Recommend a decent, cheap mobile phone?

[doodab]

My other issue with smartphones is batter life. I'm from the generation who is used to a phone lasting all week, not charging every day!

Is it possible to turn off internet connectivity (wifi+3g) easily so when in the house it's just a phone and doesn't suck all the battery? Or do I simply have to accept owning a smartphone means a different way of thinking?

Android ones have a little control panel widget you can use to switch wifi, GPS, background data syncing etc on and off. Battery life still isn't stellar though. I bought one of these for emergencies as I'm always running out of juice when using the thing as a wifi hotspot on client sites: 6000mAh Portable Power Bank for Mobile Devices : Portable Power : Maplin Electronics

[darmstadt]

My other issue with smartphones is batter life. I'm from the generation who is used to a phone lasting all week, not charging every day!

Is it possible to turn off internet connectivity (wifi+3g) easily so when in the house it's just a phone and doesn't suck all the battery? Or do I simply have to accept owning a smartphone means a different way of thinking?

Yeah, you can turn all that stuff off. My HTC Desire was actually pretty good but the LG Optimus was crap. The Google Nexus I have isn't too bad but I've upgraded to a humongous battery (the phone is rather a bit thicker now) but stays on for days with all functionality. The other halfs Galaxy is pretty damn good but the S2 comes this week so I'll see what thats like...

[CodeCobbler]

These work for me:

RETROBRICK - the home of vintage and rare mobile phones

[Scrag Meister]

Not sure if they are still available, but if all you want is phone and text functionality, I had a Nokia 6310i which has 14 days battery life and worked fine for 4 years til I went Smartphone/IPhone.

[Contreras]

I don't want a fancy smartphone, just a mobile with decent call quality (i.e. I can use it without having to go into a quiet room), battery life, etc. I will put my existing SIM in and carry on as before.

Recommendations... are there any Nokia ones worth having (every phone I owned was a Nokia) or do I need to go elsewhere?

Nokia 100.

- Dual band
- No camera
- No MP3
- Battery 35 day standby
- Nice and small (unlike most smart phones)
- Cost: 10 quid from PC World "unlocked" with your own PAYG SIM.

Don't take that as a recommendation. I only tried one out in store on behalf of a friend, but it had a clean display and a nice feel - I liked it as "a phone" and for a tenner you can't go wrong. IIRC, the next model up is larger size, has MP3 and dual-SIM but you'd need to check that.