[Stephen]

So VM have moved all their decent handsets to these new freestyle tariffs where you pay seperately for the phone and rental, which means you can upgraded anytime and only pay off the handset cost rather than the full monthly amount.

There isn't even an option of taking a normal monthly tariff with any of the top phones. Which means if you fail the credit check you can only get a crappy phone now with them.

After being a customer for 6 years and having 4 contracts with them I was after the LG G3 but failed the credit check so my only options are to wait 3 months and try again or upgrade(sorry downgrade) to a phone thats aactually worse than my Note 3.

Quiet pathetic that they treat long term customers this way. Why a credit check when they carried one out when I joined them!

My choices now would be

S4 Mini
S5 Mini
Xperia Z2
Xperia Z1 Compact
Some Lumia phones
Cheap Xperia Phones

Everything else
Xperia Z3
Note 4
S5
LG G3
iPhone 6
iPhone 6 Plus

and others are Freestyle only, so thats the thanks I get for being a loyal customer and having never missed a bill in the last 6 years.

Apparently it makes them cheaper being top phones. I'd rather pay the £69 up front charge they used to have on most of those phones.