First post so a nod from me.

Looking to purchase a new phone and the requirements are:

1. Loud ring tone (I'm partially deaf)
2. Long battery life (Ignoring Bluetooth use)
3. Bluetooth
4. Camera, quality not important
5. Candy bar style ... no sliders or flips.
6. Reasonably robust, has to bounce sometimes!
7. Late style is unimportant

I'm on o2 PAYG. I don't make very many phone calls (Average 15 short calls
per week) & I send some texts. Want to try Bluetooth for driving and take
the very occasional photo. I won't be going online, sending emails, playing
games etc etc.

Still using my 3410 and a battery lasts me a minimum of 4 days. I bought a
Samsung D900i at the weekend. With very little use a full battery charge
lasted me 1 day & 4 hours, its now been sold on as this is no good to me.
Claimed talk/standby times were almost twice as long as my 3410. Talking to
the sales droids in the various outlets they are telling me that at best a
modern phones battery is going to last a max of 2-3 days. They can't all be
that bad ... can they?

Phones I have in mind are:
Nokia 3110 classic (Heard mixed reports about battery capacity and ringing
volume)
Sony Ericcson T280i (Just due for release but similar to T250i)

If you have any views on these or can recommend something else that would be
great. Also if you know of any other Usenet groups or forums I can read/post
on that would be appreciated.