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Thanks. Just to prove my ignorance....what does the £10 top up relate to given that the £8 a month gives texts, talk time on the phone and some internet usage? Is it a one off £10 payment? Don't quite understand that bit.
I imagine I'll have to face up to the fact that I'm not going to get anything like full use from the monthly calls and text provision as I won't use them up and I don't suppose they roll over?. The internet is the main thing, of course. Will the internet work anywhere? Does ithe internet service work off the phone terrestrial network or some sort of satellite system?
Having just looked I don't think GiffGaff is any better than the one you quote, but could be wrong.
Do I get to use my existing phone number with the new phone?
Not that it matters very much but what is the phone? Would it be an Android?...it's obviously not an Apple jobbie. And is it big enough to be useful when using the internet?
(I did say I didn't know much about theses things)
:-)
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Firstly, I'm assuming you'll need a new handset. As to what you get, it really depends on you. For technophobes, I'd be inclined to recommend an iphone, as they are incredibly intuitive .My dad can use one, and he's still in the stone age on most things. But I've seen 2 or 3 year-olds playing on ipads (which is basically a big iphone, same principle entirely). If a 3 year old can use something, then it's really been well designed to be intuitive to use.
Secondly, if using internet on the phone, most of the time it comes through your network. If you live in larger towns or cities, then you'll almost certainly get good '3G' (short for 3rd Generation) coverage. (Not to be condused with the network '3') all networks have 3G.The more rural or small town area you are in, the less likely you are to get 3G. Worth bearing in mind.
There are also now '4G' networks. But pretty much irrelevant, as 3G will do all you need, by the sound of it.
As to network and pay-as-you-go(PAYG)/contract ... you can get some good deals on contract, that make PAYG seem expensive.
PAYG (generally) : you have to buy the handset outright, paying in full for it at the time of purchase. You then buy credit (£10 worth, as an example), as and when you need it. Depending on your usage, that £10 might last you 2 days, or a month.
NOTE : some PAYG setups require you to add credit each month to stay on the same tariff, or to get free internet usage (you pay for your calls and texts). You'd need to read lots of terms and conditions, really thoroughly.
CONTRACT (generally) : the company subsidises the cost of the handset (so free to you, or hugely reduced cost), but in return you are required to sign up to a contract. Most contracts these days are for 18 months or 2 years. You pay your contract price each month (pretty much all insist on direct debit being set up for payments to be done automatically). Included in the contract are xxx minutes of call time per month, xxx texts per month, and xxx amount of internet data per month. If you use more calls, texts or data in a particular, you pay the extra on the next payment.
ALTERNATIVES : You can get a 'SIM card only' contract. Still a contract, like above, but NO handset included, so a lot cheaper. If you buy a second-hand phone from someone (friend, family, the evilbay, etc), and put your contract SIM card in it, then you get the same contract, but for less per month. DOWNSIDES are that if the phone breaks you'd need to get another one, and you might need to get a phone 'unlocked' to use it. Most companies 'lock' their phones to their network, so you can't put a vodafone sim in an orange phone unless you get the handset unlocked. That usually costs, but not a huge amount.
Finally, my apologies, a huge post. But I hope helpful.
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I'm in a similar position KB. My Sony Ericcsson 'choc bar' does most things I want but, even with a WiFi Tesco Hudl I'm feeling slightly out of touch nowadays. I cannot for example join Mrs B and the adult offspring on their 'whatzap' group. I've researched but not yet taken plunge.
A SIM free phone from Amazon comes in at around £120 (Motorola or Samsung Galaxy III). You could simply move your existing SIM, swapping it for the new micro version if necessary but you'll need a PAYG deal or contract that includes data. If EE cannot oblige at a reasonable price you'll need a port code from them to take your current number to another provider.
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I'll stick with me steam powered brick phone, it makes and receives calls brilliantly, once up to a full head of steam it lasts up to a month on standby, and best of all i'm away from internet contact.
So no help to you KB, my eyes glazed over at RobJPs very enlightening post.
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If you can afford to buy your new phone, I suggest Giffgaff. I'm with them and Which? rate them top of service providers.
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Very many thanks all. I'll print the replies off and sit and study them. Rob's post was indeed concise and most helpful - thanks again.
Just to confirm I can afford to buy whatever fitted the bill outright if that were to be the best route and could and/or would use direct debit id need be so will study the options of monthly versus outright....and live in the West Country on the south east edge of Dartmoor but where phone coverage is OK. I would think 3G would be OK most of the time.... I usually get a usable signal unless right up on the moor on my Nokia.
