Orange iPhone 4 and iPad 2 deal

Irish_Tom

Irish_Tom

Irish_Tom

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Has anyone seen this? I'm trying to work out if it's a good deal or not.

I've currently got a 3G on O2 simplicity 20. I'm off to Boston in August and my plan was to get an iPad 2 from Heathrow duty free and then get an iPhone 5 when they come out.

However, I feel there's too much uncertainty about the release date of the iP5 so I'm tempted just to get a iP4 along with the iPad and be done with it.

Orange are currently offering a deal where you can get both the iPhone 4 and an iPad 2 along with 600 minutes, unlimited texts and 2GB data (across both devices).

My current plan is 600 minutes and 1,200 texts + 500mb of data so it's pretty much the same and I'd still need a data plan for the iPad.

As a non-Orange customer, for the 32GB iPhone and 64GB iPad, it would be £350 up front and then £65 a month for 24 months. So £1,909 total.

With my current plan I'd be looking at a 64GB iPad minus the VAT (£550) then a 32GB iPhone 4 minus the VAT (£510) then £20 per month on O2 simplicity 20 plus £15 for a decent iPad data plan so call it £35 per month for contracts.

Over the same 24 month period that's £1,900.

The benefit is obviously not being caught in a 24 month contract but downside is the £1,060 up-front fee (as apposed to £350).

Is my logic skewed? Have I missed something? Is anyone else in the same boat or considering something similar?

Cheers for any input.
 
How much data do you use? I would say I use a fair amount and I just get 3s 3gb pre loaded sim that last 3months for £7.50. Far cheaper and no contract. Same with the phone how many texts & calls do you actully make, Pointless paying for 600/1200 if you don't use it.

IMO it's nearly always better to chuck it on interest free credit card or save up, than going down the contract route.

I bought out right
iPhone 4 16gb for £460 brand-new off eBay
iPad2 32gb wifi for what ever full price is

On vodafone £20 monthly sim at the moment, but going to switch to 3s £10pm sim and just cut it down to micro.
Then £7.50 every 3 months for a pre paid sim card for the iPad.
 
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I'd caution that I'm becoming increasingly annoyed with the state of Orange's data network, which isn't wonderful. It's turning into what O2's was like a couple of years ago.

Trouble is I'm not sure who's better, vodafone are but I've had serious disagreements with their customer service before so I'm not going down that road again.
 
3 is amazing for data, not sure about voice, but as I'm sticking to rolling month contracts I'm going to give them a try. Haven't tries orange but 3 blows vodafone and O2 out of the water and vodafone is far superior to O2
 
I would agree about Oranges network.

They say I should get good signal on 3G but i can go from 3G signal to GPRS by just crossing the road. When it is connected the throughput it poor and is often faster on EDGE.

Getting my phone unlocked and going to try a Three sim in there to see if they are any better around my way.
 
Bit off topic, but thought it might be useful regarding carriers:

I went through all of the providers this year (on iPhone 3GS) to see how they all fared - this is around SW London and Central, plus trips down to Cornwall, Wales and the Lake District...

In précis:

O2 - I'll just regard this as 'the standard'. Average all round. Decent customer service in shop though...

Orange - good overall coverage (in 3G), though performance of 3G was actually really poor. As mentioned above, I found O2 Edge sometimes faster than Orange 3G. T-Mobile/Orange sharing was useful if I was somewhere with very little signal, but there's no data with this (at the moment - at some point they're going to switch over to 3g sharing too). BT Openzone coverage is flaky in the least.

3 - Seems like they have 3G in loads of places (even in the middle of a field in Brecon). Bad voice service though. Lots of missed calls going through to answer-phone.

Vodafone - Good 3G speed when I had it, otherwise coverage seemed quite poor. Was with them the least amount of time conpared to the others. Openzone wouldn't work, despite being included in package.

At the moment I'm back with O2, as it suits my family and friends at the moment. Coverage is okay, and it's supposed to be getting better.

Was quite taken with 3 and their really good 3G coverage (much better than people suggested it might be). Pretty speedy too. Might be worth checking out if you're getting an iPad as the only issues I had with 3 was with the voice network, which was the killer for me.

Hope my experiences are of some use to you!

Cheers,

Rich
 
Thanks for all of the insightful replies, especially about network coverage.

After AcidHell asked how much I actually use I went onto my O2 account to check :o

Turns out I average about 2 hours a month of calls (120 minutes), 150 texts and 100ish MB of data (what a loser).

With that in mind, the nearest O2 tariff for my usage is the Simplicity 100 at £16.50 but the chances are I would exceed the 100 minutes during some months.

The next one up, Simplicity 300 is actually more expensive than my current Simplicity 20 and I'm currently getting unlimited data and twice as many minutes.

