of data. Two of these would cost only £3 a month than the sim only deal and the only thing lacking is the talk time. But if you use quidco when getting the deal you would also get £50 per handset cash back.

Still even if you don't like the deal I think WP7 or if you wait WP8 would be good for them.

I'm guessing the talk time is important (else why upgrade to 1200 mins)

The Nokia Lumia for £99 on payg from carphone warehouse is the one. Buy the virgin mobile payg version and then stick the new sims in there.

Fair enough but its worth asking the question. As someone who hates talking on phones the idea of spending 20 hours a month on a phone horrifies me but we are all different.

CPW phones are unlocked so it does not matter which version is bought.

As they ain't young I suggest a big phone like the Monte Carlo.

Easily unlocked.

Another vote for the Lumia, it's very easy to use with decent build quality for its price, kinda hard to beat at £99.

Some would no doubt be scathing about a well obsolete operating sytem.
I thought Windows 8 mobile was meant to be a massive departure from 7m.

If they were techies I wouldn't recommend they buy any WP7 phone with WP8 just around the corner, but since it is their first smartphone, it does calls, texting, email and web very well. WP7 also has a fair selection of apps available, so the lumia 710 should do fine in this regard (for all the complaining done on the web about the app selection, I have yet to see anything major missing).

As I said earlier, performance wise it will do much better than any Android phone at the same price point. This, combined with the relative simplicity of the OS makes it a great first smartphone.

It is a half decent phone but am amazed there were no provisos.

And it cant do better if the app ain't there.

What app isn't there?

What apps are you talking about that his parents are likely to use?

Windows Phone 7 is actually a very easy to use clear and fast OS, this snt te usual geek Android crowd we are talking about that wants to root their phone and tweak how the OS works.

On from that 'Why bother with a smartphone'?

Because you want a phone that can browse the web, email, tweet, check train times, plan a journey... All these apps are on all smart phones.

What is your personal definition of a smart phone and why doesn't WP7 count?

I wonder if you ave ever even used it, it's actually a very good OS and this is from someone who was never a fan of MS (as is Windows 7 btw).

What other phone from under £100 can do the needs that the op required better than a Nokia Lumia 710?

It even comes with free offline satnav and free music playlists.

Thanks guys. How often would they have to charge the nokia lumia up? Also are there any good smartphones out there with the qwerty keypad?

Best ones with keyboards I know of are the Balckberrys but you said you did not want one of those.

I often recommend Lumias to my customers if they say they want a smartphone, but one that's easy-to-use. Increasingly I get older customers who want a decent camera, web, maps and a clear screen. The Lumia 710/610 fit the bill really well, when I demo them they find the learning curve very gentle!

There are only a couple of Android phones with keyboards, and honestly I wouldn't recommend either because the compromise of keyboard + screen means the screens are very small and typefaces are tiny, which isn't that friendly for older eyes.

[quote=Gormond;61040554All these apps are on all smart phones.[/QUOTE]GPL is mainly banned on IOS and WIndows Phone.

Of course there is stuff there but the man collaborative stuff is missing.
Though lack of apps on Android was surely your past anti argument Gormond?

You are all going on the basis that the user knows no better.

Why does the license an app is released under matter to me as an end-user?

The main collaborative stuff is all missing? Got any specifics?

If productivity is what you are after - Windows Phone has (actual!) Microsoft Office with excellent SkyDrive integration.

Come on guys why is this simple request for info descending into another pointless argument.

For older users wanting their first smartphone at a reasonable price then the Nokia Lumia 710 is the obvious choice (and worth the small premium over the 610). Compared to a dumb phone WP7 has a massive wealth of apps available – obviously – and I do not think that the OP’s parents are going to be disappointed because Instagram is missing for instance? The only thing missing is a physical keyboard but the market is hardly replete these days with these.

As for charging – well I think new users of smartphones need a paradigm shift – yes your old phone lasted a week between charges but it had a tiny screen that was only on for a few minutes a day. Smartphones are powerful computers with large bright displays that are syncing data, expect to charge it every night and if you are hammering it then it will be more. Get an in-car charger as well.