Is the general concensus that an iPhone is easier to master than whatever it is that isn't an iPhone....(would that be Android?)
No-one has mentioned Android. Could someone define the word for me. Is it more the phone or more the system it runs on? (or both?)
To summarise...ideally it would let me roll over the accrued minutes and texts and internet allowance so as not to ditch them every month. Whether I can do that by paying monthly I'm not sure. I'll look again at GiffGaff. It would ideally be easy to get the hang of and would have a big enough screen to see without a magnifying glass.
Whever I've called EE (or Orange as it apparently was) it hasn't been a pleasant experience and has taken forever. I now see that they want you to pay 50p to get to the front of the queue when calling them. Which will push the mere plebs who don't pay even further back along the queue. Not keen on that idea very much. I thought you paid for a decent service in the charges you paid them.
Why can't all providers be as efficient as IDNet, who provide my broadband and landline? An amazingly personal service in the UK and you don't hang on in a queue for ages.
Thanks again...appreciated.
Edited by KB. on 23/11/2014 at 16:21
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Android is simply an operating system used in touch screen phones and tablets like the Tesco Hudl etc. It's analogous to Windows in a PC or Apple's current OS on its devices.
It's open source and tends to be modified a bit by device manufacturers but the look and feel is pretty standard. Like anything new it takes some learning and at push/shove Apple's system is probably more intuitive but there's not much in it unless you're looking for commonality or interoperability with other apple kit.
Only way to find out is to go to shops and try out some kit.
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Thanks Bmpt for the helpful explanation. You're right that I need to visit outlets...but I'd like to brush up on the basics before putting myself at the mercy of a young whippersnapper with gelled hair and pointy shoes who is likely to baffle me with terminology within seconds and very like assume I knew what he was talking about.
I tend to find that almost everyone expects everyone else to know all the words, terms and phrases when it comes to IT devices and services. Hence pleading here for words of one syllable. (and finding that you've all been pretty good in that respect....for which I'm grateful). I'm making a start though and am grateful for all advice rcvd.
If I went in to car showroom to check a particular model I wouldn't be daunted at all and could hold my own and would soon suspect if a salesperson was talking BS or trying to pull a fast one (unless we were discussing PCP's, in which case I'd be in the same boat as I am with IT).
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Have a chat with friends/acquaintances too. Most people will be only to willing to let you have a play around with a phone to see what you think of it, and you've obviously got no sale pressure on you at the time.
The one thing that will be likely to happen is that, whether it's an samsung, apple, or anything else, most people will likely enthuse as to what they've got and use. I've recomended iphones, but I've got an iphone, so am undoubtedly biased to justifying my own purchase, so take my viewpoint with a pinch of salt.
Having said that, I only changed from my old iphone 3GS (3GS is the model) to a 4S due to vodafone offering me a new handset for the princely sum of £10, if I'd extend my £15 per month contract by 18 months. My old phone still works perfectly, and is sitting in its box at home, ready for use as an emergency phone if i manage to break this one.
Whatever phone you get, do make sure you get a decent carry case for it. Most smartphones are more slippery than eels, easy to end up juggling, and then dropping it.
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Whatever phone you get, do make sure you get a decent carry case for it. Most smartphones are more slippery than eels, easy to end up juggling, and then dropping it.
Ahh, dropping a smartphone.....
Two guys in a pub comparing phones, one has an ancient Nokia 3210 the other latest I-phone. Nokia man bets is mate the 3210 can do something the i-phone cannot. Laughter ensues and stakes are raised to price of new i-phone. Nokia man is asked to demonstrate.
Hurls the nokia onto the floor then picks it up and makes a call............
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Yup. Got a friend who has an old Nokia 'brick' with a rubberised protective case built in on it. Her party trick is to challenge smartphone owners like that, and she then throws her phone at a wall. She's even taken it out to the car park and got someone to drive over it before now.
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All advice received with thanks.
Although it's rare to see anyone in public places not grasping their smart phone with eyes glued to it I sometimes see blokes slide their phone into their back pocket and wonder how they don't get bent and the screen frazzled into obscurity. A case would be a must for me and a solution regarding where to carry it will have to be sought.
I've started doing a bit of homework and, thanks to your pointers, can see the significance of the distinction between iPhones the rest. The Moto G is mentioned above and I see it frequently features in reviews and comparisons (in both 2013 and 2014 versions)....along with the Nexus. I might not stretch to an Apple phone unless someone tells me it would be substantially easier than an Android phone to master from scratch.
