With regards to networks, as far as I'm concerned O2 are head & shoulders above when it comes to pay as you go, but to reap the most rewards everyone you know neds to be on O2 as well.
At the moment I only top up my phone with £15 a month. For this I get 500 text messages & 1mb of internet usage per month free of charge. On top of this I also get an O2 numbers bolt on which gives me 1000 minutes a month to O2 numbers for onl £5, half a penny a minute, still leaving me with £10 a month for calls to other networks which does me as most people I call are on O2. Every three months I get 10% back on all my top-ups, and as a little extra for nothing I also get a random 'treat' thrown in each month, usually something worth about £1 in free calls or texts etc. To me this is better than a contract, without the risk of doing what I do every time I get a contract, calling people for the sake of it & running up a large bill.
With regards to handsets, for me if you want one that will last I would go for a Nokia, but if you want one with lots of features I would go for a Sony Ericsson. As Nic said they tend to have better camera's, and they double up as an MP3 player with plenty of memory.
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