Questions: 1st smart phone

fairyfairy

so, haven't had a mobile for months, my old one was was just a regular old school mobile.

in layman terms can anyone please explain on top of credit how much more would i need to pay to own a smartphone? if online browsing is kept to the minimum? i have wireless broadband on laptop at home - would that have any relevance to a smartphone (sim free/unlocked) or do i need to pay extra?

in the not such distant past I stretched a £10 top up for a month & sometimes a bit longer. such are my limits, what could you advise, suggest, recommend?

thank you in advance

fairyfairy

Also, how can i make the most of the handset being sim free.

So to summarise: i need to have a phone but need/will have to keep costs totally down.

I mostly txt - what i like in smart phones is, body of txts are longer? am i right?

JJ_Egan

body of txts are longer? am i right?

No words are words up to text limit for any phone .
Wifi is usable on Smartphone be it your own or any other free WiFi .

I use GiffGaff PAYG with very very little spent on mobile data .

jje

fairyfairy

oh okay, thanks for clearing that up.

may i ask how much you might "typically" spend a month (or a week)

grumbler

I spend £0.
http://ovivomobile.com/offer/ovivo-for-phones/

Neil49

grumbler wrote: »

I spend £0.
http://ovivomobile.com/offer/ovivo-for-phones/

That's the way to go.

For an upfront £15 to cover out of package charges you get 150 mins, 200 texts and 500m/b of data for £0 per month (refreshed every month).

I use data quite a lot but when out and about make use of free wifi in places such as Costa Coffee, Cafe Nero etc (and at home of course) and never get near to my 500m/b allowance.

With regard to the phone, I suggest you keep an eye on deals on sites such as HotUKdeals (HUKD) for discounted offers

http://www.hotukdeals.com/

If you want more than offered by Ovivo then HUKD is the place to look.

There are cheap deals on the Samsung Galaxy Ace around but I urge you not to buy one as they have limited memory for running apps.

If you want advice on phones, ask again on this site to ensure you get something worthwhile.

Bella_b

If you want a budget smartphone and don't really care what features it has and the technical specs.. I heard there is a huawei one you can get for £36 .. Look on Hotukdeals.. Think it is the huawei blaze.

There is also another one from Huawei (up & coming Taiwanese manufacturer) called g510 you can get from Vodafone for £130 has pretty good qualities for a first smartphone! If you don't want to be on Vodafone you will have to find an unlock code online for it.

There is also another cool phone called Acer cloudmobile which is only £170 & has specifications similar to phones that cost a lot more. You can get it from expansys.com

As for pay as you go .. I use giffgaff network.. It depends on coverage where you live what network you choose. Giffgaff works on O2 that is the only network that works well where I live. Really good bundles.. Starting at £5, depends on how much you text, call really. Giffgaff.com

Frozen_up_north

There are some very "un smart" phones around, it appears that some manufacturers deliberately cobble cheaper phones to limit their ease of use. I have come across a couple that cost around £80~90 that were plain awful to use, sluggish touch screen, really awkward menu system, almost impossible to do something as basic as setting the time, etc. So I would tend to check a few out in the high street shops before making a decision on which to go for.

As regards use, you will not really notice a difference with mostly texting, however a smart phone can do a whole lot more.

My other half and myself both have iPhone 5s on Three with unlimited data (their One Plan). We often use Apple Facetime for video chatting (works via the data stream, no call charges). Facetime can be switched on directly from within a telephone call and transfers to data for seamless change over. We also text using iMessage, which again goes via the data channel at no charge. The iMessage is useful to "text" to friends overseas with iPhones as there is no charge (as opposed to normal texting which is expensive). The iMessage feature is seamless and works to/from iPhones and shows "iMessage" in the text entry box and displays messages with a blue background, ordinary text messages are green. You can also send video clips and pictures via iMessage for free. There will be something similar for Android phones I guess.

We also use the Skype App a lot, both via WiFi and 3G.

Other uses include using Apps for weather, share prices, recipe of the day, YouTube, banking, Amazon, Tesco, eBay, the list is quite long! Plus of course ordinary web browsing.

My data use runs to about 3 ~ 5 GB per month, so I guess my smart phone gets plenty of use, in addition to being used as a telephone!

grumbler

fairyfairy wrote: »

...So to summarise: i need to have a phone but need/will have to keep costs totally down.

Frozen_up_north wrote: »

... iPhone 5s ... unlimited data (their One Plan). ...video chatting ... 3 ~ 5 GB per month, ... smart phone gets plenty of use, in addition to being used as a telephone!

diamonds

grumbler wrote: »

:rotfl:

:beer:

Frozen_up_north

My point is that a smart phone can do a whole lot more than texting, which perhaps the OP hadn't considered.