I might favour the idea of buying a device outright and looking at the Virgin offers, as noted above, or GiffGaff, also noted above.
Thanks agin.
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I'm in a similar position.
about a year ago I bought a Samsung Galaxy Ace - and moved my old O2 PAYG SIM onto it. It was a revelation - especially on texts. The camera has also been useful
I hardly ever use data via the phone service - just get data via hotspots. On the rare occasions then the £1/day maximum that O2 charge serves me well.
The free satnav app is useful.The camera has also been useful.
I will probably upgrade to another Samsung soon as the Ace is very limited on memory (not many things can be moved onto the memory card). This is an Android phone - there are many such phones as well as tablets. The Android phones are just as easy to use as iPhones.
I've also got an Apple iPod Touch - an iPhone that can't make phone calls. But apple's access to apps drives me mad - I just don't use it now.
I have no intention of getting a contract phone. Be very wary of the 'unlimited' offers.
Edited by SteVee on 25/11/2014 at 17:47
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Lots of good advice here KB. In reality you have two choices if you decide to buy a phone outright: what tariff and what phone.
You can sort out a tariff by shopping around. If you will not make any more calls or send more texts than before then it sounds like 500Mb of data a mobth will be more than enough. There are lots of options.
For the phone, iPhones come in very few varieties. Buying new now you will be looking at identical operating systems but with different bits of hardware; the 4S will do you. For Android there are many more options of make and model with huge variations in performance and kit as well grades of android. Chinese makes can be bought cheaply, but you may prefer a more well known make. Samsung are good phones but load up with various apps you don't need and can't remove. I have a Samsung Galaxy S4; its very good but I also use an iPhone overseas and like that also. I can see the benefits of both types.
Go to a good shop and have a play.
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This is all extremely helpful. I'm very grateful.
Spotted a reference to Lycamobile earlier. On the face of it it looks similar to GiffGaff. A£7.50 a month "bundle" appears to offer 150 mins and 150 texts (way more than enough) plus 500mb of internet (also more than enough I'm sure). There's also a £5 a month option but it looks as though the extra £2.50 a month might be worthwhile , even for my limited needs. Lots of local "shops"...by this I presume they mean places to top up if needed? www.lycamobile.co.uk/en/bundles
I feel fairly sure that an outright purchase of an Android device (maybe around £150...perhaps the MotoG or suchlike) plus a small monthly phone and text and internet availability would do the job. If the Apple alternative seemed worthwhile then maybe stretching further to that might be worthwhile...but I'm starting to doubt the latter.
Have started to take a peep at other people's phones, as suggested, which is adding to my understanding.
Am eminently happy to continue to read of the thoughts of anyone else but the above has helped a lot up to now....thanks.
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Android will give you more power for your money over a I phone because with apple you ate paying for the name. The only problem with a Motorola or a nexus devise is that it may be less user friendly than something like a Samsung with has touch wiz installed (Samsungs adaptation of android ). You can't always delete the bloat wear but you can hide or disable it.
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I'm narrowing it down as follows:
Feeling less inclined to get a high end phone such a the latest iPhone as I'll not use a fraction of it's potential at this stage.
I might lose or damage it.
I won't feel so bad changing it in a couple of years if it only cost £150 rather than £600
I can get a half decent phone such as the Motorola Moto G (with or without 4G...not sure if I want the 4G for future use)...and will look further at Samsung in view of Dan's advice.
Have looked at THREE's PAYG. It's 3P + 2p + 1p for calls/texts/internet...which seems the cheapest PAYG plus the coverage is apparently number two in the pecking order, after EE, which is top for coverage.....apparently. And when I called THREE they seemed to answer quickly enough and one of the two people I spoke to was in the UK (the other one wasn't but was helpful enough and spoke quite good English. And I found a geographical number to call them on - which I like. Plus there's an 0800 number for sales...but I suppose there would be, wouldn't there?
If I went for the Moto G do I really want the 4G model in view of what I've said about my requirements? Obviously I've never used 4G so have no experience. It's not available where I live but is in Exeter and, of courese, bigger towns...but I don't know what I means in practice.
I can buy a phone using my Tesco Boost (Clubcard) ponts, which is a bonus. Quite a fair choice of phones too.
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If you can live with speeds of up to 7mps then 3g will b okay but like I said speeds of up to. Where as 4G in some places I can get speeds of nearly 30 mps so it's up to you but just remember some operators charge more for a 4G plan.
