500mins 100 txts for £1.99/month + free phone

GimmeGimme_2

The great £2.99 Carphone Warehouse offer is back on! Discussed last time here. Grab it while you can (again!)

Carphone warehouse are offering the Nokia 7600 video mobile on three for £2.99 per month. You get 500 anytime any network minutes per month and 100 texts. I bought one of these phones and now use it instead of my landline! The texts alone make it worth the £2.99 per month.

Linemypocket.co.uk offer £12 cashback on all pay monthly phones from CPW. This brings the monthly cost down to just £1.99 per month. Details here:
http://www.linemypocket.co.uk/sitedetails.php?company=Carphone%20Warehouse

People seem to love or hate the 7600 phone - if you don't like it - you could always sell it on ebay (they are currently going for about £60) and put the sim into another 3 phone bought on PAYG. For Example Amazon are currently selling the NEC 313 for £25, giveing a profit of about £40! (i'm sure there are other similar deals deals around.)

A word of warning though - the monthly cost is by cashback - you have to pay the full price of £30 per month but get the money back after 6 and 12 months. As its from Carphone warehouse, rather than a fly by night operator, I don't think you'll have a problem though!

veronarona

I liked the look of this phone when I saw it on the net, but when I went and checked it out "in the flesh" it looked too clumsy for summer jacket pockets.

Still, I might have been persuaded if the queue at CWH wasn't nearly out-the-door and static for 20 minutes - I gave up.

I'm thinking of going for the Samsung E330 on T-Mobile @ £16 per month (18-month contract), which is on offer @ £4.49/month for first 12 months - if you remember to do your claims. But they've apparently put an Internet button where you would expect the main menu button to be, I'm wondering how inconvenient that would be for someone who just wants a good quality, neat phone.

v.

GimmeGimme_2

Its not really much bigger than any other phone. In fact its shorter - but a bit wider, so it depends on the shape of your pockets I guess!

I should have made it clearer that you can get the £12 cashback on whatever phone you buy as long as its from CPW.

kevinyork

Had one of these on an earlier deal with Carphone Warehouse. Despite being in an area Three claimed had full coverage could not complete a single call-either no signal or would cut off. Didnt switch to O2 network has the phone thought it had a trace of a Three signal but it wasnt enough to make a successful call on.

Maybe if you are in London or dont want to use the phone on the move it may be a good deal but beware my experience of their customer service is terrible!!!!!!!! They fob you off saying that someone from technical will sort out the signal problem and call back but they dont. Call centre is in India and they seem to be reading from a script without dealing with specific problems.

In the end I took Three to the County Court and sued them for the years line rental, loss of use, inconvenience etc and they paid out within 2 weeks of issuing the County Court Paperwork.

I would never recommend Three. Their deals are getting cheaper and cheaper and to me this looks like a company on the verge of going under. If they were so good (and 500 inclusive minutes is an excellent deal) then why do they still need to offer such ridiculously extravagent deals?????

Steve_xx

kevinyork wrote:

Had one of these on an earlier deal with Carphone Warehouse. Despite being in an area Three claimed had full coverage could not complete a single call-either no signal or would cut off. Didnt switch to O2 network has the phone thought it had a trace of a Three signal but it wasnt enough to make a successful call on.

Maybe if you are in London or dont want to use the phone on the move it may be a good deal but beware my experience of their customer service is terrible!!!!!!!! They fob you off saying that someone from technical will sort out the signal problem and call back but they dont. Call centre is in India and they seem to be reading from a script without dealing with specific problems.

In the end I took Three to the County Court and sued them for the years line rental, loss of use, inconvenience etc and they paid out within 2 weeks of issuing the County Court Paperwork.

I would never recommend Three. Their deals are getting cheaper and cheaper and to me this looks like a company on the verge of going under. If they were so good (and 500 inclusive minutes is an excellent deal) then why do they still need to offer such ridiculously extravagent deals?????

I disagree. I think that their network is reasonable. They do use o2 as a fallack network where their own is not so good.

I disagree with your statement that it looks like they are about to go under. All new networks need time to build/establish their networks. It is fair to say that coverage with 3 will not be as good as the other more established networks. But I would remind you that the 3 network is run by Hutchison and it was Hutchison who created the Orange network before selling it off. I remember statements similar to your own about the Orange network some years back. Nowadays nobody disputes the credibilty of the Orange network.

