So the nice gentleman from Carphone Warehouse followed up his christmas gift of a bar lindt chocolate with a phonecall today asking if I wanted to upgrade my handset and make some savings on my contract, clearly that's a no brainer, but since I was at work I had to have him call me back - so I bought myself a weekend to have a hunt around ahead of his return call Monday.

For years I was an ardent Nokia candy-bar kind of guy, but their crappy cameras really started to lose points for me - and so I finally joined the Blackberry gang, and have been thoroughly happy with my Curve 8520 (well save for the stupid slow internet, no flash & woeful camera) it's all the real buttons you see - plain and simple - as much as I appreciate the iphone 4S and the Samsung S2 are superior smartphones, having played with both, I just can't get accustomed to touchscreens.

I told this all to the chap, and he suggested the 9360 - but I've just read the review on techradar, and although positive, it doesn't smack of "I have to have that" - so I'm having a bit of a boring Friday night looking into new handsets, and thought I'd see what everyone (save the fanboys) would suggest as an alternative?

PS : Seeing as my Curve's still in good condition, if there's nothing I truly like, what's to stop me plumping for an "upgrade" for immediate resale? Or is that frowned upon?

If you're happy with your existing phone ask them for a sim only contract.

You could drop your monthly bill down to a tenner or less

Which would clearly leave me better off in the long term over another 18 month period than a straight-sale of an unboxed "second hand" of even the best handset they'd give me.... hmm interesting idea.

I can almost use my Curve as "blind" as I could my 8210 (oh how I miss that litle sexpot of a phone) so adapting to a new unit seems a bit pointless to me these days - you know, I might just do that.

+1
That's what I'm planning to do in April when my contract runs out.

Just looked, no unlimited data SIM-only deals on Orange anymore... it might require a bit of haggling.

Does it have to be Orange? You can take your number to other networks these days.

Brand loyalty out of experience makes me an ardent Orange fan.

My brief spells with Vodafone and O2 made owning a phone an actual chore and I was so very glad to be rid of them I actually danced with glee when I returned to Orange 2 years ago. Sure, the others may have got better - or surpassed Orange's deals - but first impressions stick - and I like my comfort zone.

Just been introduced to giffgaff over on TalkAudio where a few of the forumites there are singing it's praises - anyone here using it - seems to good to be true.

I would use giffgaff if not on a contract, I get their deals emailed to me regularly and looks good. Got to be worth a try, you can always get a new contract if you're not happy.

I use it -
250 Mins
Unlimited text
Unlimited data
£10 a month.

Sorted
Never had any problems (except once when their site went down for 2 days and I couldnt top up!)

Just to annoy you:
http://www.hotukdeals.com/deals/several ... rs-1110944

Say goodbye to your evenings while you scour for the best deal

Get yourself the Bold 9900. It will blow your Curve away.

T-Mobile

They are merging to form Anywhere Anytime (or some other marketing bumph like that)

You would lose Orange wednesdays/magic numbers but they will share the network

I had the same dilemma couple of months ago. Contract was up on my BB and there was no new BB I wanted (I actually wanted 9900 but it costs stupid money and I wasn't willing to pay that much)

So I signed 12 months SIM only contract on the same network (so I wouldn't lose my Vodafone email address and BIS settings), halved my monthly bill from £30 to £15. While I was craving for something new I wasn't willing to give up my BB. However I bought myself Google Nexus S (prev. gen Nexus) for £200 to see if is worth switching from a BB. And it wasn't!

It is all nice and sexy phone, milion of apps and a very fast browser but I won't give up my BB for it. So now I have two phones. BB for calls, sms, emails and BBM, plus I carry my Nexus S with me most of the time. Nexus is on £5 p.m. data only package (500mb). But if I only want to take one phone with me it's always my BB.

New QNX/BB10 phone are expected in Q3 or Q4 so I don't want to waste my upgrade for any current BB.

Nicola's white Bold 9900 was free on £26 a month for 400 mins, unlimited texts and 750MB of data. Alternatively it can be swapped for 600 minutes and 250MB of data.

A bargain IMO when a 4s in white is £36 a month, £100 for the phone with 600 mins, unlimited texts and 500MB of data.

That's a good price indeed. I wonder why Vodafone feel they can charge £41 pm to get a free phone?!