help wanted. not smart enough for a smart phone?

siocledpoeth

presently have ancient mobile which i use for some texting and limited no of calls - pay as you go as £10 lasts me for months. now need to be able to check emails and connect to internet when travelling in uk and europe but not often. i have no idea where to go! don't see that a contract will be worthwhile as i don't use the phone regularly enough. pay as you go deals - do you have to top up by a minimum monthly? also need suggestions regarding phone -don't need all singing all dancing. would something like microsoft lumia be suitable? like to keep to under £100. 3g or 4g - there is no 4g in the area so not worth it?
please feel free to make all sorts of comments and suggestions. i need all the help i can get. many thanks in advance.:beer:

enjoyyourshoes

Love the title !


In same boat as you so will avidly read comments


Looking at sim (supermarket comparison site, get down to £5 a month)only and...


buy a phone (looking at the reductions in price for oneplus one, as they have just announced the oneplus two launch on 27/7)


I think its a bit wizzy wizzy lets get busy, but you may suddenly find that your life before had been so sad and this life now is so much better (just as when hovis sliced their bread and sold it to you for 6D more per loaf )?!

DCFC79

The moto e first gen am sure can be had for under £100.

I'm sure there's a decent Nokia phone for under £100.

Exemplar

Microsoft (Nokia) range are excellent value. The 635 is excellent (we issue them to a lot of staff). Alternatively you could get a better spec phone 2nd hand. Look at Gumtree or eBay (be aware of potentially stolen/ blocked phones though). You could easily get a Nokia Lumia 9 series for that amount.
The beauty of the Windows phones is that they are simplistic. I bought one for my dad (HTC Windows phone) and he was able to understand it in minutes.
On some of the Microsoft (Nokia) phones there is also a feature called 'glance' which means that you can have a non invasive reminder of missed calls, texts etc.
If you are truly a Luddite (like my dad) you may want to steer clear of iPhone and Android simply because of their innate complications.
But... (and there always is one). Windows market share is currently 3% and it's estimated that this may dip to 0% within 12 months. If this is not a concern to you I would suggest that it is the best option..

enjoyyourshoes

Exemplar

---

love the quote

---

I presume he said it on Youtube ?

Exemplar

enjoyyourshoes wrote: »

Exemplar

---

love the quote

---

I presume he said it on Youtube ?

No it's his email signature..

enjoyyourshoes

Exemplar wrote: »

No it's his email signature..

you definitely mix in the 'right circles !'

JJ_Egan

The windows phone may find market share takes off when win 10 is realised .
Best for the OP is to play with a few different types .
Apple and Android i know an awful lot of non smart users that use either or both and age is no barrier .

elsien

You may find that once you've got the phone you start to use it more often. I was the same - quite happy with texts and a tenner top up every few months. Till my brother gave me his old smartphone. Now I wouldn't be without it and a past monthly deal is far better value.

woody2234

1 Buy an "unlocked" pay as you go phone like the Sony Xperia E4 and you need
a minimum of "quad core" and "1 gig ram" these days

2 Android is the best system

3 Three pay go 3-2-1 is " flat rate forever " so no need to buy 30 day data packages for £10 for example

4 If money is no problem buy an iphone 6 on Vodafone

NiftyDigits

Dependent on your current PAYG SIM, you can pick a Lumia 535 up for £40 new and SIM Free.

This Lumia 640 has a good spec for £90, but Windows Phones can't match the range of applications designed for Android. I won't consider Apple, as it's out of your price range.

The aforementioned Lumia 635 is good value at £40, but is let down by having only 512MB of RAM installed, though someone has reported that the model sold by CPW has 1GB of RAM installed. Pinch of salt and all that.

I think the Lumia 535 is a good starter phone at £40. It just works. You can open PDF and Word documents etc without having to find and download extra Apps.
Details here
A relative bargain at £39.99 unlocked. Meaning that you can use it with local SIMs whilst abroad and any network's SIM in the UK, if they prove to be better value.