Phone contract...help please!!

[Johnny B]

Hi folks...

Mr Last Minute (Me) has, as usual, left everything to the last minute. I realise I need to get a new phone and contract before I go on holiday and that leaves me (counts on fingers) 1 day to sort it out!!

I'm with Virgin at the moment and they are shite! No signal EVER and they over charge me, the money grabbing bastards.

I mainly need advice on a decent network, I have heard that Orange are similarly crappy but I have no idea.

I'd like a nice phone but preferably a Nokia or something equally bomb-proof (my current one has survived being dropped in spagetti bolognese, in the loo (not a used one ) and being accidently burned (wish I had a photo, it's a reet state)) and a contract that gives plenty of minutes but not too many texts for cheapy-cheap-cheap.

So...post advice, yer phones and there perks and try and beat my phone on survivability!

Ta. ...J...

EDIT:(Can you guess I like using brackets?)

[Real Pol]

I was with orange 7ish years ago or whenever we all first started getting mobiez. I recently started a new contract with them, they haven't sorted any of the problems they had back then, calls still go dead when I have a full signal, network busy all the friggen time (not just after 7pm like the old days, can't send/receive texts to some foreign networks.

I sent an email of complaint with these and other problems to orange and did I get a reply? Did I buggery! (am I allowed to use that word?)

I was with 3 for ages and never had too many problems.

[thaya]

couldn't recommend a good one, but I can tell you that i've been with t-mobile for ages and they're cr@p (in my opinion) and their customer services dept seems to be full of 16yr old school leavers who don't know anything and don't care. I'm browsing around for something new myself, but not so urgently!

[Real Pol]

I'd probably try O2, I've never been with them but I like the fact that you can use your free minutes abroad. I'm not sure if any other ones do that yet.

T-mobile was rubbish when i was with them.


Make sure you get some free stuff, I got a Wii from
http://www.buymobilephones.net

[sal]

i was with vodaphone for a few years, and hardly got any coverage anywhere. now been with orange for a few years and seem to have coverage everywhere. had no major problems with them, in 4 years they have overcharged me twice but as soon as i called them to query it they sorted it out in my favour no problems. pretty satisfied with them in general. only slight downside is that when you phone them up there always seems to be a long queue to get through to them, but i guess that' the same with any network.

[Johnny B]

It's looking like O2 methinks, I have all of about 5hours to decide.

Ah well. Any advice on a good, tough, phone?

[Sar]

im with 02 and I dont have any problems with them at all - coverage seems fine.

I didnt have any problems with Orange at all either and I was with them for about 6 years or so.