Contract ending in Nov, want to go iphone. Help me find a new contract :)

thingemajib

thingemajib

thingemajib

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My first contract is coming to an end in November, having had a rubbish experience with my Samsung wave and been given a "budget for something nice" for my birthday, I would like to take the leap to an iphone.

My current contract is £15pm for 300 mins, 300 texts and unlimited internet with t-mobile, and it has been outstanding value for money. Obviously, if I want to go down the iphone route on a contract, I'm going to end up paying more. However, most contracts that meet my criteria are just too much to afford. Last time I was looking there was some brilliant advice and tips given here so ill try again:

Is there any chance of this being do-able with upto £500 upfront and a max of £30p/m:

-Iphone 5 (may consider 4S if the price is right)
-32gb (64 would be brilliant, but I somehow doubt it's doable...)
-absolute min of 100 mins/texts
-truly unlimited internet WITH tethering. It has been a godsend when I'm out and about and would hate to give it up.

Seeing as t-mobile's full monty doesn't do tethering, this rules out an upgrade for me.
 
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If you're going to pay £500 upfront you might as well pay £599 and buy an unlocked, sim-free iPhone 5 32GB from Apple. Then you can choose the cheapest sim-only plan which will give you what you want. Sim-only with your requirements will likely be £15-£25, you pay a lot more for tethering.

Three (3) offer the following for £15.90 a month for 12 months:
Ultimate Internet SIM 600
600 minutes
5000 texts
Unlimited Internet (Didn't see if this included tethering, knowing three it will)
 
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I did think is sounded a bit on the ridiculous side, but that's what I've got to play with. Having been given such a big birthday budget I feel it would be wrong to go back and say 'can I have some more please?'. However, I also don't want to go OTT on the monthly payments side. Frankly I'm not finding much (and probably rightly so), hence why im posting on here.

Tbh this is more of a 'can it be done?' thread. There are other things I could put the money on, I just thought if I was direct with the question I might get a direct answer

edit: if i did manage to conjure up an extra £100, got one direct from apple and figured out a way of chopping my current sim down to micro-sim dimensions, can i just carry my current contract on after the expiry date? I don't really know much about these things
 
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thingemajib said:
I did think is sounded a bit on the ridiculous side, but that's what I've got to play with. Having been given such a big birthday budget I feel it would be wrong to go back and say 'can I have some more please?'. However, I also don't want to go OTT on the monthly payments side. Frankly I'm not finding much (and probably rightly so), hence why im posting on here.

Tbh this is more of a 'can it be done?' thread. There are other things I could put the money on, I just thought if I was direct with the question I might get a direct answer

edit: if i did manage to conjure up an extra £100, got one direct from apple and figured out a way of chopping my current sim down to micro-sim dimensions, can i just carry my current contract on after the expiry date? I don't really know much about these things
Click to expand...

iPhone5 uses nano sim which AFAIK you cant cut down to make, you could call up and request one. If you want to stay with T-mobile that is just give them a ring and say you brought a iPhone and want a new sim card. Then you can just back up your contacts to something like gmail.

Here is just some pricing for you to decide

Sim free (£599) + T-mobile for 24months = £599 + 360 = £959
Going with above Three deal = £943 - But this is only 16GB

Personally the Three has a lot more money, and not such a high upfront pay but if you are happy with T-mobile then just stick with it.
 
bringing this up again, I'm finding that my Achilles heel is my want for unlimited internet. I decided to look at some of the capped contracts to see how much difference it made. I found O2's on &on plan which for me hits the pricing balance sweet spot - £26pm and £299 for a 32gb iphone or £399 for 64gb (= £924/£1024 over 24 months), but has a 1gb data cap. Seeing as o2 do include tethering i could make this work. I think my highest monthly usage was around the 1.2gb mark and we had a lot of internet outages in our house that month (i may have let a housemate or two share...)

What would be the likelihood of me being able to haggle them on the phone or in store on this contract? I really don't need unlimited calls/texts, so do you think it would be possible to sacrifice them for say, a 2gb cap?
 
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thingemajib said:
What would be the likelihood of me being able to haggle them on the phone or in store on this contract? I really don't need unlimited calls/texts, so do you think it would be possible to sacrifice them for say, a 2gb cap?
Click to expand...

They actually do a 2gb option on the 'on & on' contracts not sure if it's only for upgrades though as thats where I've seen it
 
wozza2k said:
They actually do a 2gb option on the 'on & on' contracts not sure if it's only for upgrades though as thats where I've seen it
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they do, but on the pricier contracts. Like I said, I have a max of £500 up front and/or max of £30pm (It seems that £31 is becoming the norm so I guess I could push the boat out by an extra quid if I really had to :p)
 
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Fallen god said:
3 offers what your looking for, 500mins, 5k text, all your can eat data, £36 a month with 89 upfront, 32gb iPhone 5. Come out to a total of £977.

http://store.three.co.uk/view/product/ql_catalog/threecatdevice/2509?intid=3mainhprbn579
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clicking on the link for me shows £37 p/m, which it too much per month for me. I gotta draw the line somewhere, I know all these plans work out at roughly the same cost after two years, but this is all about balancing up front vs monthly payment for me. If it ultimately means no shiny new iphone then so be it).

Also digging around 3 only do tethering on their 'one' plan, other plans such as essential/ultimate internet its an pay extra option

Glaucus said:
You should wait for EE tariffs.
Click to expand...

Is there any news on when they might announce this? I got the text today about the network changeover and my phone now shows EE in the signal bar
 
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