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In terms of rollout of 4G, once you get out of large towns and cities, it will take a long time for them to upgrade less populated areas - I base that off the upgrading to 3G :
Chester (which is about 25 miles from me, here in rural North Wales) has had 3G on most networks for a long time. Even now, the nearest reasonably sized town to me (population about 9,000) doesn't have 3G on any networks.
So being (as I think you said you are) on Dartmoor, I'll confidently predict that 5G, and possibly even 6G, will have been introduced in big cities before people like you and me get 4G.
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It looks to me as though EE has a greater 4g coverage than Three in the South West (and probably everywhere else too?) Can I assume that the networks update their coverage independant of each other? Assuming that they do, then EE appear to cover very close my town (which is on the edge of Dartmoor - not in the remote inner part)....whereas Three is still some way off. I suspect, by looking at the coverage map, that the low lying, 'basin', geography of my small town is the reason for 4G being available right up to it but not within the low parts here. If EE do have the edge at the moment re. coverage then I suppose that might influence choice of network providers...ie EE better than Three. However if Three's 4G is in most of the larger towns then maybe it shouldn't matterr too much - especially as 3G is available in most areas and would be OK for my limited needs?
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Agreed. 3G will do high-90-odd percent of what you need. If you wanted to watch TV programmes on your phone, or do online gaming, then yes, something like 4G would make a huge difference. But for a quick bit of internet research on occasions, then 3G should be entirely sufficient.
Another thing to bear in mind (although the retailers don't like to tell you this, you really have to ask and push for it) is to ask them precisely what their policy is if you don't get coverage at home, etc. regarding how long you've got to walk away without penalties (if contract). Also, to get a copy of that policy in writing. Sometimes, the network coverage isn't quite as good as is made out, and the online maps of coverage have lots of disclaimers on them. In cases like that, it can be more beneficial to go direct to the mobile company's own shops, rather than places like Carphone Warehouse.
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That's a point well made, Rob.
Time to ask a couple of neighbours what thy use and what they might have tried in the past. Certainly EE is fine here...the merger / sharing of Orange and the other one (whose name seemed to change over the years...is it T Mobile?) has been useful in the past here at home - I saw that it swapped over from one to another when indoors occasionally.
Have alway been OK with CPW in the past (going back quite a few years) but point taken re. coverage.
Incidentally, I saw that one of the Moto G's has dual SIM capability. Presumably I could keep my old Ikea Family Mobile SIM in there and perhaps use the new SIM that came with the new PAYG SIM Free phone. But am not at all sure if the phone rings if someone calls the old (Ikea) number, AS WELL as the new number that would be allocated to the phone. That would be handy to know.
I tried, without success, once, to use a dual SIM card adaptor in the Nokia. Didn't work for me at the time. Bit of a bodge up i guess.
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AFAIK you can only use one simple at a time so you would have to switch the sims for it work. If for say you was using your ikea sim then someone rang you on say a EE sim it would go to voice mail. Duel sim capabilitie just means you can have two aims in the phone without having to remove one each time.
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"If for say you was using your ikea sim then someone rang you on say a EE sim it would go to voice mail."
I don't understand what you mean. At present I am with Three (and therefore have a Three SIM). I receive calls from every other network without problem, as I imagine everyone else does. Are dual SIM phones different?
Edited by FP on 28/11/2014 at 12:39
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"If for say you was using your ikea sim then someone rang you on say a EE sim it would go to voice mail."
I don't understand what you mean. At present I am with Three (and therefore have a Three SIM). I receive calls from every other network without problem, as I imagine everyone else does. Are dual SIM phones different?
A dual SIM phone means you can say have a Three SIM and a Vodafone SIM both at the same time in your phone. That allows you to choose which SIM to use when calling, texting or using data. People often have it so they can have a different SIM on holiday or when calling international numbers.
It's not to do with what calls you can receive but if you are using one SIM in your phone and someone calls your number on the other SIM it would go to voicemail rather than ring.
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"...if you are using one SIM in your phone and someone calls your number on the other SIM it would go to voicemail rather than ring."
I thought the "other" call showed as a "call waiting". No idea how easy it is to switch in mid-call, though.
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"...if you are using one SIM in your phone and someone calls your number on the other SIM it would go to voicemail rather than ring."
I thought the "other" call showed as a "call waiting". No idea how easy it is to switch in mid-call, though.
No, the phone can only use one SIM at a time so it would have no idea the other call is coming through.
Dual SIM is more for outgoing that incoming calls.
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