I'm thinking about buying a new cell phone, but after seeing people with the iPhone I am really put off. With digital cameras I always avoid using the built in software and just transfer data directly with an SD card. I don't want another company telling me what I can and cannot do with my private property both physical and digital. If I bought a phone with media capabilities (like taking pictures or playing music) I would want complete freedom to transfer files to and from as I see fit.
One of the reasons I want to avoid synch is the risk of computer failure. I see, for example, that iPhone will delete everything if it is synched to a second computer or even the same computer if there was a crash. A friend of mine lost all her contacts without even using multiple machines. Others I know see entire folders deleted on their computer by iTunes. When I plugged an iPhone into my laptop it displayed the pictures taken in file names, but would not allow viewing or copying over without synching so I uninstalled iTunes and decided right then and there I would not buy an iPhone. I want to avoid that kind of product like the plague, but I read that all the other phones at least use a synch feature.
Is there any phone that is even capable of just plugging in and working like a USB hard drive or at least makes use of an SD card slot for simply transfers?

