Over our Easter long weekend, i finally did what i've been saying i was going to do for a little while: i've left my (now previous) mobile phone company and gotten a new plan and a new phone.

The phone I ended up getting was the Nokia 6600 slide. For the most part, i was very happy with my previous phone (the Nokia 5300), so i've basically upgraded to a similar phone that is significantly smaller and has better features (3G, etc.).

After using the 6600-slide for this weekend, i absolutely love it. I really like the size and the style (the default theme is awesome too), and providing it passes the test of time, hopefully it's going to be a great phone.

So the other main thing for me is that i've left Soul, and damn it feels good. There's going to be a fight on the way though, as they will undoubtedly wrongly charge me early disconnection fees even though I have served all 24 months of my previous contract (long story). So i fully expect to have to go back to the TIO in a few weeks time. Bring it on you lying *insert expletives here*.

The *insert expletives here* idiots wouldn't even let me leave without a fuss: porting my number away from them took over a 28 hours, because Soul never responded to initial the port request, and other one had to be sent the following day for them to actually process it.

I ended up connecting on a new contract with Crazy John's (who use the Vodafone network). I'm not expecting much more from them than from Soul, but they have the best cap plans at the price range I was looking for (~$30/month), plus it includes data/internet usage in the capped amount, and they had the phone I was after (for free on the $29 cap over 24 months).

My initial experiences with them have been very positive: they actually have an Australian call centre (shock!), and also have an online live-chat facility for support too. The latter is something I will definitely use, mainly because you get down in writing what the CSR is telling you, which in my opinion makes it easier for them to be more accountable for the advise they give you in case of a dispute later on (something I definitely wish I had the luxury of regarding *insert expletives here* Soul).

Of course this great service has all been during the sign-up and activation phases, so naturally I would expect good service now, and thus I won't be making too many judgements until i've spent a bit of time with them and need help/clarification with something else later on. Here's hoping for the best though.