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Son wants a new phone for his 14th birthday. Currently has a Huawei Blaze on Tesco contract. Want to move the SIM across. Prefer to spend closer to £100 than £200 on a handset. He doesn't want a Windows phone, but I do want to make sure that that his new phone is better than the old one.

Advice please oh mighty TEF geeks?

how old is he

twat.  read it properly

how about an S3

Best part of £300 - Too expensive.

an iphone 4/4s

Google Nexus 4.

http://www.google.co.uk/nexus/4/

Cheap, decent spec, Android...Only drawback is that you can't expand the storage.

Samsung or HTC? I have a Nokia which is great, but it's a windows phone.

Still way over £200, which is my max budget.

I can find phones from different that are within the budget but I don't know if they are crap or not. So was looking for something a bit more specific.

Can you not upgrade early on Tesco? May be worth giving them a call and asking.

A Huawei Ascend P1 fits the bill if he likes that brand.

My Mrs got the HUAWEI ascend g510 yesterday and is very happy with it.

Hadn't heard of that. I have the Ascend G330. Is this an upgrade on that? Where did she buy it?

The higher number would incline me to say it is.

Read up on it. Slight upgrade in some parts. Mixed reviews. 

All other suggestions still welcome.

which one?

I got it for her via Vodafone. £110 payg but just bunged her contract Sim in it.

510 upgrade from 330

Thanks. Will take the boy to have a look at one - Unless I can get an iphone 4 second hand from someone at work.

I hardly use my phone, more people contacting me than me contacting them!!  My old phone went wrong and I got a Samsung Galaxy Ace, cost me about £80 (from the Virgin shop) and I am paying £7 a month for 150 mins calls, free texts and half a gb internet.  But after the first month it is a rolling contract which I can cancel the direct debit any time and put another pay as you go sim in, for what I use the phone I thought that more than adequate!

http://www.expansys.com/huawei-ascend-p1-black-228060/

Same here.

Weekends only really to make drinking arrangements. The misses bought me a Galaxy Mini and that is overkill for me, and old jobby with a black and white screen would have sufficed. Having said that though, being able to play Angry Birds has come in handy at times.

I think it's a bit odd that we still call them phones.  Devices these days have sort of morphed from the traditional 1990s phones...when that was really all a handheld device did.  But these days, it's more of a handheld computer - that also let's you make calls.  Phoning people is now a really small part of what most folk use them for now.  Not really a phone as such any more.

One of my more pointless ramblings.

You're right though, and I think that's sort of why I don;t use mine as much as other people.

I have a shit-hot PC that I use a lot so I don't need a second computer. I don't want to use a 'computer' when I am out either as I would much rather be getting pissed and having a giggle.

But this is for a 14 year old boy.

He'll want something cool and trendy. I want something cheap and practical!

Not pointless, I agree with you. Sure this will annoy NMH as it's straying from the thread title, but I rarely use my phone for it's intended purpose. Maybe make an hour of calls on it a month? When my last contract ran out I seriously considered getting a data only plan, the vast majority of my use of the device is through mobile web, be it internet, twitter, maps, streaming radio or whatever. There's enough decent 'substitute' apps as well that you could get away with using Viber (for example) for voice conversations and whatsapp for messaging and not need to go across one of the carriers' networks.

On what sort of phone would you do this sort of activity if you only had £200 to spend on it?

Probably a Samsung Galaxy Ace II - £170 sim free I think.

Does anyone market a simple, cheap phone for calls and texts only.

For me, all the bells and whistles are complete overkill.

I like being a dinosaur

Two empty bean tins and some string?

And for messages..... a conifer fire and a blanket?

If you look at specs of phones:

Processor: Octa Core>Quad Core>Dual Core>Single Core (if it doesn't specific dual, quad or octo then assume single core). Then after that look at the speed (MHz), higher is better. e.g. a 1000MHz dual core will be better than a 1000MHz single core. A 1200MHz dual core will be better than both.   

RAM/Memory: Higher is better e.g. 1GB is better than 512MB

Storage: Phones will usually have built in (internal) storage and many also have expandable storage usually a Micro SD slot. As Micro SD cards are cheap (32GB costs less than £20) and can be added later (usually up to 32GB) a phone with low built in storage but a micro SD slot may be favourable to a phone with higher built in storage which has no expansion slot e.g. 4GB built in storage + expansion slot is going to be better than 8GB built in storage with no expansion slot.

Screen: Lots of different types but a higher resolution and ppi/dpi number will usually be better to look at. However, this is quite subjective so read some reviews.

Camera: Some phones will have 2 (front facing and rear facing). The rear facing camera will be the better one, a higher megapixel rating doesn’t always mean a better picture though. Again, you’ll need to read reviews.

That should give you some comparative over what constitutes an upgrade in terms of hardware.

A decent spec phone can still be pretty shit if the UI is clunky and horrible so again you’ll have to read reviews to really know.

http://www.doro.co.uk/


NMH, Gumtree a great place to find a phone

I have an iphone 5 with warranty and a 4s for sale....well you gotta offer..
haven't you :hmmm:?

That is why they call them smart phones

Been thinking maybe get him a iphone 4 instead?

Got him an immaculate iphone 3gs in the end for next to nowt. He's chuffed. Now thinking of getting an iphone for wifey. Anyone got an immac 3GS, 4 or 4S one for sale?