This makes me think it's a bit pointless moving to Orange because it's clear that I'm not using half of what I'm paying for at the moment anyway.

In terms of iPad usage, I'm thinking of just using one of the daily tariffs as a sort of pay-as-you go initially to see how much data I require away from a Wi-Fi network.

The interest-free credit card idea sounds like a pretty decent solution.
 
Three does

SIM Only 300 - 1 month.
Includes:
300 any network any time minutes**
3,000 texts
1GB internet*
*
£15 a month
1 month rolling*contract.

Or if you want to stay with O2 worth looking at giffgaff and tesco, both use O2 network.
 
The advert in bus stops is misleading. You pay £99 for the iPhone then and extra £149+ for the iPad.

I did the sums myself and I worked out it'd be cheaper for me getting an iPad from apple and paying an extra £10.40 per month on my current iphone contract for tethering (with an extra 2gb of data)
 
My suggestion would be iPhone 4 from '3' on contract with 1Gb/unlimited (whatever they're offering ATM) and just buy a wifi only ipad2 and just tether to the iPhone.

I do this, works flawlessly. I don't really see the point in paying for data plans for both devices when ip4 on '3' can tether it's connection to up to 5 devices via personal hotspot anyway!
 
Because hotspot relies on phone and drains battery and I bet your paying far more than a pre paid sim card and limits you to very few plans. But obviously you save a hundred pounds on the iPad itself.
 
I've done some looking around and I think I'd like to stay with the O2 network, the giffgaff £10 per month 'goodybag' looks to be about perfect.

It's a interesting idea from Turbo-G as well, although I can see the downsides that AH2 presents.

Still a bit of thinking to do but this thread is definitely helping me to make a decision.
 
These kind of contracts should only be taken on by those with financial security. As I see it, this is over £1500 over 2 years. 2 years is a long time to be tied down to a contract this expensive when you know things will change and your uses will vary.
 
AcidHell2 said:
Because hotspot relies on phone and drains battery and I bet your paying far more than a pre paid sim card and limits you to very few plans. But obviously you save a hundred pounds on the iPad itself.
Click to expand...

Not really, I pay £30 pm with '3' for their at the time, base iPhone tariff inc 1GB of Internet - which is plenty enough for consumption on a mix of iPhone and iPad use - I never go over.

Plus the iPad itself was £100 cheaper than it's 3G counterpart.

I agree it does hammer the battery, but acceptable for normal usage. Put it this way, if you're out and about you,'ll use the iPhone for all tasks. If you're away, or in a hotel or whatever you'll tether to your iPhone where you're likely to be near a power socket anyway. Also, if you're at home you'll be presumably be on your wifi anyway on the iPad.

Personal preference of course :)
 
And currently I pay £20 for phone + £7.50 every 3 months for iPad.
Soon to go down to £10pm phone and £7.50 every 3 months for iPad. I soon get that £100 back.

But as you say each to their own.
 
On a small side note, I was in T3 at Heathrow last month, and T5 a week later - IIRC the Apple prices were only about 10% lower than High street. Very similar to Higher Education pricing.

My opinion about Orange: not recommended. Had bad experiences with customer service multiple times, 3G speed is beaten by every other network in my experience. Still better than my US carrier though.... :/
 
I have to say ive recently gone and ended up with both these devices myself. In america I bought a 16GB Ipad 2 (Wifi) the week they came out for £330 and got a free leather magnetic cover thing. And this week ive moved from the same 02 sim only as the OP is on to; Orange 600min unlimited texts and 500GB internet + Iphone 4. They have 25% off if you work for the NHS atm on contracts, so I got that for £26 24 months and £70 for the phone. Works out as £200 over the 2 years more than im currently paying, and I get a £500 iphone, seemed like a good deal. As others have said im still slightly reticent about moving to orange, but the GF has been with them a long time and has no problems.

Hawker
 
AcidHell2 said:
Three does

SIM Only 300 - 1 month.
Includes:
300 any network any time minutes**
3,000 texts
1GB internet*
*
£15 a month
1 month rolling*contract.
Click to expand...
I've just switched from nearly a year on Orange PAYG to Three because the Orange 3G network was totally pants. I should have done it much sooner really.

Now I can finally use my iPhone 4 as it was intended.
 
8t10 said:
On a small side note, I was in T3 at Heathrow last month, and T5 a week later - IIRC the Apple prices were only about 10% lower than High street. Very similar to Higher Education pricing.
Click to expand...

That's interesting and somewhat moves the goal posts.

I couldn't find any pricing on the T4 duty-free website but I suppose it was too much to assume that 'duty free' meant removing the VAT from the RRP.

In which case I might have to rethink my strategy.
 
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