Sony Ericsson > SonyEricsson K500i

Daughter almost bought an SE K500i from Carphone Warehouse until I said let me check it out first. I did, and found that the phone is no longer in production, but surprise, surprise, it could still be purchased from CW. I wonder if they tell would-be purchasers that the phone is a discontinued model?

See, this is a bit of a grey area, seeing as the company are still selling it, so they would argue that it may not be in production any more, but is not discontinued. Either that, or they will maintain that it was on special offer as a clearance product.

Can't really speak for Carphone Warehouse in particular, but the K500i isn't a bad phone if the price was right! However, to purchase it in 2008...hardly cutting edge.

Is your daughter very young? I can only assume they were offering a nice looking, fairly simple phone for calls and texts. You don't want to waste money on a superphone full of features she may never use!

Thanks for your reply.  Daughter is 12 and will mainly use her phone for texting, photography, bluetooth, music and the occasional phonecall.  She is now considering the nokia 6300.  Know anything about that?

Omio has a wide range of phones to have a look at, and using the slider you can have a look at the Pay as you Go handsets available at different price points.

http://www.omio.com/deals/pay-as-you-go

There are a good few phones available on the cheap, which still have plenty of great features. The Nokia 6300 is available in a few colours and has all of the features that your daughter is looking for. It costs only £69.95 on Vodafone in PAYG, and is a pretty good deal!

http://www.omio.com/phones/deals/buy/50/335157/4

The J700 is another nice handset, it has Bluetooth, a pretty good camera and is a nice looking phone too. It can be picked for as little as £49.95 from some retailers, and represents great value for what you get.

http://www.omio.com/phones/deals/buy/224/504839/1

Hope that this helps!