Buying a pay as you go phone from Carphone Warehouse

Burnley_Lad

My wife is looking for a new mobile phone, and has seen one she wants in Carphone Warehouse.

She is currently on the Virgin network, and wants to keep her sim card and put it into the new phone.

Does this mean that we should only be looking at the phones that are offered on the T-Mobile and Virgin networks?

The reason why I ask is that when she purchased her current phone last year, she purchased it with a t-mobile sim card, but when she received the box with the phone in it, the box was sealed and didn't have any indication that it was locked to the t-mobile network. This suggested to me that she could have bought a sim card for any network, and it didn't matter which one as all she wanted was the phone.

Abbafan1972

I read somewhere that phones from the CPW are all unlocked and unbranded. Not sure if this is still the case though.

Burnley_Lad

Abbafan1972 wrote: »

I read somewhere that phones from the CPW are all unlocked and unbranded. Not sure if this is still the case though.

thanks for that - it certainly fits with my experience of purchasing a mobile phone from there.

if that's the case, and all your looking for is a new phone and want to keep your existing sim card, then the best thing to do is go for the network that is the cheapest overall price?

TREVORCOLMAN

I think it varies. I bought a phone for other half from CPW just over 2 years ago for Christmas Pressie. I wanted it on orange as that is what she was using and that was what I was sold - complete with sim card with £10 on.

On trying it before Christmas to make sure all was Ok I found it was unlocked.

However I believe some are locked and some not so may be worth asking in the shop.

PixelPound

TREVORCOLMAN wrote: »

On trying it before Christmas to make sure all was Ok I found it was unlocked.

However I believe some are locked and some not so may be worth asking in the shop.

When I was looking pre-christmas, the staff told me their phones were unlocked. The locked ones may be ones that are available on only one network (e.g. the 3 phones).

One thing to note is that if you aiming to use with an existing sim, then take into account any top-up requirements (e.g. "with £10 top up") as they are automatically put on the sim included with the phone, not as a voucher nor transferable to another sim.

Inactive

nic_c wrote: »

.

One thing to note is that if you aiming to use with an existing sim, then take into account any top-up requirements (e.g. "with £10 top up") as they are automatically put on the sim included with the phone, not as a voucher nor transferable to another sim.

Or not in my case, I purchased an Orange PAYG phone from them on the 16/12/2008 including £10 top up, I still have not had the top up added to the phone, despite numerous phone calls to CPW, they are useless, avoid like the plague.