A few choices between HTC phones (and others)

[dragonone]

I'm rather torn between several smartphones to purchase in the coming month:
Dopod 575; O2 xphone II/i-mate SP3i (same brains for both i think)
Sagem MyS-7

Looks-wise, it's definitely the O2/i-mate
expandability-wise, I'd say the Sagem because of the SD slot that allows me to put a Wifi card in (plus SD card are cheaper than miniSD cards)
However, the reviews for the O2 and Sagem were awful.

For the O2 phone, i read the forum reviews on expandsys and looks like many customers were having trouble with the joystick malfunctioning sooner or later. If all these phones are identical and just rebranded (o2 or i-mate) than I assume these problems would be prevalant in both.
For the Sagem phone, freqent lock-ups, slow boot and search times, and low battery life, and I guess the appearance seem to make me reluctant.
Therefore, I'm left with the Dopod phone which not many have used and thus complained about.

I realize that all phones have their problems, but for the o2 and sagem the problems seem to be rather significant and neither manufacturers have addressed them so far. I think an ideal purchase would be the dopod 575 with sdio slot (or a bluetooth-wifi bridge).

Your opinion would be greately appreciated

[jfran]

O2 hasnt released their smartphone II as yet so there is no telling if HTC may have improved the major joystick problem on the o2 handsets, also if you were to do a survey of imate users, I am sure you would notice that only 5% have had the joystick problem, I agree this is alarmingly high, however if the handset has a hardware fault it can always be replaced.

rgds

jim