mobiles...

After having had my handset stolen last week, and trying to deal with an old battered version for a week, I've decided that I want a new phone asap. A nice one. One that has cool features.

I found a couple:

Nokia 7250
I like this one because a) it's purple, b) has GPRS, c) has an integrated camera.
Nokia 8910i
I like this one because it's got Bluetooth (just in case I ever want to do bluetooth dev), colour screen, GPRS, PC connectivity, and most important of all - a titanium case, which would take me a bit longer than usual to break.

Nokia 6800
This one's kind of cute. I like the keyboard flip idea :)

But I'm really in love with the LG G7020. mmmmmmmmmm! lotsa colours!

Since my current service provider is telstra, I've found out the most efficient way to get bang for buck:
The way the system works is that you pay for you phone separate to your plan, and you plan gives you a 'rebate' towards the cost of the phone. It gets more complicated. If you're getting a high-end phone (about 1200$ or so) and you're also on a high end plan (60$/month and up) they give you twice the normal rebate for the phone. It just so happens that the 60$ plan usually has a 10$ rebate, but if you've got a shiny phone, this rebate increases to 20$. On the 40$ plan, your rebate is a meager 7.50$.

Lets do some maths:

$40 phone repayment + $60 plan - $20 elevated rebate = $80
$40 phone repayment + $40 plan - $7.50 rebate = $72.50

So in essence, the higher plan charges you $7.50 for $20 extra in calls.

Interestingly enough, 'calls' includes SMS, MMS, GPRS, and actual calls.

I wonder who did the maths on this at telstra.....