As I’m frequently reminded by calls asking me to take up a “special offer” the 18 month contract with Orange for my Nokia 6630 expired some time ago so I’ve been trying to work out if I really want a new phone or whether I should just reduce my monthly phone bill by a factor of ten by going pay-as-you-go.

So, things my phone doesn’t do (or do well):

• only 1.3MP camera
• calendar can only set repeating reminders for all days, not just workdays
• can’t search my sms inbox (about 1200 messages) at all – would like to be able to search by author, content, dates etc.
• doesn’t have a standard headphone socket, so never use the MP3 functionality

Some things which I can do:

• use Google Maps Mobile
• use Google Mail Mobile
• “surf” the web
• connect to IM
• play MP3 and OGG files
• sync with Google Calendar
• write and run Python programs
• play Frozen Bubble

the can’t-dos are all reasonably irritating but I’ve not seen a handset other than the N95 (which is only available at extortionate rates, say £700/$1400 a year) which can do what I can do now plus the rest so pay-as-you-go looks like the future.