Need help in getting into the smartphone arena please! - monthly contract

Kite2010

Huawei Y300 is probably the best budget smartphone at the moment.

The data allowance depends what you use it for

thesimplethings_2

Thank you so much. I would not be using the phone for internet/email regularly, just the odd email check on a day out or an occasional internet search. Interesting that 500 is needed to use out of the house as that is when I would use it so I'd better look into that carefully.
Thanks so much everyone. I feel like such a tech-dunce but am looking forward to dragging myself up to date with a modern phone!

Kite2010

thesimplethings wrote: »

Thank you so much. I would not be using the phone for internet/email regularly, just the odd email check on a day out or an occasional internet search. Interesting that 500 is needed to use out of the house as that is when I would use it so I'd better look into that carefully.
Thanks so much everyone. I feel like such a tech-dunce but am looking forward to dragging myself up to date with a modern phone!

500 would be more than enough for the occasional internet search.

balletshoes

all of those carphone warehouse £7.50 per month deals include at least 500mb per month included .

zolablue25

Thos Carphone Warehouse deals do look good if you don't want to pay upfront for a new phone. If you have the cash available then perhaps you could buy the Huawei Y300 for £79.99 (including obligitory top up) from Carphone Warehouse and then go over to Ovivo for £15. I have heard that the phones from CPH come unlocked but I can't verify that. Not sure how easy the Y300 is to unlock should it be necessary.

Del_Astra

Hi OP,

Just had a quick read at this thread and whilst you said you wanted a smartphone I don't see any mention of OS? Basically you have three choices Apple iOS which we can discount on price / budget, so you are left with Android or Windows.

Rather than trying to pick a phone, it might be worth considering the operating system on your new phone as opposed to what phone like we used too.

I have used both Android and Windows (and iOS). I like them both have a place and pro's and cons. You do get different flavours of Android. With what you have said I would be tempted to suggest one of the Nokia Lumia's running Windows 8. I currently use my Nokia Lumia 620 the most now, find it slicker than my Android and better suited to my needs. I'm a low user 3 month average is 24 mins, 208 texts and 124Mb. I use facebook, twitter and an app (Map my Cycle), I sometimes use it for online news / forums if I get on a bus or have time to kill.

I would definately recommend looking at both Android and Windows devices so you can see them before making a purchase.

thesimplethings_2

Thank you everyone for taking the time to reply. Everyone's advice has been really useful and I am going to head to an O2 (my current provider) shop in town tomorrow so that someone can show me one of these things in action! I have absolutely no understanding of Android OS! I have followed up everyone's advice so far and am arned with some examples from the Carphone Warehouse website. I hope to batter out a good deal and maybe even return home with my new gadget! Many thanks again for all your help and I shall post what I went for on my return!

grumbler

A good deal in O2 shop? Highly unlikely.
The best deals are usually online and at independent retailers like CPW/mobiles.co.uk/e2save/osps, P4U/dial-a-phone etc.
And don't forget TCB/quidco.

thesimplethings_2

Grumbler you were right! The best the O2 shop could do was an £11/month tariff. Just before I ring Carphone Warehouse to sign up for the Samsung Galaxy Ace £7.50/month deal, which appears very good, would any of you seasoned bargainers try and get them to throw anything else in as I've got all my mobile deals through Carphone Warehouse for about the last decade? Is that pushing my luck? My expired deal was £4.50/month after cashback, although that didn't include a phone.

grumbler

It's worth warning you that Ace is a very poor phone (unlike Ace 2). It was very poor even when it was released almost 3 years ago, and things changed a lot since then.

For £7.50x24=£180:eek: you can get a much better phone and use it with Ovivo sim.

E.g. Google Nexus 4 (8Gb) cost just £159 and it's from an absolutely different league.

http://www.gsmarena.com/compare.php3?idPhone1=5048&idPhone2=3724