Advice Needed: PAYG or sim-free contract?

McCreary

Hi everyone,

Looking for a bit of advice with what to do with regards to my mobile phone. In a couple of months I will be coming to the end of a (very) long contract with Orange. I have been with them for years but recently had trouble with my signal dropping. I'm also really annoyed with the prospect of having to commit to a 24 month contract to get a decent deal/upgrade so I have decided to go 'sim-free' with my phone and either switch to PAYG or a sim-free rolling 30 day contract.

I'm basically after your views/advice on what would be the best option. I hardly ever make phone calls and my use of SMS is very light. I mainly use my phone to access emails and social networks such as Twitter. I currently have a 500mb data bundle with Orange and have only really come close to using the full 500mb on one occasion (I tend to use WiFi whenever I can).

I'm not particularly keen on using Orange again (and there data deals for PAYG/sim-free customers look poor anyway). I'm not interested in GiffGaff as I know they are changing the way they handle data in a couple of months. I've looked into Tesco Mobile and was quite intrigued by their PAYG offer of tripling credit. They do a £2 a week bundle for data (which is capped at 100mb). Does anybody know if this is 100mb a week or 100mb a month? If it was a month then I would have an allowance of 400mb which would be fine. So if I topped up £10 a month I would in affect get £30 credit (less £8 for data), which sounds like a very good deal. I only text close friends regularly so the offer of half price calls/texts to five favourite numbers might mean this is the option for me. Plus I would get Clubcard points too (I'm trying to be thrifty this year )

I know that Vodafone do free texts and 500mb of data if you top up £10 a month on PAYG but I would rather avoid them from an ethical/moral point of view. Also I'd like to avoid T-Mobile since they are merging with Orange.

I also notice that Tesco have £15 sim-only deals which include minutes, texts and data. I've been on contracts for about six years now so not really entirely sure whether a move to PAYG would be a good move or not.

Any help gratefully received!

Darksun

I use Tesco Mobile PAYG. The data limit is 100mb per week, I've come close to it a few times as my data usage is quite high, but for twitter/facebook/light web surfing you should be fine. I find a £10 top up lasts me about 2 months, which is a lot better than any contract deal I can get.

You just have to remember that the free credit you get only lasts a month, so if you don't use all of the £20 free credit you'll drop down to your £10 actual credit. But it's still a pretty good deal.

Anyway, there's no real reason not to go for it, since it's not like you're stuck with Tesco and can always switch to another PAYG or contract provider if you don't like it or isn't not working out good value for you

McCreary

Darksun wrote: »

I use Tesco Mobile PAYG. The data limit is 100mb per week, I've come close to it a few times as my data usage is quite high, but for twitter/facebook/light web surfing you should be fine. I find a £10 top up lasts me about 2 months, which is a lot better than any contract deal I can get.

You just have to remember that the free credit you get only lasts a month, so if you don't use all of the £20 free credit you'll drop down to your £10 actual credit. But it's still a pretty good deal.

Anyway, there's no real reason not to go for it, since it's not like you're stuck with Tesco and can always switch to another PAYG or contract provider if you don't like it or isn't not working out good value for you

Thanks for the reply I really appreciate it. I knew about the free credit expiring after a month but thought I would actually end up using just the free credit after a month and then end up saving in the long run. I have an app which switches off data and only activates it once an hour to check for emails etc - hopefully that will cut down the data usage.

How do you check data usage - can it be done through the website?

Darksun

McCreary wrote: »

Thanks for the reply I really appreciate it. I knew about the free credit expiring after a month but thought I would actually end up using just the free credit after a month and then end up saving in the long run. I have an app which switches off data and only activates it once an hour to check for emails etc - hopefully that will cut down the data usage.

How do you check data usage - can it be done through the website?

I have an app on my phone that monitors it (it's an Android app called 3G Watchdog). Don't think there is a way to check on the website, but they will text you when you get to 90% of the limit to warn you

McCreary

Thanks I'll download 3G Watchdog when I do make the switch to Tesco Mobile. I'm pleased they sent a 90% warning too!

All the best! :T