I agree with your statement that their customer services could be better informed. However, I would also apply that statement to other service providers customer services. They're all pretty poor really, with Orange being the best, in my opinion. Though with the diversity of tariffs even Orange are not as good as they were. The one fundamental problem is in the fact that customers services are never prepared to put anything in writing.

The 3 network will improve as time goes by. Although your experience with them has been bad I would not exclude them for all time.

Well done on your success in issuing court proceedings.

GimmeGimme_2

I think the service of all the phone companies is poor, but it was O2 not three that were chosen by the worst on BBC Watchdog last week. If I recall correctly Vodaphone were second.

kevinyork

My report above about Three is my personal experience of them as a Network provider....I can only tell it as I experienced it.

Whilst I agree that a newer network needs to establish a customer base the prices they are offering are not just very competitive, rather they are massively undercutting the other networks. If their product was that good would they really need to offer such drastic price cuts? How does it go....'if it seems too good to be true it usually is'. As for customer service, surveys usually only monitor basics such as response times, callbacks, balance and account queries etc however where Three failed me was when it simply was impossible to use their network to make any calls. Whilst polite, instantly available and outwardly seeming helpful,they failed completely to offer any solution to the problems I faced and made me jump through hoops (taking the phone back for replacement twice, doing phone resets, trying new sim cards etc) when it boiled down to the fact that their signal was simply not strong enough in my area to make calls despite their own literature and website saying I had perfect coverage. Whilst the phones should switch to the O2 signal, this will not happen unless there is NO Three signal for the phone to lock onto. Therefore even if there is only one bar of signal strength on the Three network the phone will remain locked to it despite that signal not being strong enough to make a satisfactory call. I could not even use it to call Three customer service, rather had to use a landline.

If you can get a good signal on Three then their packages are excellent. I couldnt (and judging by many postings here and elsewhere others couldnt either) and whilst it is easy to sign up to them, getting out mid contract is rather more difficult. True some retailers have money back periods but even that is hassle given that many people want to port their number or dont want to go to the hassle of 'testing' out their signal by buying a phone only to have to return it.

Anyway as I say this is my personal experience and opinion. Yes, they are a new developing network but I would wait until their coverage and signal strength develops before committing as at the end of the day I need my mobile phone to do 2 things, be mobile and make phone calls, something Three couldnt offer me.

andy88_2

The deal may be back on ...
... but are there any phones in stock?

LD

kevinyork wrote:

Maybe if you are in London or dont want to use the phone on the move it may be a good deal but beware my experience of their customer service is terrible!!!!!!!! They fob you off saying that someone from technical will sort out the signal problem and call back but they dont. Call centre is in India and they seem to be reading from a script without dealing with specific problems.

Not so, I live in Wembley and the excuse used is that I'm on the edge of a cell, granted I know a couple of 'dead spots' both for T-mobile & Orange with that house, but the rest of it is fine, with three however you can have three phones next to each other on the table and one may have signal, another a 2G, and the third none, with out touching them this can change, and some times all 3 had 3G, this isn't 'history' it was happening about 4 hours ago in a friends house, he and his wife has just signed up yesterday at the car phone warehouse, I have just signed a new three contract but have leant in my year of hell, I intend to have the phone hardware unlocked and locked to the 2G (O2) signal, I have no use for video calling and never used it. that said I will be issuing a CC summons to recover last years rental, they had the cheek to credit me with £3 when they had my phone (supplied by them) for a week.

LD

kevinyork wrote:

Whilst polite, instantly available and outwardly seeming helpful,they failed completely to offer any solution to the problems I faced and made me jump through hoops (taking the phone back for replacement twice, doing phone resets, trying new sim cards etc) when it boiled down to the fact that their signal was simply not strong enough in my area to make calls despite their own literature and website saying I had perfect coverage. Whilst the phones should switch to the O2 signal, this will not happen unless there is NO Three signal for the phone to lock onto. Therefore even if there is only one bar of signal strength on the Three network the phone will remain locked to it despite that signal not being strong enough to make a satisfactory call. I could not even use it to call Three customer service, rather had to use a land line.

Didn't see this but the quoted part resonant.

Smartasss

You can get a 7600 to permanently lock on to 02 by getting a factory reset done on the phone.