Blackberry mobile phone advice needed

dommers

I have spent the last couple of weeks contemplating getting a new smart phone and would welcome advice. At the moment I have a very old Nokia phone which I use regularly for texting but very rarely for making calls.

I am keen on the idea of having a QWERTY keyboard and am thinking of getting a Blackberry although would welcome any advice about other keyboard phones which I should think about.

The main reason for getting a smart phone is to be able access emails, hence the reason for thinking of a blackberry and text messaging (although think any phone/contract would be fine for textting as I do make many each month). I am thinking of going down a pay as you go contract and am probably restricted to O2 as they offer by and far and away the best reception where I live which from reading other posts on her means I may have to pay a little more.

The option of being able to access the internet sites easily would be helpful although am only likely to need that on the odd occasion when I'm away in the UK for a couple of days whilst being able to watch video, listen to music and take part is not at all important.

I've seen some deals look like they charge £1 per day for accessing the web when needed which would be fine and Blackberry seem to give better email access.

Any advice would be gratefully received.

grumbler

Are you really happy to pay £1 per day for the internet?
Giffgaff and Tesco Mobile use the same signal and better deals than O2.
At Giffgaff Blackberry 'goodibag' costs £10+£3
Tesco have £10 1-month contract for BB with 150 minutes.

flea72

I second the giffgaff suggestion. Blackberry services is £3/m and the cheapest goody bag that you can add BBM to is only £5/m

organic_choc

It would be cheaper to go for a monthly contract becoz you will have to buy a phone if you go for a PAYG.

The blackberry with the cheapest monthly deals is Curve 9320. I recently signed up with T-mobile for £6.10 a month for 18 month. That deal is gone but there are slightly more expensive ones at around £8 to 9 a month over 24 months which give you unlimited texts, though much less minutes and data than the giffgaff deals. If you buy the phone on its own it would cost you around £100 to £140 depending on where you get it.

http://www.moneysupermarket.com/mobile-phones/brands/blackberry/curve-9320/

The newest is 9790 but the swishest one is 9900. They have better cameras (5MP as oppose to 3.2MP on the 9320) and higher definition screens than the 9320.

I don't know how much you are going to use the web... you might not need packages with large data allowance. I got my first Blackberry (also my first smartphone) just over 2 years ago and never went over 50MB in data usage in any month - mind you I hardly ever watch videos on it so ymmv. When you are at home you can use your home's wifi network so that helps staying within limits if you are a heavy user. If your friends also have smartphones you can message each other using Whatsapp for free so the number of texts available is kinda moot.

Editing to note that using Whatsapp count towards data usage, so if you and your friends send one another lots of photos / videos that can burn up your data usage real quick! You can also message one another using BBM if your friends are also using BB. That is just like Whatsapp but only for folks with BB.

Buzby

I would certainly not go down the Blackberry route, they have lost considerable status, with their service reliability, and unless you have a requirement for their free BBM proprietary messaging service (which I doubt) you will be better served elsewhere. Qwerty keypads are very much over-rated as for most they are not much faster to type on.

It is imperative you find a demo unit and try it for yourself to see if it is what you like, before trying screen-based alternatives. Only then can you make an informed choice.

dommers

Thanks for the responses so far.

Am I right in thinking that the Giffgaff Blackberry 'goodibag' which costs £10+£3 is effectively a £13 a month contract, which you would need to pay each month to get the most of?

I think I need to think about the data usage as I am hoping not to use the web much on the phone (I still have what seems like an outdated laptop at home for this) and may be better looking at a contract, although am still to be convinced that being tied into something for 12-24 months is a good idea.

grumbler

Giffgaff is PAYG with bundles ('goodybags') that you can buy if you want.

NiftyDigits

dommers wrote: »

Thanks for the responses so far.

Am I right in thinking that the Giffgaff Blackberry 'goodibag' which costs £10+£3 is effectively a £13 a month contract, which you would need to pay each month to get the most of?

I think I need to think about the data usage as I am hoping not to use the web much on the phone (I still have what seems like an outdated laptop at home for this) and may be better looking at a contract, although am still to be convinced that being tied into something for 12-24 months is a good idea.

Cheapest with GG would be the Hokey Cokey GoodyBag in conjunction with BBM. £8
With T-Mobile it could be considerably less. As little as £4 per month.
If you are already have a PAYG SIM with 02 running for six months or more, they have a package including 100mins/100MB/500 texts for £11 including the phone, over twelve months.

flexrider

T. Mobile Ee are cheaper paug 25 quid six month bbm booster. So works out 50 quid full year on bbm

What my son told me as im on vodafone monthly tariff which gave me free internet/bbm


Edit: I gave my bb curve to my son with the beeep beep beeep every five seconds alarm clock going off at daft times was quick for email but slow for internet also bbm is now version 7.0 so aviod the old blackberry models they do not support it the 9 series do support version 7 were u can video chat ect on bbm messenger,

smartphone

Bear in mind that BlackBerry's data usage is not as high as other smartphones as the data is compressed, so if you do go down the BlackBerry route, if you're not hammering the internet I wouldn't be concerned with heavy data usage each month. BlackBerry's email reputation is quite good, however I've found email service to be just as good using the Microsoft mail service on things like a Nokia E71 (modern version would probably be the Asha 302).

organic_choc

flexrider wrote: »

T. Mobile Ee are cheaper paug 25 quid six month bbm booster. So works out 50 quid full year on bbm

Wow that sounds like a wonderful deal. Do you have a link? I looked around on t mobile and EE websites and couldn't find it.