Nice people thread part 6 - thrice by twice as nice :)

Spirit_2

Shopping for phones that are a bargain sounds great. I need to hone my savvy shopping skills.

From the comfort of an armchair I have spent £210.09p tonight on travel insurance. For this I got 12 months cover in Europe including pre-existing health.

This purchase took me hours on Saturday when I got two declines and one £1100 quote and another of a hefty top up charge to my 'free travel insurance' that I get with my bank account. By this time I was grumpy and gave up looking/phoning/filling in questionaires to take up the challenge another day.

I actually wanted 12 months worldwide cover but have settled for less as the price was reasonable and they would take me/it was all done on online so no speaking to another call centre . A company I have never heard of but they are recommended by MSE. I know I should have tried here first.

If I go outside of Europe - I am pretty sure I will, then I thought my new plan is that I will buy single trips to cover it. Completed transaction then remembered - on our trip to the middle east in the spring I did not have cover as I just got fed up with trying to buy it then too. Oh well.

Shopping about is meant to put the consumer in control. This consumer is feeling debilitated and a bit foolish.

zagubov

PasturesNew wrote: »

And an amount for it being a phone? So, you buy it ... and pay a monthly phone fee .... and Internet could be a max of £7.50/month extra?

Well it's PAYG and 4p per text and 8p per minute for calls and 25p per day for reasonable internet use.

Cheaper than my landline if I'm calling a mobile. I'm not keen on monthly contracts as I usually only spend a few quid per month ATM, and that's the way I like it.

Edit: Just noticed the camera's zoom is only 4x so maybe not what PN needs.

PasturesNew wrote: »

And an amount for it being a phone? So, you buy it ... and pay a monthly phone fee .... and Internet could be a max of £7.50/month extra?

Well it's PAYG and 4p per text and 8p per minute for calls and 25p per day for reasonable internet use.

Cheaper than my landline if I'm calling a mobile. I'm not keen on monthly contracts as I usually only spend a few quid per month ATM, and that's the way I like it.

Edit: Just noticed the camera's zoom is only 4x so maybe not what PN needs.

Spirit wrote: »

Shopping for phones that are a bargain sounds great. I need to hone my savvy shopping skills.

From the comfort of an armchair I have spent £210.09p tonight on travel insurance. For this I got 12 months cover in Europe including pre-existing health.

This purchase took me hours on Saturday when I got two declines and one £1100 quote and another of a hefty top up charge to my 'free travel insurance' that I get with my bank account. By this time I was grumpy and gave up looking/phoning/filling in questionaires to take up the challenge another day.

I actually wanted 12 months worldwide cover but have settled for less as the price was reasonable and they would take me/it was all done on online so no speaking to another call centre . A company I have never heard of but they are recommended by MSE. I know I should have tried here first.

If I go outside of Europe - I am pretty sure I will, then I thought my new plan is that I will buy single trips to cover it. Completed transaction then remembered - on our trip to the middle east in the spring I did not have cover as I just got fed up with trying to buy it then too. Oh well.

Sorry to hear about your health problems and the travel insurance costs. I was grumbling after paying a bit extra for DD's travel insurance because of her kidney stones, but that's nothing compared with what you've had to put up with.:(

As regards apps I've found the best thread yet on this although I'd still appreciate any tips from fellow-NPs.:)

PN in case you missed my previous edit, the huawei (pronounced "who are we" if you're Jonathan Ross) only has a 4x zoom so it may not be good enough in the camera department.

PasturesNew

michaels wrote: »

PN not sur ewhich phones have a camera with an optical zoom. If this is a dealbreaker for you then a bit of rsearch will be needed.

The camera is pretty important to me as I'd prefer to have a phone that could almost completely replace my actual camera, which is a 5MP with good optical zoom (can't remember what now, but it was purchased based on optical zoom properties).... as I find taking a camera out in the camera bag then lugging it about just in case I want to take a photo means I can't be 4rsed most days. I like to take random shots as I wander about - and don't want a dark fuzzy mess as a result. I want something presentable as an image.

Edit: Box has model number, but that's.... yep, in storage. I'll go get my camera, see if it's got a model number on it, then google to find out the optical zoom I have at present.

Edit 2: 10x optical zoom. It's a Kodak z7590

PasturesNew

Spirit wrote: »

...

I've never bought travel insurance.... never needed it. Not been anywhere ever.

SingleSue

Youngest has got a pay as you go phone which he tops up with £15 (well when he can be bothered, so he doesn't do it every month) a month. For that, he gets all you can eat data, oodles of text messages, a good amount of calls and loads of 3 to 3 calls, plus he can also tether the phone so he can use his Ipad on the go.

I say when he can be bothered because he knows my phone can tether and has all you can eat data too, so uses that instead. For talking to his friends, he uses facetime or something using the home Wifi or my parent's Wifi...with them all being geeks too, they all do it too rather than using their phones, so it pretty much cuts out the need for them to have working phones.

