In the last two weeks I’ve been making great progress on shifting my life to Spain from a bureaucratic perspective, and I will soon FINALLY be in position to get a Spanish phone number (and contract). This is harder than it seems since you need a tax number, a Spanish bank account, etc. Anyway, i am almost there. And so I face a major decision - which phone to get?

I am currently nursing an iPhone 3S that is more than five years old. By far the best financial decision of the last decade was not to get phone insurance. My iPhone has held up very well, though for the last two and a half years I haven’t been able to turn it off. Other than that it generally still works very well. That said, I haven’t upgraded OS is quite a while, probably three years, and as a result one by one all apps have stopped working. Generally I have viewed this as a feature as it means I spend less time playing with my phone.

Given that context, I’m pretty sure whatever phone I get will feel magical to me. I’m particularly looking forward to having a good camera.

But which one should it be? I have several different, and conflicting thoughts. Part of me wants to make the leap to Android. It’s cheaper and frankly I don’t need to be so deeply in Apple’s embrace. Also, Android is the phone of the developing world. Having witnessed the amazing growth of Nestoria India in the last year, there is a strong case to be made for focusing my digital creation energies on markets where Android dominates. On the other hand, part of me is too lazy to learn a new system, and the few Android phones I’ve had in my hand have felt very foreign. It’s a bit like when I try to use windows these days after more than a decade away. It just feels clunky and strange. The first impression is anything but smooth. But part of me wants to suffer through it and get a cheap Android, to get the same mobile experience as the masses.

On the other hand, frankly even an iPhone6 seems pretty cheap with contract.

So what should I get? Any recommendations? Also does anyone have thoughts on which network operator to go with? They all seem so identical.