Wanted: decent 3 mobile sim free

Huggins

the missus has a good contract with 3 but a phone which she dislikes with avengence! She's after a slim line phone but wnats to retain her number and as mentioned before the contract she's on is good.

She has approx 8 months left to run on the contract. So i am assuming the only option is to buy a 3 sim free phone and swap her sim across?

can anyone suggest the best place to look for a decent phone at a reasonable price please.

best regards Huggins

skip2mylou

you don't need a mobile phone from '3' per se...all you need is a phone that works on the 3G (aka WCDMA/GSM 2100/UMTS) frequency....

there are cheap/refurbished V975s and LGs from 3pay or you can try the Samsung Z140v (i think its £99.99) or Sony Ericsson V600i (£79.99 i think, available from The Link) both from Vodafone

if you're gonna get the phone from Vodafone, make sure you have it unlocked so that it'll accept 3's sim cards....unlocking typically costs between £5-15

jassi_9

ive been on "3" for two years now, and lg, motorola make crap phones, which dont recieve good recpetion on 3

nokia, make the best 3 phones, under some tests, they found they have the best reception, lose less calls etc etc

i started out on lg, crap!

got nokia 6680 (i think) and it was brilliant, never lost a call, good reception , quality etc, unfortunatly i lost my nokia (no insurance) now im back with my old LG and its useless, no reception, dropped calls etc etc

go with nokia, everytime, trust me!!

soolin

When my son recently broke his 3 phone ( a nasty little NEC 338) we couldn't get the sim to work in anything, not even another 3G phone. Ended up buying a second hand bulky LG phone from ebay just to tide him over until the end of the contract.

Soo

skip2mylou

my GF used one of the first generation LGs, the u8120. was pretty pleased until she ran into some problems with it towards the end of her contract ( largely due to 3 making changes to its network affecting the phone's usage)

i've personally used the Nokia 6680, Motorola C975 & V975 and Sony Ericsson K608i.

the 6680 offers excellent battery life, but has a slow and cumbersome interface. having said that, its a real powerful symbian phone though, but not that small either.

the c975 was BIIIG and had horrendous battery life, overheated on long conversations too! the v975 sported a much smaller form-factor and improved batt-life. however, these motorolas had a responsive interface (though it may need getting used too), and i could also modify the phone's firmware directly from my PC which was a plus for me. cheap too, considering they had a memory card slot

the k608i is a good phone in terms of functionality and size (the Vodafone version, v600i, comes in sleek black!)...and the only one with an FM radio, and the only one w/o a memory card slot. IMHO, its interface is probably not as refined as Motorola's. haven't used it long enough to comment on battery life though.

reception on all phones have never been an issue with me, but that most probably is cos i live in London....there r also some people on this forum that are quite pleased with LG's latest release the u880.

Huggins

ok thanks people - i've heard stories of 3 'finding out' you've moved their sim to a new phone and putting a block on the sim until it is returned to the original phone - is this true?

skip2mylou

from what i know it's only if you use your SIM on a non 3G phone (ie "2.5G" phones) - hence my recommendation in my very first post to buy a 3G phone as a replacement instead of any other.

james-73

3g sims will not work in 2g phones. there is alot more to it than this but thats 99.9% true.

br
james

Huggins

ok thanks peps..any good offers about on a 3g sim free preferably 'slimline' regards huggins