New mobilephone need advice

bakes0310

bakes0310

bakes0310

Soldato
Joined
22 Oct 2004
Posts
13,752
Ok i know nothing about mobilephones, the one i got is a very basic pay as you go phone. Bacially im off to the army (hopefully) soon and i wont be seeing my parents and friends very much. So i will be using my phone quite a bit so im not sure if a pay as you go would be worth it anymore. So this is what i want:

budget:£150-£300

phone must have video and if possible a camera aswell

my dad and mate have 3 phone so would it be cheaper calling them on a 3 network, im not sure how it works?

pay as you go or contract and which contract should i go on??
 
I think you should get a contract. An 18 month contract at £25/month will work out at £450, but then you'll get a free (or cheap) phone with that, and if you choose the right contract, it includes all your minutes and texts too.

How many minutes and texts do you send monthly? (guesstimate it daily then times by 30 :p)
 
cheers for the info:)
As for the contract at £25 a month that sounds really good, whos that with then?
I currently send about 5 messages a month:p But then again i rarely use my phone. But i dont want it for now i want one when i get in the army as ill use it all the time to keep in touch.

I was thinkinig of ordering a phone online through carphone warehouse, should i do it that way.
 
Depends, you might get a cash back deal if you go through a middle-man, but quite often middle-men don't have deals that the networks advertise. Make sure you shop around. The salesmen are quite good at etching out the best deal for you and tbh I don't think they will rip you off.

Beware of cash back deals though - they might say to you "...so it's only £18/month!" but you'll have to pay (for example) £30/month, then after each 3 months you get your bill, then you send the last 3 months bills off to whoever is giving you cash back and then they send you a cheque for £36. So yeah it works out at £18/month after cash back, but you still have to pay the £30/month initially and get the cash back later.

If I were you, I'd go to each phone shop and see who can offer you a phone that's at least as good as a K810i on a £25/month contract, then get home with all the deals you've been given, and have a look on the 'net (the o2 on-line shop gives you better deals than their in-store deals). Then once you got all your deals in front of you, decide then :p

It's a couple days of messing about but it'll pay off when you get yourself a good deal. It's probably worth telling the people in the shop that you're shopping around for a decent contract as they might try a bit harder to give you a decent deal.

'tis about all the advice I can give really :p
 
furnace said:
Depends, you might get a cash back deal if you go through a middle-man, but quite often middle-men don't have deals that the networks advertise. Make sure you shop around. The salesmen are quite good at etching out the best deal for you and tbh I don't think they will rip you off.

Beware of cash back deals though - they might say to you "...so it's only £18/month!" but you'll have to pay (for example) £30/month, then after each 3 months you get your bill, then you send the last 3 months bills off to whoever is giving you cash back and then they send you a cheque for £36. So yeah it works out at £18/month after cash back, but you still have to pay the £30/month initially and get the cash back later.

If I were you, I'd go to each phone shop and see who can offer you a phone that's at least as good as a K810i on a £25/month contract, then get home with all the deals you've been given, and have a look on the 'net (the o2 on-line shop gives you better deals than their in-store deals). Then once you got all your deals in front of you, decide then :p

It's a couple days of messing about but it'll pay off when you get yourself a good deal. It's probably worth telling the people in the shop that you're shopping around for a decent contract as they might try a bit harder to give you a decent deal.

'tis about all the advice I can give really :p
Click to expand...

cheers good advice:)

http://shop.o2.co.uk/phone/Sony_Ericsson/K850i
what do you think of that phone and the contract that comes with it.
 
i like t-mobile, the flext plan will be easy to understand for you as it's laid out like a payg allowance. a £30 a month contract will get you £90 payg credit which if you spent just on minutes would work out at 450 and if you spent on texts would give you 900 texts (of course you can spend it on whatever you like in whatever combination). you'll also find that on the t-mobile website at the moment you'll get £5 off your line rental for the full 18 months and that's off your bill so you'll just have the £25 pulled from your bank account every month.
There are other flext plans you can go for with different payg values and there are different phones free on each plan. you can decide what phone you want.
I'd personally be tempted by the Sony W910 free on flext 30 (you pay 25 with your £5 discount).

oh and be aware that your calls to your parents are included in your allowance even though you are on different networks. If you are posted abroad though this will change and you'll be subject to charges.
 
bakes0310 said:
cheers good advice:)

http://shop.o2.co.uk/phone/Sony_Ericsson/K850i
what do you think of that phone and the contract that comes with it.
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sony ericsson make great phones in my opinion, it comes with a cracking camera and is nice and stylish and will do everything you need it to. some people have some minor gripes with it, but generally they really are pretty minor and majority opinion is that it's a very good phone.

the £30 tariff seems good.
 
