This situation shows why its essential to sync important information from your handset to either your PC or an on-line service. Then when you get a new handset its trivial to sync it to your files.
Considering that software comes with most phones or is available to download, its surprising that so few people do this.
Even a cheaper handset like a Nokia 5300 can sync your contacts and calendar, over the air, with Nokia (or a similar service ) and can use PC Suite to sync everything with your PC including photos, movies. If your handset is one of the few that doesn't you can buy third party software.
You can also use backup software which just makes a copy of everything on the handset, but this is harder to transfer to a new handset.