1Gb allowance enough for Android or iPhone usage?

Makhaira · 31 Jul 2012 at 12:05

Apologies for the novice question - I've never had a smartphone so have no appreciation for how much data they do/don't crunch through!

I'm looking at moving to a different tariff with Orange, since they've got an early upgrade offer on that means trading in my phone pretty much covers my remaining payments, and I'm overspending on my current contract anyways (women!).

Their tariffs seem to be around 1Gb data, and I was wondering how useful this was for an Android or iPhone setup? I'll use wifi when at home, and don't stream videos that much, although Spotify may be a possibility in the future, and I'm sure youtube will appear at points.

Any views?

Cheers!

InertProtocol · 31 Jul 2012 at 12:10

More than enough, i have 1Gb and never exceed 20-30% of this allowance.

Presuming you have WiFi at home so downloads etc are done there...

Shamikebab · 31 Jul 2012 at 12:11

Should be plenty, only time I've gone over 1Gb is when I've had a heavy month downloading apps (this was before I got Wi-Fi at home) I haven't used Spotify though.

xGBHxPegasus · 31 Jul 2012 at 12:15

Im on a 1GB data and most ive ever used is 950MB so never really gone over the limit or close to it.

Usually use around 600MB but as Inert said just set everything to download on Wifi

Makhaira · 31 Jul 2012 at 12:16

Sounds promising, I wasn't sure if streaming iPlayer or similar would hammer 3G allowances or not. Are there any apps for either that allow for easy monitoring of data usage?

Makhaira · 31 Jul 2012 at 12:16

BOBPegasus said:
Usually use around 600MB but as Inert said just set everything to download on Wifi

Ah, so most phones have a setting that I can implement and then forget about worrying?

Shamikebab · 31 Jul 2012 at 13:03

Makhaira said:
Ah, so most phones have a setting that I can implement and then forget about worrying?

Well it depends what you're doing. You can wait until you get on wi-fi and set apps to download. My mian data usage is uploading all my photos automatically to dropbox, thankfully this has an option to queue them up until you connect to wi-fi

Begbie · 31 Jul 2012 at 17:03

I've used 90GB this month. Love uncappped data

Makhaira · 31 Jul 2012 at 17:53

Begbie said:
I've used 90GB this month. Love uncappped data

?! Tethered I presume?

Flibster · 31 Jul 2012 at 20:14

Most I've used in a month is 17-and a bit-gb
Currently at a solid 4.5gb for this month.

escape sanity · 31 Jul 2012 at 20:45

Makhaira said:
Sounds promising, I wasn't sure if streaming iPlayer or similar would hammer 3G allowances or not. Are there any apps for either that allow for easy monitoring of data usage?

Streaming video will hammer 3G usage. 1GB will not last very long unless you always stream using wi-fi. Even if you use 3G for Spotify, 1GB is pretty low - about 20 full length albums at high quality assuming you do nothing else with 3G.

If your phone has ICS (or JB I assume) then Settings -> Data Usage.

Begbie · 31 Jul 2012 at 21:45

Makhaira said:
?! Tethered I presume?

Yeah and a couple of gig for spotify. 1gb is way too little for my usage. Even with some you're, App downloads your going to go o'er that very quickly.

Glaucus · 1 Aug 2012 at 01:25

InertProtocol said:
More than enough, i have 1Gb and never exceed 20-30% of this allowance.

Presuming you have WiFi at home so downloads etc are done there...

That totally depends what you do on it. 1hour on Netflix lowest quality for instance is 300mb, so 1gb won't last long if you watch stuff whilst commuting.
Iplayer is upto 225mb an hour.

Myshra · 1 Aug 2012 at 08:26

If they are still doing that free music service through Deezer on panther you might want to take that up as it's 100% free including the data usage. My wife burns through about 15 gig on that per month, all free. Spotify allows pre-loading over wifi so as long as you sync your playlists first you'll be fine. In terms of usage - the first year a person uses a smartphone they tend to be data shy but by year 2/3 they sort of plateau into the expected usage for their "target group" (which networks use horrible names for like digital tribe. only marketing can come up with this rubbish).

Liquidfox · 1 Aug 2012 at 08:56

I've never used more than about 300MB, but then again, I never stream anything.

vanandjuanunited · 1 Aug 2012 at 09:01

Used 1.5 gb this month but first month with my new phone
Usually use about 800mb.

smyth · 1 Aug 2012 at 11:17

Used around 2.5GB on my HTC Ones S on talkmobile, mostly due to spotify during work hours. Could easily use below 1 GB if I downloaded the playlists at home using the wi fi tho.

mr tommo · 1 Aug 2012 at 14:04

Never gone over my 750mb limit. That's just general browsing, The odd occasional YouTube clip aswell as all my emailing.

To be honest though, most of the time I have wifi available.

I went over once on an old contract. I was watching world cup matches on tvcatchup while I was working. Set up a limit on my account where they'd contact me if I went £5 over my tariff amount.

I've got an app called 3G watchdog on my android at the moment. Can set when the new start date is for your monthly contract is, then it calculates your usage and can set alarms to let you know when you are getting close to your limit. It also tries to calculate what your monthly usage is going to be at the end of the month by averaging out your recent 3G usage.

Great app and well worth getting for peace of mind.

SHEDDER1uk · 1 Aug 2012 at 14:07

Currently on 6.5gig and rising. Untill I get my sky fibre fitted I tether the phone to the pc.

TheOtherOption · 1 Aug 2012 at 21:02

Been hitting 3gig the last few months which is the upper limit for my contract but I haven't been cut off for going over (did do in June) ... and to think I thought 3gigs was plenty two years ago when I got this contract!