Hello All, I am by no means a technocrat. But when my old Nokia packed in a few months ago I had the chance to try a few devices borrowed from learned colleagues. The Blackberry Curve was fine, although setting up company server based e mail was difficult. Then I tried the Nokia E5. Very good indeed. Simple and efficient and it shaded the Blackberry for me. I received a new one from my company and paired it to the bluetooth in my car for hands free. I can now receive the usual calls, texts and e mails via the mobile network or any handy wi-fi. If I can do this, it must be simple. Try the Nokia E5. Cheers Concrete.

All well and good, but the aftermarket updates (e.g. cyanogenmod) don't address everything and are very much "at your own risk".

Each phone requires the Android O/S with its own hardware drivers bundled in. The latter will often have to be reworked to accomodate API changes in the O/S. You can't just bung an update intended for device A onto device B.

You (or rather I) could probably "roll your own" from the source distribution, but life's too short. Better to go with a manufacturer with a proven track record in offering updates in a timely manner.

Most annoying is those OEMs who insist on customising the O/S extensively and then refuse to offer updates for older devices on the grounds it's too much work to rework their changes for something no longer generating sales revenue. LG and Motorola spring to mind in this category. HTC would appear to be somewhat better, at least in Android, but they have a long and chequered history of ducking O/S updates for other platforms so I don't trust 'em.