Looking To Trade Up From PAYG - But Confused

Soldato
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As the title suggests, want something a bit more useful than my 9 year old PAYG Nokia Vodaphone but it seems to be a minefield out there, with more options than buying a new car.

Sites like Virgin lull you in with fairly low price contracts, such as £16 a month for a Samsung or Sony phone (which seems to cost £250 or more on Amazon), but then the small print seems to imply like car PCP, at the end of the 24 months or whatever you still maybe need to buy the phone outright or something? Really confused by this.

So can anyone explain in layman's terms how it works and/or point me in the direction of a package that will sustain moderate call use (probably less than 60 mins a week) and occasional app use such as accessing Facebook and GPS/maps... but I actually "own" the phone.

Needs to be a fairly large phone for eyesight/podgy finger reasons, too.

Thanks.
 
Soldato
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You're right it is a bit of a minefield out there.

I would say pay monthly breaks down into two categories, you either buy the phone outright and purchase a sim-only contract, or you go for a monthly plan where you're paying for phone and sim.

I buy flagship phones but tend to keep them 3+ years, so for me it's generally more cost efficient in the long run to buy the phone outright and have just a sim-only contract. The downside to this is stumping up £500+ from day 1 for the phone.

The issue i see with pay monthly contracts for phones is that at the end of the 24 month (usual contract length) period, you're still paying a fixed amount for the phone/sim contract despite at that point having paid off the phone in terms of costs. I think i saw they're starting to do these split contract types where you pay the elevated price for the 24 months, and then if you no longer wish to upgrade, your monthly payments can drop to cover just the costs of calls/data.

You probably need to ask yourself these questions:
- How much are you willing to spend on a phone contract each month?
- How much calls/data + extras you need out of a phone contract
- How long you anticipate keeping your phone for?

As for finding a phone, majority out there are all the same and do the same thing, some have slightly better features or different ways of doing things. If you're really unsure what you're after, then best thing to do is go into a phone shop and have a play around with the ones on display. At least you can start to rule out what you do and don't like.
 
Associate
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I'm not aware of any contracts where you have a final baloon payment at the end. The way it usually works is that you will either pay an upfront cost and then a monthly fee for 12-24 months after or purely a monthly fee with no upfront cost.

The best way to look at it is 'What is this going to cost me over the entire length of the contract?' as this provides the cleaest way to compare plans.

I had typed out an entire response :) but just noticed Semple has covered many of the points quite nicely so see his response for a good overview. As was mentioned though, once you're out of contract then much better deals are available and you can really save a bunch of money, usually speaking to retentions of your provider will net you a much better rate with the same or better plan.

A good site to check various pakages avaiable is uswitch.com, they list the total cost for the entire contact to it's easy to see what it'll end up costing you.
 
Soldato
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Thanks guys. At the moment I'm doing a comparison with sim free handsets on Amazon + a sim, vs. going for the all in price. If the basic phone is going to cost ~£200 with a minimum of £7 a month for the sim (cheapest Virgin price) then that looks to be the cheaper option...possibly!
 
Associate
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Thanks guys. At the moment I'm doing a comparison with sim free handsets on Amazon + a sim, vs. going for the all in price. If the basic phone is going to cost ~£200 with a minimum of £7 a month for the sim (cheapest Virgin price) then that looks to be the cheaper option...possibly!

Personally I've found that the best option for me over the past several years, I just grab the handset I want and hop between SIM free contracts when a better one comes up. Plus Virgin are very good at giving nice reductions whenever I've tried leaving. I'm currently on 2500 mins, 100gb data on a 30-day rolling contract for £15 a month, obviously don't need all that data but nice to have just in case :)
 
Soldato
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Thanks guys. At the moment I'm doing a comparison with sim free handsets on Amazon + a sim, vs. going for the all in price. If the basic phone is going to cost ~£200 with a minimum of £7 a month for the sim (cheapest Virgin price) then that looks to be the cheaper option...possibly!

*Normally* if you're intending to keep the phone for 2 years the cost of the handset + simo contract starts to work out cheaper than the pay monthly options for a phone.

If you go down the pay monthly option, for best value you're really supposed to jump ship to a new contract at the end of the 24 months, this always gives you the latest phones etc, but generally works out considerably more expensive.

Consider the following examples from Three:
Samsung Galaxy S10
- Handset + unlimited data plan = £79 upfront + (£27/mth x 6 months + £54/mth x 18 months) = £1,213
- Price of purchasing handset £690 + same data plan as above (£11/mth x 6 months + £22/mth x 18 months) = £1,152

Where the price really starts to make the difference is from month 25, where the SIMO contract you'd continue paying £22/mth versus £54/mth.

For example at 2 years and 6 months the prices would be £1,537 versus £1,284.

Anyone at the end of a phone contract that isn't planning on upgrading really needs to change to SIMO to avoid being stung on high monthly fees for a handset they've effectively now paid for.
 
Soldato
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Thanks Semple, looking at my price range options as if Handset + SIMO will be the best option. Not too fussed about the latest tech, just needs to work and primarily for essential calls when out or accessing Apps such as FB or GPS on a walk, which you just can't do with PAYG.

A ~£190 J6 from the Rainforest plus 24 x £7 = £358 with the cheapest Virgin SIMO, though just run through Virgin and I can get a Sony Xperia XZ1 or Huewai P Smart for 16 x 24 (£384) for 1Gb of data or 19 x 24 (£456) for 3Gb of data.
 
Soldato
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Update - got as far as trying to order a phone package from Virgin, but at the "basket" screen, was a blank display! Not an inspiring start... Oh and there was no chat agent immediately available (must have been shift changeover in Bangalore :) ). Will try again tomorrow!
 
Soldato
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Update - got as far as trying to order a phone package from Virgin, but at the "basket" screen, was a blank display! Not an inspiring start... Oh and there was no chat agent immediately available (must have been shift changeover in Bangalore :) ). Will try again tomorrow!
It's definitely worth using Quidco or Topcashback when making your purchase to make your plan even cheaper. I've used both a couple of times with several different networks & they've always paid up.
 
Soldato
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Well finally managed to get through to Virgin Chat service and placed an order for the A20e with 1500 mins and 3Gb of data PCM. Should be more than enough. Phone arrives Tuesday.

Thanks for all the advice everyone.
 
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