get an iPhone. i understand you might be biased against it for various reasons, but there are several good reasons for you to go in that direction: 1) apple still provides security updates for older versions of the operating system. (this means you will be less vulnerable to problems) 2) apple still supports phones that came out three years ago with the current operating system. (you will get the latest features, if you find that they release something you are interested in. when apple introduces the new software, support is available at the same time for older phones. with android, you will likely wait on the order of six months for updates, if they ever become available. usually, vendors dont update everything, and they are more interested in getting the software on new phones, rather than updating the older phones. read this if you are interested: http://news.findlaw.com/apnews-lp/547b525438ee4680b233226f9310c05f ) 3) there are very few apps you are likely to want that are available on android and not available on apple. 4) something like 97 percent of all virus software is on android. is your phone where you really want to be dealing with this? 5) it just works. i have had the same iphone for almost three years. i have *had* to reboot it once (for various reasons, i have rebooted it more often than that, but it only has gotten scrod once). my neighbor has one of the motorola droid phones, and it hangs on him two or three times a week. 6) when you need help, any kid can help you. the problem with android is that because the various vendors put different skins (interfaces) on it, phones dont always behave the same. there are cheaper phones out there. there are different operating systems, like Black Berry or Windows, aside from andriod and IOS (apple). look around, if you find something you like, consider it. before you buy, i suggest you search the internet for comments about the phone. good luck.