Way back in the mid-1990s I had my first brick of a mobile phone, a Nokia that weighed half a ton, on what was then the one2one network.

A decade later I've come home. Sat beside me is a Nokia N95 on the T Mobile network, one2one's successor, after an afternoon of to-ing and fro-ing between the Vodafone and T Mobile shops in the centre of Reading.

For a while now my Sony Ericsson w800i has looked a little dishevelled, and the camera function's incessant self-activation has drained both the battery life and my patience. So it was time for a change, and I wanted a phone that would get me online plus offer me good photography capabilities. My mum has an N95 and it looks like it will fit the bill perfectly.

I suppse I'd have been happy enough staying with Vodafone but since joining them ages ago they've always felt a bit like the enemy - it didn't help when they sponsored Manchester United, for a start. So I decided to shop around and realised it was between them and T Mobile. Off to the shops.

Shop 1: Vodafone, 4pm
Something is amiss. I've got to approach a Vodafone employee rather than having twelve of them circling me on entry. Vodafone lackey Yasar tells me he's got some concerns about the N95, but they don't sound too grave and seem to centre on Vodafone's proprietary software for it - certainly it doesn't seem to have bothered Vodafone, who have adverts for the N95 plastered all over the shop.

Yasar and I spend ten or fifteen minutes establishing precisely how I'd change my contract and what the phone would cost. It seems like the data/internet side of things is an afterthought in their brochure and in their mindset, rather than the central feature I want it to be.

When I say the phone cost seems to be a bit steep, Yasar calls in a senior employee, who is clearly feeling a bit brash and starts barking away with Vodafone advantages over T Mobile. The one he returns to is Vodafone's superior network coverage. "But I'm not going to spend that much time in the Shetlands," I protest. "No need to be flippant," he barks. Quiet, relaxed Yasar - who was prepared to admit Vodafone's failings where appropriate while giving decent advice - is quite a contrast to barking man, who makes it clear I need to give T Mobile a chance.

Shop 2: T Mobile, 4:30pm
Look, this is the last day of the month, these guys are supposed to be ready to do anything to hit their targets. Instead I have to ferret out an employee again, but this time it seems a bit more like they're understaffed and the shop's at the wrong end of town, rather than not giving a monkeys.

Chris is immediately more impressive than anyone at Vodafone. He rubbishes at least three Vodafone claims about T Mobile's service and assures me their internet is unrestricted, does have a more generous fair use policy, and isn't harder to view on the phone. He's even got an N95 himself with Web'n'Walk, the T Mobile service I like the look of, and hands it over for me to inspect. He can also talk from experience about which sites work best, and how you go about doing various things. It's very helpful to have found someone with the phone immediately to hand, with experience of day-to-day use.

Chris gives me his absolute best price for the Web'n'Walk deal I want, and I say I'll go back to Vodafone to give them one last chance.

Shop 3: Vodafone, 5pm
Eight Vodafone employees are laughing and joking at the front of the shop. Yasar, sat at the back, confirms the worst: they've hit all their targets for the month and I'd be better off ringing customer services. The clear message is that having hit their targets, they couldn't care less about keeping my custom. Fine by me. T Mobile could put the cost of the phone up by fifty quid and I'd still sign for them at this point. Barking man comes over and tells me the phone might be £50 cheaper with Vodafone, but he'll only know once he puts the deal through. "So I'll only find out if I've saved money once I've paid you?" Yes.

Shop 4: T Mobile, 5:15pm
Go back to T Mobile - Chris insists he can't drop the price of the phone. It looks like a few beads of sweat are forming on foreheads in T Mobile though, which is a good sign.

Twenty minutes later I've somehow managed to negotiate myself into paying an extra five pounds a month, for ten pounds off the phone. That doesn't immediately sound like a great deal, but the extra fiver means I can use the phone as a modem for my PC to get online anywhere, which is well worth £5 a month. It's a deal. Off to the till we go, where Chris hands me to fellow assistant Brett.

Brett now tries no fewer than nine times to persuade me to take out mobile phone insurance with them, for £9 a month. Replies of mine include:
"There is no way on God's green earth I am signing up to that."

"No thanks, I'm not touching that insurance form with a bargepole.

"Good God man, how much commission are you on to sell this?"

At one point Chris comes over and says he'll knock £10 off the phone if I sign up to the insurance. "I thought the phone was as cheap as you could possibly make it?" I say. "Oh it is, it is. Just baiting you," says Chris. Hmm.

Five minutes later, Brett is still at it. "We'll knock £40 off the phone if you sign up." Hang on - at this rate they'll be paying me to take the phone in return for this insurance scam. How desperate must these people be for me to sign? As a joke, I suggest that I'll sign up if they knock £100 off the phone. "I'll have to ask the manager," says Brett, walking into the back office. Bloody hell.

The manager says no, thankfully, so there's no dodgy insurance for me, just a nice new phone and a half-price memory card thrown in. It's funny - at the Vodafone shop, Yasar took a call during his chat with me, which turned out to be to do with some house-hunting he's doing in Marylebone. "Bloody estate agents," he says. But it's only taken me an hour in a couple of mobile phone shops to realise why I only do this every two years. To think I work for the company accused of deceiving its audience...