smartphone advice please?

papoosue

Hi. I would like a new phone - a smartphone. I currently use an old Sony Ericsson and use Giffgaff, paying £5 per month and no internet.

What I would like is a smartphone, with a decent sized screen (my eyes are rubbish), that I can keep up with my Uni website, text etc, and watch iplayer/netflix type of stuff on the bus in the morning. My problem is that I don't have a clue about any of this stuff in terms of data requirements - also what is a 'good price'. My general thinking is that contracts seem like a rip off as you end up paying an absolute fortune - however, I don't have a lot of choice but to go for one as I can't afford to pay several hundred pounds for a handset.

Any advice would be absolutely fantastic! :j

DUTR

Graduate and hopefully you can afford the unecessary gadgets and still keep your head above water.
Without you stipulating your budget, it will be difficult for someone to recomend a device .

grumbler

If you can afford spending £80, then Huawei Ascend G300 Smartphone on Vodafone PAYG £80 @ Tesco instore is currently the best you can get for this sort of money. Can be unlocked for free for using on giffgaff, but this may invalidate the warranty.

There was a way of getting it even cheaper: Huawei G300 Ascend Smartphone - £102.95 to £72.95 with credit acct, down to possible £67.01 (incl cashback) Delivered @ isme.com, and it's down to £99 at ISME.

£note

Check here http://www.carphonewarehouse.com/mobiles/mobile-phones/NOKIA-LUMIA-710/MONTHLY
If you have good talk mobile (vodafone) coverage where you are and the allowances are sufficient for your needs then I think this is hard to beat. There's £50 cash back available through quidco which, if it tracks, will reduce this deal to £130 over two years.

MillicentBystander

£note wrote: »

Check here http://www.carphonewarehouse.com/mobiles/mobile-phones/NOKIA-LUMIA-710/MONTHLY
If you have good talk mobile (vodafone) coverage where you are and the allowances are sufficient for your needs then I think this is hard to beat. There's £50 cash back available through quidco which, if it tracks, will reduce this deal to £130 over two years.

And if you wish to make that an even better deal you could always sell the Nokia on ebay for upwards of £130 and get the imo 'better for your usage' Huawei G300 Android for £67 as detailed in Grumbler's post but keep the SIM as it will slot into the Huawei without the need to get it made sim free. that's probably another £60-odd quid to take off the £130 over 2 years mentioned above. Could bring it down to a net £3/mth!

PS You can also get the same CPW deal on the HTC Salsa which seems to go for even more wonga on ebay!

http://www.carphonewarehouse.com/mobiles/mobile-phones/HTC-SALSA-O2/MONTHLY

Quentin

If you are looking to spend in the £100 to £150 bracket then the new huawei g330 ICS is due out shortly and looking good in the reviews

MillicentBystander

Yes, i think the price of the G330 will be the deciding factor here. Not convinced that the addition of a front facing cam, dual core processor and ICS (which the G300 is getting anyway) is gonna be worth £50-£60 more BUT one good thing to come from this is the increased chance of picking up a G300 at an even cheaper price (Tesco have already started the discounting process). Having said that, the more enterprising of us have already managed to pick it up for as little as £63.

jamesperrett

Suspect stocks of the G300 may be running down - it is getting harder to find places with them in stock but I'm off to try the local Tesco...

diamonds

HTC Mozart is £99, yes its Windows Phone 7 and with the update to WP7.8 operating system in Oct/Nov it wont allow you to tap your mobile to pay for things like WP8 hardware will but its a soild handset with excellent (removeable) battery, its a breeze to use over a iphone or Android operating system - i know I've owned & tried them all !!!

I would never put a new smartphone user on Android, its not as sleek as iphone for usage and nowhere comes close to Windows Phone 7.

http://www.phones4u.co.uk/shop/shop_payg_details.asp?ItemKey=615451&intcid=Homepage_Find_Phone__PAYG_HTC_HTC%20Mozart

Guys_Dad

diamonds wrote: »

I would never put a new smartphone user on Android, ................. nowhere comes close to Windows Phone 7.

Sony Betamax was good too, as was I K Brunel's wide gauge railway.

Kernel_Sanders

Half of the OP's request was advice on data plans, which hasn't been addressed. Bearing in mind that s/he wants to play iPlayer, I'd recommend the ZTE Grand X from Virgin Mobile. This has a big 4.3" QHD touchscreen and a dual core 1GHz processor running Android 4.0 (ICS). It also has extras such as Dolby Mobile surround sound and dual cameras, yet Virgin only want £189.99 for it. The £10 credit you have to buy entitles you to a generous free 1GB a month data; you only need make one call or text each month to secure this. VM also offer a 1 year contract on this phone but IDK the details or even if the free data applies (it does to all their PAYG phones).
CPW are also offering this deal on behalf of Virgin, but they don't sell this model. If you do go for a CPW phone then it should be unlocked, even if on the Virgin deal.