It’s been a while since my trusty Nokia 6600 arrived onto the scene and lately it’s really been starting to show it’s age. Slow menus, dropping dialling attempts, missing the odd call and getting phantom voicemail. With that in mind, I went into Carphone Warehouse this afternoon and bought myself a Sony Ericsson (sp?) W800i. A nice bit of kit by all accounts. Good camera, good music player, an RDS radio (hurrah) and all the other related whatnot.

It’s my second cautious journey away from the shores of Nokia, first time was back with the ill-fated SE P900 with the truly crappy battery. In fairness though, that was a one off fault, not a design flaw. After playing around with the w800i though, it seems all could be rosy when I get to turn it on after it’s maiden charge tomorrow morning.

To sweeten the deal some more, I also managed to get around €50 off it thanks to outwitting some mobile phone shop staff. The first shop I went into were having none of it; I was putting forward the sceal that Meteor shops were selling the phone for €199, whereas carphone warehouse were looking for the unreasonable sum of €229. Of course, Vodafone are demanding €299 for the same package but we all know they are bandits. I should say, meteor shops will be selling this phone for €199 when it is eventually available to them in a few weeks time…

Carphone warehouse make a promise to match any price but the first guy was having none of it. “Only phones that are available now” or some guff like that. Thankfully, the manager of the second branch was not so hard-nosed. Not only did I get it for the reduced soon to be meteor price of €199, I also got a further €20 off for trading in an old phone. Err, an old phone that didn’t even work. Another triumph over rip-off Ireland!

I also moved to Meteor, but that’s a story best kept for another day. Finally away from the cruel beast which is Vodafone.