Buying first smartphone

Mistral001

So I am now thinking of buying my first Smartphone. I have been doing a lot of research online on smartphones and have learned a lot, but I am nervous about taking the step in buying one. I would like to buy from a bricks and mortar shop rather than buy online, but I am nervous that a shop assistant on commission will easily see me coming and just push onto me whatever phone of the day that they cannot get rid of or try to sell me a "deal" with strings attached

Friends tell me that buying a mobile and not getting a contract is the best way to go as it works out cheaper in the long run. Considering that I will hope to keep the phone for a good few years before upgrading I have decided to follow that advice.

I am very tech savvy usually but smartphones have just passed me by. I have an old mobile (maybe 15 years old) which is pay as you go. I use my landline for 95% of my phone calls and rarely make texts, I top the phone up with £10 about once a year so you can see where I am coming from.

Any advice on what to ask for when I go into a shop and what to look out for? My present mobile is with O2 and has about £15 of calls left on it. Will I lose that if I transfer to a smartphone? I want to keep the same mobile number of course.

[Deleted User]

Mistral001 wrote: »

So I am now thinking of buying my first Smartphone. I have been doing a lot of research online on smartphones and have learned a lot, but I am nervous about taking the step in buying one. I would like to buy from a bricks and mortar shop rather than buy online, but I am nervous that a shop assistant on commission will easily see me coming and just push onto me whatever phone of the day that they cannot get rid of or try to sell me a "deal" with strings attached

Friends tell me that buying a mobile and not getting a contract is the best way to go as it works out cheaper in the long run. Considering that I will hope to keep the phone for a good few years before upgrading I have decided to follow that advice.

I am very tech savvy usually but smartphones have just passed me by. I have an old mobile (maybe 15 years old) which is pay as you go. I use my landline for 95% of my phone calls and rarely make texts, I top the phone up with £10 about once a year so you can see where I am coming from.

Any advice on what to ask for when I go into a shop and what to look out for? My present phone is with O2 and has about £15 left. Will I lose that if I transfer to a smartphone? I want to keep the same mobile number of course.

You can just put your O2 sim in the new phone but it may require a smaller sim if the one you have is not a 3 in 1 job (where you just push out the size you want.

Be aware that using a smartphone to even a small part of it's capabilities will use more data than your old dumbphone. You may want to look at getting a more suitable monthly deal. Use the link at the top of the page to see options.

What is your budget?

spadoosh

Its hard not to think that any £50 smart phone wont be the equivalent of moving from black and white to 4k ultra HD. So on that basis i dont think you can go too far wrong.

That said youve got specific requirements, i think the main one being longevity and durability? A lot of phones these days tend to go along the lines of two year contracts and from that their days are limited in terms of things like speed, battery life, security updates etc. So id encourage doing your research on the phone you want before going in anywhere. If youve got a 15 year old phone id say you want a phone with a removable or easily replaceable battery but theyre few and far between, if you can even get them. So maybe look at replacement battery costs for phone models youre looking in to.

I agree with colin on the data aspect. Good chance youll be downloading a load of apps etc that will inadvertently burn through your data if not connected to wifi and managed properly.

davidwatts

You should be fine on the o2 tariff (assume it's the Classic tariff, 3p a minute, 2p a text and 1p a MB of data). You might need to get a new 3 in 1 sim card and do a sim swap so you've got the right size sim for your new phone.

To put that in context, I'm on that tariff and hardly make a call, send a few texts and use data as and when I need it and can't get on wi-fi. My spend comes out at around £5 per month.

An older relative on their first smartphone is also on this tariff and hardly uses data away from home. Their credit lasts for ages and is likely to be no more than £20 per year if that.

Their phone is a Motorola G6 play which was down to £100 new last time I looked. I was very impressed by that phone for the money and could recommend it as a good option if your budget stretches that far.

Mistral001

Thanks everybody for your replies. They have been very helpful.

I recently travelled quite a bit by rail, bus and plane and I did not see one person who had an ordinary mobile phone.

