Recommend a phone for David McQueen

Public Speaker and Networker extraordinaire David is hunting for a new phone. As he describes here, he’s mooching around in neanderthallville with an eons-old Nokia at the moment. Now he needs to get sorted with an up to date handset –

With a couple of new business projects in the pipeline, I need to be in touch with my email, calendar and address book. Plus I am looking to work with some developers on using mobiles and specifically some interactive mobile content for paying through mobile, prompts for events, etc.

So I am on the hunt. Looking at the following. Nokia N80, Blackberry 7130 and HP Ipaq (don’t ask). Any recommendations?

My first instinct is to suggest a Blackberry particularly as he mentioned ‘email’. Although I’d recommend David takes a close look at the keyboard styles of the 7130 and the 8700 to see which he prefers. Most phones do email — but generally rather badly. If he’s actually wanting to do mobile email then I reckon a Blackberry or a Nokia E61 running Good Technology might be the way ahead.

That said, maybe he could accomplish everything he needs with a Sony Ericsson K800?

The next question is regarding contracts.

He’s spending at least £20 a month on his T-Mobile PAYG so it wouldn’t take much to knock him over to a contract. He’d like to stay with T-Mobile but take out at contract.

So what do you suggest…

1. What handset?
2. What service plan?