Portable Mobile phone advice, internet surfing via laptop.

I'm after some advice based in the UK. My current contract with O2 was up at the start of the month and i've currently got a SE W960i. However i'm after a new phone and contract to go with it that will allow me to use it to connect my laptop to the internet, like mobile broad band, but without the plastic usb thingy and the 2nd 12-18 month contract.

The phones i've been looking at are the Sony Ericsson Xperia X1 and the HTC Touch Pro. Although both aren't out yet and trying to get a release date out of mobile companies is impossible.

If i was to get a phone tomorrow, i'd be tempted by the Nokia E71.

Basically the question i'm asking is does anybody have a phone which they use as a modem for their laptop? If so which carrier/phone do you use and what are the charges/limits for using it in such a way?

 

my N95 does do it, i've only tried it to test tho as i dont have a laptop, you just plug it through usb, select connect to the internet on pc suite and your away. im on t-mobile flext35 with 2gb internets.. the procedure should be pretty much identical for any nokia N series phone. its possible with sony ericssons too as my friend does it with her k800i but im not sure of the ins and outs on that..

you could probably use bluetooth but as thats so slow itd make using a 3g phone pointless

 

Cool, i might look into T-Mobile then, i tried using the online webchat to talk to somebody at Three about it, but they weren't much help and just kept saying "are you ordering now?" over and over.

I'd only be using the connection to play WoW while away from home, i wouldn't be downloading or streaming anything heavy so it shouldn't be much data, just i'd prefer to know where i stand on charges before i end up running a huge bill up.