DanH84 said:
sony ericsson make great phones in my opinion, it comes with a cracking camera and is nice and stylish and will do everything you need it to. some people have some minor gripes with it, but generally they really are pretty minor and majority opinion is that it's a very good phone.

the £30 tariff seems good.
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theres a £25 tariff that seems good enough for me, but i got to pay £120 for the phone so does that mean the phone is mine cause i bought it?
 
bakes0310 said:
theres a £25 tariff that seems good enough for me, but i got to pay £120 for the phone so does that mean the phone is mine cause i bought it?
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£59.99 on
£25/month
18 Month tariffs

:confused: £120 for the phone? It says £59.99 here? Or do you mean on the £20/month deal?

18 months on £20/month + £120 for the phone is £480.
200 Texts, 50 Minutes per month
If you used up all your texts and mins per month, that's 3,600 texts, 900 minutes over the 18 month contract.

£30 more gets you an extra 3,600 texts and 2,700 minutes:

18 months on £25/month + £60 for the phone is £510.
400 Texts, 200 Minutes per month
If you used up all your texts and mins per month, that's 7,200 texts, 3,600 minutes over the 18 month contract.

Another £30 more gets you 10,800 more texts and 3,600 more minutes:

18 months on £30/month + free phone is £540.
1000 Texts, 400 Minutes per month
If you used up all your texts and mins per month, that's 18,000 texts, 7,200 minutes over the 18 month contract.

Personally I'd be looking at the £25/month - you do get a lot more for an extra £30 :) If you phone them and ask nicely they might be able to give less texts but more minutes or something?

The phone is yours even if it's free - they won't ask for it back at the end of the contract! K850i is a nice phone - I've got it and like it muchly :)
 
furnace said:
£59.99 on
£25/month
18 Month tariffs

:confused: £120 for the phone? It says £59.99 here? Or do you mean on the £20/month deal?

18 months on £20/month + £120 for the phone is £480.
200 Texts, 50 Minutes per month
If you used up all your texts and mins per month, that's 3,600 texts, 900 minutes over the 18 month contract.

£30 more gets you an extra 3,600 texts and 2,700 minutes:

18 months on £25/month + £60 for the phone is £510.
400 Texts, 200 Minutes per month
If you used up all your texts and mins per month, that's 7,200 texts, 3,600 minutes over the 18 month contract.

Another £30 more gets you 10,800 more texts and 3,600 more minutes:

18 months on £30/month + free phone is £540.
1000 Texts, 400 Minutes per month
If you used up all your texts and mins per month, that's 18,000 texts, 7,200 minutes over the 18 month contract.

Personally I'd be looking at the £25/month - you do get a lot more for an extra £30 :) If you phone them and ask nicely they might be able to give less texts but more minutes or something?

The phone is yours even if it's free - they won't ask for it back at the end of the contract! K850i is a nice phone - I've got it and like it muchly :)
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wow holy gwokamoly nice read furnace:)

i think ill go with what you said the "25/month, your right you do get a hell of a lot:)

but why do i have to pay £120 if i go with the cheapest option and the £59.99 with the slightly expensiver tariff?

cheers anyway ill go with the £25 tariff:)
 
No problem :D

It's all about profit - they are making more profit from you on the £25/month tariff than they are on the £20/month tariff, so they will give you the phone for cheaper. They'll also price it in a way to tempt you to go one-up from what you were originally looking at - if they sold you the phone for £60 on the £20/month tariff, you wouldn't be considering the £25/month one right now would you ;) So yeah, it's just them trying to get you to spend more money - and in this case I think you might as well because you do get a lot more on the £25 than the £20 one!

I would still shop around though if I were you, but if you're happy with this contract and want to go for it, then all's good :cool:
 
furnace said:
No problem :D

It's all about profit - they are making more profit from you on the £25/month tariff than they are on the £20/month tariff, so they will give you the phone for cheaper. They'll also price it in a way to tempt you to go one-up from what you were originally looking at - if they sold you the phone for £60 on the £20/month tariff, you wouldn't be considering the £25/month one right now would you ;) So yeah, it's just them trying to get you to spend more money - and in this case I think you might as well because you do get a lot more on the £25 than the £20 one!

I would still shop around though if I were you, but if you're happy with this contract and want to go for it, then all's good :cool:
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cause you got that phone tell me why you like it so much.
Is the video and camera really good, is the phone light but tough etc etc:)
 
http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showthread.php?t=17791796

;)

At the end of the day it's just a phone. No GPS or Symbian OS or anything. But it does have a nice high quality screen and it feels like a nice build quality - the buttons are the only thing that might not be so great, but it's a hell of a step up from my Nokia N70 which is falling apart and feels very plasticy and flimsy.

It has a nice interface, the camera quality is good (obviously it's beaten by a real digital camera but it's miles better than other phones that basically have web cams in them rather than real cameras), the web browser is good too (beware the cost of mobile internet! £2.50/megabyte or something stupid), there are a good amount of games that work on it, video playback is good (I have watched a good 2-3 hours of TV episodes on this using videos I converted using ImTOO 3GP Converter).

Get down to a phone shop and have a play with it :p One thing though - don't be instantly put off by the touch buttons if you don't like them straight away, they're fine once you're used to them.
 
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