I work in IT on the internet and spend my life using and programming for these gadgets. As you would imagine I am surrounded in fellow geeks who debate which phone is better.

But have recently dropped out of that race and decided to buy a phone based on battery life only.

Yes claimed battery life is unreliable because that is with all features turned off. But there is a new breed of phones from samsung and nokia aimed at the developing world markets.

I went for the very latest in tech the NOKIA 113. It has most of the gadgets of a smart phone if you want them. but they are very basic and not worth using.
The battery life is normally a week for me. but I have the problem of loosing my charger between fill ups.
The only bad point is it has a camera, I would like one without a camera to be smaller.

My wife has an even less smart phone with similar behaviour. The Nokia X1 is claimed to have a battery life standby of a month and has a torch which would be nice. Also dual active sim.
These phones are designed for families or shared between families who have 1 phone between them and need things like a torch at home.

Get onto http://www.gsmarena.com/and start comparing.

These phones cost about £20-30 which means I can replace my phone every month for about the same price as locking myself to an iphone for 2 years.