Buying a basic smartphone

Glaucus · 25 Jul 2013 at 16:24

4T5 said:
I switched from 3.

Nobody can match GiffGaff for pricing, 20 quid for 1200 mins, unlimited text and unlimited data cannot be beaten unless you'd like to prove me wrong.

What I posted for £18 which includes tethering as well, unlike giffgaff.

Or Virgin VIP
Unlimited texts, unlimited calls, unlimited data for £15

4T5 · 25 Jul 2013 at 16:30

If that is PAYG then furry muff, I'm wrong now and will be wrong again.

Glaucus · 25 Jul 2013 at 16:32

They're 1month contracts, so basically the same as Giff gaff. The only difference is rather than letting it just run out, you need to phone up a month in advance.

Plus O2 is the worse network, not only does O2 have much more black spots for phone, it's 3G is rubbish as well.

4T5 · 25 Jul 2013 at 16:33

So not PAYG then.

Glaucus · 25 Jul 2013 at 16:39

As if it makes a difference.
You pay one month in advance for either.

lsg1r · 25 Jul 2013 at 19:53

Can you wait a little while?

August 1st - moto x announcement, might be cheap, we don't know yet though.

You've also got the lumia 625 coming out soon, should make the 620 cheaper or give a better option on payg...

fiveub · 25 Jul 2013 at 19:58

When is the 625 out? Anyone know?

lsg1r · 25 Jul 2013 at 20:01

supposedly september for around £200 before tax and subsidies...

fiveub · 25 Jul 2013 at 20:01

Ah I cannot wait till then unfortunately. Has to be this month (Aug).

anything-but · 25 Jul 2013 at 20:26

Huawei Y300,pretty much a dual core G300,currently @ £60 payg upgrade.

http://www.carphonewarehouse.com/mobiles/choose-tariff/HUAWEI_Y300/PPAYUPG?viewDealForAll=false&colourCode=&modelName=Huawei%20Ascend%20Y300#b

Got one of these for the other half`s dad,for £60,can`t go wrong really.

lsg1r · 25 Jul 2013 at 21:08

5UB said:
Ah I cannot wait till then unfortunately. Has to be this month (Aug).

might still be worth waiting as long as you can to see if the 620 goes down in price....

fiveub · 26 Jul 2013 at 08:24

I will wait a couple of weeks.

Sunbed · 26 Jul 2013 at 10:31

Glaucus said:
They're 1month contracts, so basically the same as Giff gaff. The only difference is rather than letting it just run out, you need to phone up a month in advance.

Plus O2 is the worse network, not only does O2 have much more black spots for phone, it's 3G is rubbish as well.

Depends where you live. It's pretty good for me.

Also you've not mentioned calls outside your contract and international calls etc. Giffgaff are very cheap for those. Finally, Giffgaff generally doesn't shaft users wherever they can possibly get away with it. All their major changes to tariffs and feature suggestions are published on their forums for the community to vote on. It would take a lot to convince me to switch away from Giffgaff now.

Saying that there is no point in recommending Giffgaff now is just ridiculous.

Glaucus · 26 Jul 2013 at 10:33

Ha ha, they did screw us and went against the vote, then a few months later increased it.
It really isn't ridiculously at all.
On average O2 is the worst for signal. They aren't cheap and there are far better tarrifs out there for less cost.

And it's even more ridiculous recommending something with out knowing usage levels. Why pay £12 a month to giffgaff if you don't use it and you could use Ovio for £
As for calls abroad that depends on the country and again needs to be acertained. But few people call abroad, in comparison to thmonunt of people who use a mobile.

Sunbed · 26 Jul 2013 at 11:37

Well if I wasn't sure about usage levels I wouldn't recommend the £12 goodybag..?

Anyway for my needs (200-250 UK minutes, 1.5-2 GB data):

Ovivo - Not really applicable as doesn't give enough data, otherwise it's OK.
Giffgaff - £12
Three - £12.90
Virgin - £10 doesn't give enough data, but £15 one does

Therefore Giffgaff is cheapest for my needs, and I think my needs are fairly representative of many people in the UK. I'll take your point about the Three network being better than O2's, but I live in the North where O2's network is actually pretty good (probably something to do with Sean Bean's voice amplifying the signal). Also, like I said, Three's out of allowance costs are awful.

In conclusion I believe my original point still stands: deliberately excluding Giffgaff from recommendations is ridiculous, as it's will be a well balance solution for many people.

Glaucus · 26 Jul 2013 at 12:28

Fair enough for that exact usage, low mins very high data its marginally cheaper.m
Still wouldn't use them, when it was like £10 cheaper than the competition, the very slow 3G was acceptable, now just pappy the extra 90p, well actually when they upped the price I switched to virgin and pay an extra 20p, But get tethering.

Sunbed · 26 Jul 2013 at 13:45

OK. Well, our discussion has brought the 3G speeds back into my mind now so I'll run some tests and see how they compare.

I was hoping that when O2 started sharing with the voda network the 3G coverage/speed would be less of an issue but maybe that's not the case. I'll do some investigation.

Myshra · 26 Jul 2013 at 13:53

Sundance said:
OK. Well, our discussion has brought the 3G speeds back into my mind now so I'll run some tests and see how they compare.

I was hoping that when O2 started sharing with the voda network the 3G coverage/speed would be less of an issue but maybe that's not the case. I'll do some investigation.

It's only a mast share, nothing else.

Tuvoc · 27 Jul 2013 at 12:43

Glaucus said:
On average O2 is the worst for signal.

Depends entirely what area you are in. For voice calls, I had heard that O2 was one of the best for coverage across the country.

Glaucus · 27 Jul 2013 at 13:57

Tuvoc said:
Depends entirely what area you are in. For voice calls, I had heard that O2 was one of the best for coverage across the country.

No o2 has one of the worst coverages. We use O2 for work, O2 is the only network too have loads of blank areas, where all our personal phones on multiple couriers all work. This is all over the south of England.
O2 really is bad for voice and even worse for data.