I've just gotten a new phone, to replace my 2 year old (and showing that things aren't built to last these days) Sony-Ericsson W800i.

I've always wanted a clamshell type phone, but whenever I've gone looking, I've always ended up with either a slider (my Nokia 7110) or just a standard fixed handset. So, this time I again set out to find a flip phone with the features I wanted, that I could afford. Now, I set the bar pretty high, so it's no surprise to me that I didn't quite find what I was looking for, but I found the nearest there is.

The features I was looking for included the following:
1. Flip phone
2. Decent media playing capabilities (Up to the W800i's standards or better)
3. Expandable memory
4. 2 megapixel camera with flash
5. Decent USB connectivity (This was the kicker)

Now, the camera was less important to me, as if I want to take a decent photo, I'll use either the Canon 30d or 20d. The USB connectivity, I valued more than the stores I visited, or the reviews I've read online while searching.

What I mean by 'decent USB connectivity', is that the USB connection to the phone should be the same USB plug as used in the majority (or close to it) of devices out there, the "mini-USB" plug. And I don't mean just for the data connection, as Nokia use it in their recent releases, I mean for charging the phones too, as Motorola have done for every phone since the V3 was released. My reasoning behind this was fairly simple:
a) I like only having one connector, as with the W800i
b) I have several spare mini-USB cables, so can leave one at work to use there
c) The exposed flat connectors traditionally used in mobile data connections (and still used in many models) get dirty pretty quickly, and it's a pain cleaning them all the time

Now, I wrongly thought that mobile phone stores actually got to play with live units before they were released, or at least had a current phone themselves, but it appears I was wrong.

I went to a number of stores today at Carousel, and ended up getting a Motorola K3 KRZR from Telechoice, but before making the decision I visited 4 other stores and Telechoice twice. The girl at Telechoice didn't get what I was talking about at first, but was still helpful (plus I got my last phone from her too, and she was helpful then, so thats why I went back at the end of the search). The Vodafone stand at the food court had no idea what I was talking about and the guy I spoke to just repreated that each phone had a different type of data cable (I know, I just wanted to know if you'd seen any of them). Allphones by the food court knew what I meant, and showed me a V3 car charger, which had the mini-USB plug, so I knew I was getting closer to an answer. Then I went to the Telstra shop, although I'm not a big fan of their plans, I wanted to check them out anyway. They had a live K3 on display, and I pulled the cable out to check the connector, which set of an alarm. I got to speaking to the guy who came to turn the alarm off, and he turned out to be the most knowledgeable mobile sales person I met all day.

He informed me of the following (and probably more that I've forgotten)
a) The Jazz Jam has a mini-USB connection it uses for power and data
b) Motorola have adopted the min-USB as their standard power and data connector
c) Nokia use the mini-USB on their current phones, but only for data, power is separate
d) Of all the current Motorola range, the closest one to what I want is a V6 Maxx
e) Blackberry's also use the min-USB for data and power

Now, I suspected that the V6 was a Telstra only phone, but headed off to the Optus shop to confirm this. They weren't to sure what I was talking about with the connectors either, but I didn't care anymore. I wanted to know if I could get a V6 on Optus 3G. The answer is short and sweet. No.

So then it was back to Telechoice, where I gave the sales girl a quick rundown on the connector issue, and signed up for another 2 years with Optus.

The K3 is available on the $49 cap plan with no handset repayments, and asides from not having a flash, is exactly what I was chasing.

The screen is a huge improvement over the W800i, the camera side of things, as I expected, leaves a little to be desired, but as I said earlier, I'm not that fussed. It comes with a 128 mB microSD card, a little pouch to keep the fingerprints off, works with stereo bluetooth headsets and has many other cool features you can read about in hundreds of reviews on the net or on Motorola's website. The OS is obviously different to the W800i's OS, and will take a little getting used to, but thats to be expected.

Just posting a little update to this, as I recently replaced my phone with a new one. I was looking for a touchscreen phone this time, a so called 'smart phone'. This leaves you with only a couple of options on the local market, although it is growing. There weren't really many other changes to the requirements I posted above, the connector issue was still the big sticking point, and this time I no longer had any particular desire to stay with Optus (They've screwed me around with billing a few times over the last few years). I had also learnt a little about the Android operating system for mobile phones and it was something that interested me.

I'd been checking out the HTC Magic, and decided to find out more. This time around, the guy working at the Vodafone stand in the food court was a lot more helpful, and explained that you could use a regular mini-USB cable to charge and communicate with it. The plug does look a little different, but the different plug is only used for the headset, it's not necessary for most connections. The phone runs on the Android OS, and is a lot more stable and powerful than the iPhone OS, and Google, the makes of the Android OS, allow 3rd party operators to build applications for their OS with the same rights and privileges as an in-house applications, this means everything that makes it to their market, is built on an equal footing.

The only downside to an Android phone at the moment, is the lack of support for Bluetooth file transfer, but this is something that is apparently being addressed in the next revision of the OS.

Also casting a big vote in the HTC's favour, is the plans that Vodafone are offering it on. Where Optus want over $100 a month for an iPhone with a data plan, Vodafone are offering the HTC Magic on a $69 a month plan, with $300 worth of calls and SMS's included, along with a whopping 1 gig of data. Consequently, I now have a HTC Magic on Vodafone, and am so far very happy.