EE announce 'SWAP' to rival O2 Refresh

Meatball · 10 Sep 2013 at 14:37

Engadget said:
★If you're the type to regard your six month-old handset like a relic from the stone age (and believe us, we are), then you've now got another option with EE's Swap program. UK customers can now trade in their smartphones six months or later into their 18 or 24 month plans starting at £49. That appears to be EE's attempt to catch up to plans like*O2's Refresh*and*JUMP*from Phones 4u, but there's a huge catch, of course. You'll have to start a new 24 month*contractfrom scratch, and the trade up price depends on which you end up choosing. Those opting for the cheapest £36 plan, for instance, will have to pay a much steeper £249. Still, for*those of us*who can barely stand going out with a mere*Samsung Galaxy Note II*when the*Galaxy Note 3*is now in the*zeitgeist, it's a small price to pay.

Maybe I might get a Note 3...

Glaucus · 10 Sep 2013 at 14:44

You like being ripped of then.
It's an attempt to get people in to a further 24 months with insane prices, to cement their advantage on 4g.

tom_e · 10 Sep 2013 at 14:49

What a terribly crap deal.

godinman · 10 Sep 2013 at 15:33

I quite like this idea, I'm always in a contract anyway so will always be paying a monthly bill regardless of if I've got 2 or 24 months left on my contract. Plus a new phone I want always comes out about 6 months after mine!

Orcvader · 10 Sep 2013 at 15:48

That sounds very, very expensive...

Ryan-3 · 10 Sep 2013 at 16:35

Glaucus said:
You like being ripped of then.
It's an attempt to get people in to a further 24 months with insane prices, to cement their advantage on 4g.

Really annoys me how they've got so many paying so much, to get a very slight advantage over Three's speed here.

Rather them than me.

tom_e · 10 Sep 2013 at 16:41

Ryan-3 said:
Really annoys me how they've got so many paying so much, to get a very slight advantage over Three's speed here.

Rather them than me.

My house mate is one of them, I asked him why he wanted to pay so much for 4G the other day and his answer was because things like YouTube load really quickly!
There's going to be little difference in load time between his 4G signal and my T-mobile 3G signal running at nearly 20mbps but he's paying a lot more than I am with a stupid data cap.
You just can't talk sense into some people.

Gambisk · 10 Sep 2013 at 16:48

Those plans really shaft the people on them.

I can imagine the typical upgrade conversation
Customer: I would like to change my phone please.
EE: Of course sir, I see you are paying £36pm for your Galaxy S3 for 24 months.
Customer: Yes and now I want to pay £49 to change to a S4
EE: Yes sir, that will actually be £249 to change plus a new contract at £36pm for 24 months
Customer: **** off!

ETA: just totted up the total cost over 2.5 years on a £36pm contract with £249 "upgrade"
£1279 for a phone!

Compare that to a Nexus on Sim only deal which is £199 + 30months at £9.99 = £500 give or take a few quid for shipping. Quite the difference over 2.5 years it really baffles me why people still get tied into contracts now.

clv101 · 10 Sep 2013 at 16:52

I've never really understood why most people don't just get a SIM only 1 month rolling deal and then buy/sell whatever handsets they want.

Why do so many folks buy their handsets through 18/24 month contracts?

tom_e · 10 Sep 2013 at 16:54

clv101 said:
I've never really understood why most people don't just get a SIM only 1 month rolling deal and then buy/sell whatever handsets they want.

Why do so many folks buy their handsets through 18/24 month contracts?

A lot of people don't have £500+ to drop on the latest handsets and if they do they see it as a massive expense because it all gets paid at once even though its actually cheaper than the contract.

Hxc · 10 Sep 2013 at 18:00

clv101 said:
I've never really understood why most people don't just get a SIM only 1 month rolling deal and then buy/sell whatever handsets they want.

Why do so many folks buy their handsets through 18/24 month contracts?

Because it's not always the cheapest. I am consistantly on vodafone 12 month deals as I hate being tied in for 18/24 months, and for my past two phones, the overall cost has been cheaper than buying the phone sim free and a monthly plan.

Morfik · 11 Sep 2013 at 12:52

Hxc said:
Because it's not always the cheapest.

This. If you get a loyalty discount on SIM only or lots of cashback then it can be cheaper, but it isn't always.

Yas786 · 11 Sep 2013 at 16:53

tom_e said:
What a terribly crap deal.

This a million times, how EE can get away with their shockingly ridiculous prices on their 4G tariffs with their measly data allowances is truly utterly beyond me.

For instance im on a voda 4G tariff, 12 mth rolling sim at £26/mth. This morning i got a text from them saying they have now increased my data allowance from 2gb to 6gb of data FOC. Cant get any better than that and with 3 releasing their 4G network at the end of the year and not making any extra charges to use 4G...things are going to get very very interesting between the major 3 networks.

Ryan-3 · 11 Sep 2013 at 17:21

tom_e said:
A lot of people don't have £500+ to drop on the latest handsets and if they do they see it as a massive expense because it all gets paid at once even though its actually cheaper than the contract.

This one cost nothing upfront, but is £36/month. Rather than £500 now, and £13/month after.

muon · 11 Sep 2013 at 17:43

o2 refresh is actually good, this is rubbish in comparison.

Sho · 11 Sep 2013 at 17:52

Glaucus said:
You like being ripped of then.
It's an attempt to get people in to a further 24 months with insane prices, to cement their advantage on 4g.

This ......

Pawnless Endgame · 11 Sep 2013 at 20:44

Orcvader said:
That sounds very, very expensive...

Yeah, deffo sounds expensive. I'm due around Christmas / New Year anyway. I think I've asked before and keep forgetting - what is Orange's leway nowadays for contracts? I had my Sammy SII in November 2011 2 months early but I don't think they allow as much as 2 months any more?

J1nxy · 11 Sep 2013 at 22:33

This doesn't look good as a plan, but the general EE plans are now pretty decent for what you get. I have the £51 a month plan and 20GB of data, o2 and Vodafone want a similar amount for less data and 3 is so poor in the areas I need data that they cancelled my Mifi contract early because of it.

The sharing options on EE are also worth a look.

Kyleo92 · 16 Sep 2013 at 14:32

Ive never understood these refresh tariffs... Coming from somebody who used to work at phones4u, I upgrade my phone roughly every 9 months or so, I got the Sony Xperia Z in March with Orange, I ring up to upgrade early and my fee is around £300, I got quoted £240 to recycle my phone online and with the help of phones4u I got £30 waivered... So I pay £30 to upgrade

No stupid premium paying extra monthly for the sake of upgrading early

Also if you're half way through your contract you can legally lower it by £5 per month.. meaning when you uprade you save £5 a month on whatever you have left on your contract

Kyleo92 · 16 Sep 2013 at 14:35

PS. lil tip... If you guys text P4U to 150 (for EE and orange customers only), you get a reply with your contract expiry date and a number at the end with a loyalty banding (01-05), higher the number, better the deal you can upgrade to.