...or you could buy an iPhone

I love my iPhone. It is a highly covetable device which is a genuine pleasure to use. It is just a pity that it is not quite as useful as I'd like. I end up having to put the sim into my Smartphone when I want to do something useful like manage my email or work with Word documents.

But I've been doing some sums and playing with other toys and I've fallen over something very interesting. An iPhone costs around 270 quid, and you have to sign up for a scary 18 month contract that will cost you at least 35 quid a month. Scary money. For roughly the same outlay you can get a SkypePhone, an eeePC and a cheap USB Bluetooth adapter. You get all the internet you can eat for around 10 pounds a month and you can walk away when you like. And the eeePC is not the same as an iPhone from the style point of view, but it is a whole shed load of useful.  It works a treat over Bluetooth with the Skypephone to give a proper 3G browsing experience. You don't have quite the posing power, but you can do everything that the iPhone can do, plus an awful lot more.  Worth a thought I reckon.