Decent phone for a technophone with 0mb data allowance?

Nine_Lives

A while back i kept it strictly to push button phones & no internet access. This was because my mum has no internet allowance on her data plan & no interest in the internet whatsoever.

I had turned mobile data off on my iPhone yet using a data manager it seemed to still use some - the same happened to the wifes SGS3.

Although when we try that now, it doesn't seem to use any, so it seems she could have one of these touch screen phones that has internet access & she just selects to turn the mobile data off so that it doesn't charge her.

Hopefully that'd work.

So now (if that works) she's open to a whole new range of phones, her budget is approx £80 +/- a little bit. She takes a while to get used to a phone, so anything confusing is a no no.

What would you recommend on this basis? Was looking at the Galaxy Aces & Ys in town but they weren't working. Are they ok? Anything else worth a shout?

DUTR

If you switch to 2g only on the device then the data should not work but other functions do.
Well that is what I have done on my Satio with a PAYG sim inserted and no data allowance has been used.

grumbler

Do you mean technophobe?

If you don't want to use mobile internet you can always ask the provider to disable it on their side, but AFAIK it's only iphones that are notorious for using small amounts of data even if it's switched off in the settings.

For ~£80 and with some efforts you can get Huawei G300 that is much better than entry level Samsungs. Search the board for 'G300'.

DUTR wrote: »

If you switch to 2g only on the device then the data should not work but other functions do.

Are you sure? AFAIK mobile data will work, just very slow.
ETA: it works on 2g in my Desire.

DUTR

grumbler wrote: »

Do you mean technophobe?

If you don't want to use mobile internet you can always ask the provider to disable it on their side, but AFAIK it's only iphones that are notorious for using small amounts of data even if it's switched off in the settings.

For ~£80 and with some efforts you can get Huawei G300 that is much better than entry level Samsungs. Search the board for G300.

Are you sure? AFAIK mobile data will work, just very slow.
ETA: it works on 2g in my Desire.

I put a virgin payg sim in my satio, topped it with £10 in January, to start with when I inserted the sim, the balance dropped to £9.50 (50p/day for 25mb) after I realised and and earbashing to CS, I switched the satio to 2g, I have an app running called world mate which updates the weather twice a day, but since being on 2g, the balance has remained at £10 and the data apps do not appear to be working, that said it is symbian and it could be that on this particular handset the data is off or so slow that it;'s not used . I tried a speed test on my xperia ray on 2g and the speed was something like 2kbs the ping time was long, hold on let me try it now.

DUTR

On the Ray on 2g the speed test shows 606ms ping, 197kbs d/l and 77kps u/l.
On 3g 175ms ping 1.7mbs d/l 1.6mbs u/l
Just checked the satio and cannot see a seperate data on/off selection

Nine_Lives

Yes, technophobe. My typo.

Yeah i think it was my iPhone that was downloading small bits of data with mobile data turned OFF. I turned this off & 3G & turned WiFi on & it still took money from me. Didn't do it yesterday though.

I'll tell her about disabling it their end too. She's on a SIM monthly contract with Vodafone - i assume she'd just call them (Vodafone) up & explain she's bought a new phone & to disable the internet? Or would she tell the shop she bought it from?

grumbler

Just call them and ask. It doesn't matter what phone it is.

d123

DUTR wrote: »

If you switch to 2g only on the device then the data should not work but other functions do.
Well that is what I have done on my Satio with a PAYG sim inserted and no data allowance has been used.

2G will still utilise data, at slower speed, but it still has data capability. Ranging from 9.6 Kbps, 56.6 Kbps and up to around 100 Kbps.

I quite often lock my phone to 2G in poor signal areas, and it still checks and downloads email headers and updates home screen weather (as 2 examples).

Switching off "Mobile data" on my iphone does stop all usage though, so it's hard to say why it doesn't for the OP.