Advice on new phone
 

I need a bit of help here, as my girlfriend is looking for a reasonnably cheap new phone, and it occurs to me that I don't know anything about smartphones aside from flagships :)
The target is arround the following characteristic:
- around 200-300€, availlable in France (or UK)
- as rock stable as possible for calls, mails and internet.
- good GPS chip, off-line maps are a plus
- sync with google services for contacts and calendar
- mass storage access is a plus

she doesn't care about good camera, 100000 of apps, 1080p displays and such.

I've been considering the xperia arc s and xperia ray for starters, but I would appreciate any suggestion!

Re: Advice on new phone
 

If you don't mind end-of-line devices (and let's face it, pretty much everything non-Apple & non-Google is these days), the HP Pre 3 isn't half bad and ticks most of your boxes (except offline maps, sadly). You should still be able to find both QWERTY and AZERTY variants within your budget on Amazon etc.

Re: Advice on new phone
 

needless to say, 200-300€ is off-contract price, so it may be a bit short for a galaxy S3 :D
even for a new N9 for that matter (330€ for the 16Gb version in Switzerland..). Sad, as I truly love mine and it really ticks all these boxes.

Re: Advice on new phone
 

show her you love her with this girly pink n9 16GB : 289EUR in france !

http://www.topachat.com/pages/detail...l10010837.html


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http://rzr.online.fr/q/smartphone

Re: Advice on new phone
 

In that price range nothing beats Sony/Sony Ericsson. Get one with dual chip from ST-Ericsson.

She will fall in love with The Xperia Go, water proof, dust proof, excellent little phone. It will be out any day now.

Re: Advice on new phone
 

buy any chinese fone,e;g ZTE with ICS ,may cost around 100 $ ,that would do good .

Re: Advice on new phone
 

What is this ****? Are you really that dense?

Anything with glonass?

My N9 starts up drive and gets a stable lock in under 4 seconds and doesn't lose signal.

Don't spread this nonsense before you have hard evidence to back it up.

Re: Advice on new phone
 

gNex price get lower now, maybe she's gonna like it, but n9 magenta will ne amazing choice, :D

Re: Advice on new phone
 

Still, having n9 and note and to me gps+ glonass gives me an superior performance, especially in harder conditions. But I'm not saying n9 is bad for you, or bad at all.

Re: Advice on new phone
 

I know, I just wanted to get a bit snappy, it seemed like fun ;)

Re: Advice on new phone
 

N9's gps is blazing fast. Beats the also fast N8 & N900.
Locks in seconds!

only drawback, the low speaker. Many times ,in car, you can't hear the guidance.

Re: Advice on new phone
 

I can vouch for the Assisted + GPS + GLONASS performance in the NOTE.

I've used the N9 but don't own one, so I can't be sure on how good it is.
For your price range, the SII is possible. But if you can find a Gnex that could be better (it has Android 4.1 since yesterday).

Nokia 701 fits your requirements

Re: Advice on new phone
 

sony ericsson xperia u, its a great device however it has limited storage on 8gb... http://www.ebuyer.com/350478-mob-son...edium=products

Re: Advice on new phone
 

nokia 700 in a nice girly white/purple combination

Re: Advice on new phone
 

N9 gps is certainly fast, but it can take up to a good minute in a city without internet (which is actually not that bad). I use my N9 maps and drive constantly when on vacations abroad.

A symbian phone could possibly do the trick, it's true, can someone advise on how the browsing is (especially with the lower resolution)?

I'm checking prices of GS2 and GNex, but I can't seem to find anything under 350/400.. :(

I'd go straight to the pink N9 if it wasn't sold by topachat.. I've been to court already after dealing with this kind of shops that are leggit but soo unreliable (it was CDiscount), so I'm a bit warry.

The xperia range seems like a good range, with quite a lot of devices.

Re: Advice on new phone
 

Google sells brand new Gnex's for $349, I saw on a post somewhere today.

Its the HSPDA+ version, I'm assuming, not sure if it applies to you.

Re: Advice on new phone
 

I've seen that, but it seems to be US only. on the fr google site, the "buy" section still redirects you to carriers and other webshops with overpriced Gnex :(
Even if google started to sell it at this price in europe, you'd still have to add a cool 20% tax that would make it off budget. Sad because it's definitely a good phone, and you are almost guaranted sw support with the nexus line..

Re: Advice on new phone
 

http://www.gsmarena.com/sony_xperia_u-4437.php
(Y)

Re: Advice on new phone
 

I didn't bother list the features, it would be tiresome and pointless since it does cover up everything and more.