Re battery life: Yep I keep bluetooth, wifi off to minimise battery usage.
Re connectivity: Using with Vodafone is no problem. Phone connects and stays connected. If I then switch to my O2 SIM the icon shows the 'searching for network', but it never finds it. A couple of soft resets usually does the trick, but obviously it is a pain. On Saturday night I was in a restaurant and put my phone on the table as I was expecting a call. I noticed then that there was no network signal, and I did not know how long it had been like that. It had been OK in the afternoon. My wife had her mobile with her (also 02) and she had a strong signal on her mobile. I did read in another review (
www.tracyandmatt.co.uk). Their comment on the connectivity is included below.
From tracy and matt blog;
The other issue I had was with the network connections; I think that the problem is that there are so many ways to connect, via 3G, GRPS, EDGE and WiFi that sometimes the phone struggles to decide which is the best method. You can see the connection flicking between, 3G and GPRS or Edge. On my unit on 3G it drops the phone signal, and then when it loses the 3G it has to connect back to the network again and it will only do this via a soft reset. When browsing the web with the 3G symbol on, the phone would not work until I had logged off and reset the phone. Following day the same thing, connected to 3G and this cut off the phone connection altogether, then 3G signal dropped and there was still no phone, drove for 2 hours without realising that the phone was off. I would be interested if anyone else has encountered this problem, and what the fix is.