***UPDATED- 2nd October 2009***

Looking for the best price for an Android phone or device?
This is the first of what I hope to be a regular feature for the blog.  I’m going to have a scout around for pricing on Android devices and post up the best deals I can find.  Please feel free to let me know of any deals you’ve heard of that you feel are better than I’ve listed, or even let me know if you’d like an Android device added to the best deal list.  (for phones, I’ve based my findings on the phone being free, or as close to free as possible)

I thought I’d start with two of the more popular Android handsets at the moment-

HTC Hero on contract – T-Mobile are, in my opinion, the best of the Hero carriers with regards to data usage as Orange and Vodafone have an acceptable usage limit of 500MB, whereas T-Mobile’s is 1GB.  With this in mind, the best deal from T-Mobile’s own site has the HTC Hero free with a £36.50 pm 18 month contract.  However, as usual, it’s better to shop around the independents for a better deal.  Far and away, the best deal I found was from Mobile Phones Direct.  There you can get a T-Mobile HTC Hero for £31.99 on an 18 month Combi 20 + Web ‘n’ Walk (unlimited internet, 200 minutes call time, 200 texts) contract at £24.47 pm, add on to this a £30 cashback from Top Cashback (note the link has me as a referer, here is a link to the site without the referal option) and you’ve got yourself a phone for £1.99 plus a contract that’s over £10 per month cheaper than T-Mobile are offering for getting the handset free.

Another option, which makes the overall cost a lot cheaper, but involves paying a bit more per month for the phone, is to get it from Beepy Phones.  Beepy have the following deal-

Free handset on a 12 month, £39.15 per month contract (Combi 35, Plus Web n Walk).  The deal gives 500 mins talk time, 375 texts plus internet, as well as £100 cashback.  On top of this, Quidco offer £40 cashback for going through them first.  This makes the total cost of the phone £329.80, which is a good deal cheaper than you can buy an unlocked SIM-free Hero phone outright!  The deal can be found here.

Samsung i7500 on contract -  For now, O2 are the only choice for the i7500.  Their own website has the phone available free on a 24 month contract at £40 pm and you can get £35 cashback from most of the cashback sites (such as Quidco and Top Cashback).  If you’ve seen it anywhere else, or if you’ve seen a better cashback offering, let me know.