PasturesNew

SingleSue wrote: »

Youngest has got a pay as you go phone which he tops up with £15 (well when he can be bothered, so he doesn't do it every month) a month. For that, he gets all you can eat data, oodles of text messages, a good amount of calls and loads of 3 to 3 calls, plus he can also tether the phone so he can use his Ipad on the go.

I really don't understand most of that..... "all you can eat data" is part of the problem.... I've no idea how much a phone uses, or how much I'd use .... my dongle, full-time online, is 5-9GB/month (without watching any video, no tv and no music). I've seen an iPad now ..... and touched one.... but didn't know what to do with it beyond finding google and finding one website so I put it down again before I broke it.

I don't know if iPhones do it, but it might occasionally be handy to use it like a videophone - if that's possible yet (or just on Star Trek). Just occasionally, e.g. if I visited the old and wanted to use it for them to be able to video call somebody (probably only one sibling would be able to see that anyway, so not high usage expected).

vivatifosi

Yes, I have power! That was like a few days with my arms tied behind my back.

Pastures, if you will be having access to Sky for a bit longer, I wanted to flag this TV programme to you. It's typical of some of the weirder stuff you find on satellite and could provide a useful insight into the minds of some of the more radical posters around these parts:
http://natgeotv.com/uk/doomsday-preppers

misskool

PasturesNew wrote: »

I really don't understand most of that..... "all you can eat data" is part of the problem.... I've no idea how much a phone uses, or how much I'd use .... my dongle, full-time online, is 5-9GB/month (without watching any video, no tv and no music). I've seen an iPad now ..... and touched one.... but didn't know what to do with it beyond finding google and finding one website so I put it down again before I broke it.

I don't know if iPhones do it, but it might occasionally be handy to use it like a videophone - if that's possible yet (or just on Star Trek). Just occasionally, e.g. if I visited the old and wanted to use it for them to be able to video call somebody (probably only one sibling would be able to see that anyway, so not high usage expected).

If you can find an Apple store/authorised retailer nearby, they will let you play with iPad/iPhone etc before you buy. And they will show you how to use everything. It's part of the sales/marketing process.

JonnyBravo

PasturesNew wrote: »

The camera is pretty important to me as I'd prefer to have a phone that could almost completely replace my actual camera, which is a 5MP with good optical zoom (can't remember what now, but it was purchased based on optical zoom properties).... as I find taking a camera out in the camera bag then lugging it about just in case I want to take a photo means I can't be 4rsed most days. I like to take random shots as I wander about - and don't want a dark fuzzy mess as a result. I want something presentable as an image.

Edit: Box has model number, but that's.... yep, in storage. I'll go get my camera, see if it's got a model number on it, then google to find out the optical zoom I have at present.

Edit 2: 10x optical zoom. It's a Kodak z7590

As michaels has alluded to you won't find any phone with a 10x optical zoom. I'd be surprised if you found one with any optical zoom to be honest but I haven't looked.
Phone makers aren't prepared/can't sacrifice the space needed to have a zoom lens and so rely on digital zoom.
As I suspect you know, this is of course inferior but becomes less of an issue as resolution increases to some degree.


And to your other query: CABG (prononunced "cabbage")= coronary artery bypass graft


Edit: found phone with optical zoom so they must exist. This was the first one available in Europe and the article says available from 2011.
http://crave.cnet.co.uk/mobiles/altek-leo-14-megapixel-3x-optical-zoom-android-monster-phone-invades-europe-50001008/

SingleSue

PasturesNew wrote: »

I really don't understand most of that..... "all you can eat data" is part of the problem.... I've no idea how much a phone uses, or how much I'd use .... my dongle, full-time online, is 5-9GB/month (without watching any video, no tv and no music). I've seen an iPad now ..... and touched one.... but didn't know what to do with it beyond finding google and finding one website so I put it down again before I broke it.

I don't know if iPhones do it, but it might occasionally be handy to use it like a videophone - if that's possible yet (or just on Star Trek). Just occasionally, e.g. if I visited the old and wanted to use it for them to be able to video call somebody (probably only one sibling would be able to see that anyway, so not high usage expected).

The all you can eat data is handy for tethering* to your laptop, games system etc.....I used (I say I when in fact it was the boys) 30gb on holiday with no extra charges to pay.

Re the Ipad, youngest has one and gets along with it fine but the real test was my brother...he doesn't understand laptops or computers, has a tendancy to make them crash by pressing everything at once but he had a go on youngest's Ipad and you would have thought he had always had one, he could use it with no problems at all. In fact, even my dad can use it with no problems and since his strokes, that is saying something!

When picking phones, I always try to get one with a decent camera on it, the phone itself may not always be a super duper one with all the bells and whistles but it has to have a good camera.

*Tethering is when you turn your phone into a wifi hotspot, like a home broadband wifi box, so that you can access, via wifi, the internet on a games system, laptop, Ipad, Ipod etc. You do need to have a phone capable of tethering though (most Samsungs do)