When I came back from my travels, I looked into actually buying a smartphone and must have spent four or five frustrating hours looking at youtube videos, websites and advertising literature. I just got nowhere on the basics of buying a smartphone. Basics that Colin_Maybe, spadoosh and davidwatts have explained.

davidwatts

A few final thoughts that may be of help. I've only had 2 smartphones and only for 7 years (so by no means an early adopter). My first one was a secondhand Iphone 4s that I bought from a work colleague for a decent price (less than £100) given the very good condition it was in. That felt like a huge leap forward from my previous phone, especially in terms of internet access. Instead of just about being able to keep up with the football scores whilst out and about I could pretty much do anything I needed to online.

I used that for 4 years before I bought a brand new Iphone 6s and it's still being used by the person it was passed on to so it's had around 9 years continuous use.

The 6s was obviously much more expensive though not "top whack" as the 7 had just come out at the time. At first, I didn't feel it was much better than the 4s but after about a month the older phone seemed old, small, slow and limited by comparison and I was glad I made the change. I'm still happy with it 3 years in and would hope to get at least another couple of years use out of it, all being well!

Having seen the Motorola phone mentioned earlier, I don't feel I'll ever be spending several hundred pounds on a phone again. Something around the £150 mark should be more than adequate for my needs.

Points to take from that? If you're a relatively light user with no need to be on the cutting edge, you should get a good few years use out of your phone. By all means buy a new phone at a price you're happy with but maybe consider what the same money would buy you in terms of a better phone secondhand but in decent condition. (Admittedly I'd be happier buying from someone I knew and trusted rather than a retailer, especially an online one.)

Murmansk

There are plenty of SIM-free smartphones available at Argos so need to worry about being flogged something you don't want

I got my Honor Play from them about six months ago, it's a superb phone. They don't seem to sell it now but they have plenty of other models.

Don't get too obsessed by doing research, just decide on a price point and looks at reviews of a few phones from Motorola, Honor etc and get one. It'll be a quantum leap from what you have!

Farway

Murmansk wrote: »

There are plenty of SIM-free smartphones available at Argos so need to worry about being flogged something you don't want

same goes for the supermarkets like Asda etc, & don't forget John Lewis

Robisere

Wife and I are in our 70's but not technophobes, both have had a PC for over 25 years now. But only had our first smartphones 5 years ago, they lasted 3½ years and were from a company that went bust (Wileyfox). We went to Carphone Warehouse and were a bit cautious about that, although recommended to the local one (Louth) by a neighbour. We were treated with respect and given advice regarding several phones in our price bracket and according to our needs. The sales assistant typed out details of each of several phones and told us to go and think about a choice, using internet comparison reviews sites. He didn't try any high pressure salesmanship.

Eventually we had a Sony Xperia L3 each, which is now £10 more expensive than the price we paid. CW website:
https://www.carphonewarehouse.com/mobiles.html

We are very pleased with the Sonys and we used the previous phone's SIM in them. I think we have realised that a smartphone has become something that is replaced every so many years now: regrettable, but a fact of life. We are of the same persuasion as yourself, in that we would like to keep them for a long time, but this is not possible nowadays. Not being able to replace batteries is one problem.

One thing we did notice, is that we now use the better facilities and features of the new phones more than we did the older ones. We also conclude that we would be loath to be without them, they are so useful.

oldernonethewiser

Do you really need a smartphone? You can survive without a phone or with an old fashioned "dumb" phone.

Mistral001

Murmansk wrote: »

There are plenty of SIM-free smartphones available at Argos so need to worry about being flogged something you don't want

I got my Honor Play from them about six months ago, it's a superb phone. They don't seem to sell it now but they have plenty of other models.

Don't get too obsessed by doing research, just decide on a price point and looks at reviews of a few phones from Motorola, Honor etc and get one. It'll be a quantum leap from what you have!

All great advice, but if I can ask a dumb question?

What does "SIM-free" mean? I have searched the internett and cannot find an answer to this. Does it mean that you cannot put a SIM card into it? Does it mean that the SIM card is free? Does it mean you do not need a SIM card?