The Orange Sydney may not be packed with apps, it may not be a status symbol like a Blackberry or an iPhone and it may not be as advanced in technology as the competition, however in my opinion the Orange Sydney or "Syd" as I call my phone is the best value phone on the market.

I've always had a habbit of breaking or losing mobile phones, which as you can imagine when you usually buy iPhones and Blackberry's, can be very expensive. Christmas 2011 after dropping and breaking my fourth phone of the year, my partner decided to buy me Syd, her reasoning being that it only costs £40 so if anything were to happen it wouldn't be the end of the world, I was expecting some cheap, nasty thing, with clunky buttons and no camera, but how I was wrong.

When I first unwrapped Syd on Christmas morning, I saw the image on the front and thought to myself "She's bought me an iPhone", as the Orange Sydney's sleek, black design has a lot of the same characteristics as the much sought after iPhone 4.

The smilarities between the iPhone 4 and the Orange Sydney end at appearence only, but that didn't put me off the phone in the slightest, the usual 3 hour struggle trying to get a new phone to work the way I want it to, was not present at all when trying out Syd. The 3.2 inch touch screen is extremely responsive, the FM radio took me about 3 minutes to set to my favourite stations, and the camera captured some beautiful family images, with know blurring and no hassle. Browsing the internet was a breeze, no freezing, no crashing, no nothing. Sure I missed some of the apps on the iPhone, but did I really need to spend 3 hours a day trying to catipult an angry bird into various towers?

The phone is more than fairly priced considering its features. I was still able to send a video message to my Mum of the kids opening their presents on Christmas morning, still able to wish my friends a merry Christmas after downloading the Facebook for mobile app and still able to store my favourite songs onto the phones idiot proof MP3 player.

This is the first phone I've never had to look intot the user guide to use to it's full potential. It really is laid out so simply and efficiently that gettting the handset to do what you want it to do is childs play, my 6 year old son knows how to call his grandad from it and he's only used it once!!

The phone has proved it's durability as I'm writing this in August, 8 months on and even after dropping Syd around 20 times this year, it's still going, problem free. Even when my 18 month old daughter got hold of it and dribbled all over it, Syd didn't quit.

If you want a flash phone that makes the tea, asks you how your day went and tells you when you're going the wrong way then buy and iPhone. If you want a reliable, stylish and affordable handset that does what a phone should do, problem free then the Orange Sydney is second to none.