The horror of mobile phones!

Mobile phones can be such a ball-ache. More so when you have a 17 month-old running loose around the household where everything is fair game. Current toy du jour is my wireless mouse; the little one finds the red light underneath endlessly fascinating as it jingles a merry dance in the palm of his hands. Luckily ‘mouse’ has survived the few impacts with the wooden floor it’s suffered of late, which means my Diablo 3 gaming has not suffered. The same cannot be said for my mobile phone though. A recent trip to Tuscany was its final undoing. Alas, carpet and wooden floors do not actually exist in Italy; stone flooring is what the Romans did for us! Inevitably the clumsy little one and his sausage-fingered chop-tubes got easily distracted by some other shit and said mobile was let go to do battle against gravity. It took an agonising eternity for the Nokia 6300 to swan-dive to its death. My mobile phone is now completely wonky.

Since losing in its fight with the stone slab, the mobile screen has been shrouded by a dark mist through which I can occasionally make out who is calling me. Texts are virtually unreadable. It just about works, but it’s like I’ve returned to the dark ages of technology in the 1990s. Having to answer a call without knowing who is on the other end of the line is a thoroughly uncomfortable near alien concept. Back in the day this was standard practice. When answering your parent’s home phone no one was blessed with a shiny LED screen informing you of the caller waiting at the other end of the line. How we previously survived without this vital information, I’m unable to fathom; especially when dodging choppers you didn’t really want to go out and play with.

 Anyone know what the hell this is?

It took my old Uni housemate to get me my first pay-as-you-go mobile (mostly because he couldn’t contact our landline in 2001 as the dial-up modem was constantly on for Diablo 2 multiplayer) and since then I’ve gradually warmed to the ‘anyone can contact you anywhere and at anytime’ concept that initially encroached on my own personal little bubble of disorganisation. But they are damn handy for when you’re car breaks down or when you get distracted by the pub and need to let the missus know you’re running late home. Jack Bauer would have been at a loss for tearing terrorists a new one without one. In fact for the short time that mobile phones have existed, the only thing they seem to have really ruined is the plausibility of horror movies. So, long story short, I need a new sodding phone; however, maybe now is the time to upgrade into the smart phone era.

 Scriptwriters big box of clichés #101 - No signal? No shit!

Previously, all I’ve needed is something pretty basic like the standard Nokia brick-like piece of crap that simply allows me to make and receive calls. Texting is an anathema to me owing to the size of the tiny fucking buttons made for children, slender handed women and fairies called Tinkerbell. And up until recently I’ve refused to join the I-Twat generation on basic principle of not wanting to turn into one of the pod people; a gurning, smug-looking, hipster twat. However, fatherhood changes your perspective on things slightly, especially when you realise the only time you really have to yourself throughout the week is the 25 minute commute to and from London. This is the perfect time to respond to ‘play by e-mail’, check the housing market, catch up with peeps on myFacetitter, moderate a popular film forum, book tickets for next season’s St Pauli adventure and do all those other things you no longer have time to do in life. A smart phone would make the hectic turmoil of reality a little less of a bollock-aching endurance test.

The problem is having only previously owned the basic Nokia brick-like piece of crap (and been pretty much happy with it’s awful hideousness), I’ve no idea what smart phones exist out there, which are the best of the bunch and whether they’re likely to come as part of a good mobile package (free minutes, texts, Internet, etc). My current contract has just finished, so I can get a free upgrade, but without knowing my HTC Galaxy from my Samsung DeLorean I could really do with some help on which smart phone to make my first smart phone. Can anyone help an otherwise clueless Phonephobe?

Pseudo-intellectual, artistic, 20-20 vision, latte-sipping, mac-using chopper...

Please note: An I-phone is not an option. I may be lowering my standards a little but I’m not joining that legion of twonks…