YAMPT[1]

Given that my Palm PDA is now only lasting about an hour on it's
battery, I've decided to join the smart phone revolution, but I'm fooked
if I know where to get a bargain from.

I'm looking at the HTC Desire. Currently I'm on Orange/PAYG and am
happy to stick with them (pretty good coverage in the SW) or change to
another that aren't useless bastards.

Ideally I want to pay nothing for the phone on a £20pm contract or
equivalent. I saw an offer on 3 for £15pm + £100 for the phone for 300
texts, 300 minutes and 500MB data, which seems OK, but it was through
buymobilephones.net who I know nothing about.

There's a plethora of options on quidco too.

[1] Yet Another Mobile Phone Thread.

 

I got a brand new HTC HD Mini today, it's is fucking brilliant compared to
the shitpile Touch2 it replaces.

 

It really is a fantastic phone. Although, battery life can be a bit
short if you hammer it.

I can upgrade in January and am toying with the idea of the Desire HD but
I'm not in any hurry as the normal Desire is more than good enough.

 

I have also used mobiles.co.uk in the past, so long as you're prepared to
go through the rigmarole of sending in bills etc it all works fine.

I've been looking out for a deal on the HTC Desire for a while now and the
only way you'll get it on a £20 contract (before cashback) is over 24
months not 18 AFAIK.

There are plenty of cashback deals though and the situation should improve
between now and Christmas because of the Desire HD being released.

I hate to recommend this site because of the annoying adverts but it's
actually quite good:
http://www.moneysupermarket.com/mobile-phones/brands/htc/desire/

 

third-ed.

Though it really is the clit-phone du jour.

Ogden has one. I have one. You have one. Say no more.

 

or you could do what I did, which is work out how much a £20/24 month
contract actually costs, and just bought one on PAYG for £315, then
swapped my old £10/ rolling month SIM card into it.

 

You actually get billed? I thought contracts were just pay up front per
month, and review your call usage online. But never having had a contract
before, I don't know why I particularly thought it would work that way
round.

 

OK, it really is time for me to join the third millennium phone-wise. A
question though. Could I use it to connect my Samsung NC10 to the
interwebby if I want to? Particularly abroad. At present I have a
Vodafone mobile broadband dongle which achieves this. I also have a
Vodafone £15 a month contract SIM in my pikey Samsung slider phone. They
did me a 3GB a month mobile broadband deal for £7.50 a month because "I
have been with them so long". I'm thinking that if I could drop the
dongle and just have one contract on a whizzo phone that could allow
connection from the NC10, that might be the way to go. I know you can do
a lot of internet stuff on the Desire, but my poor old eyes sometimes
struggle on the NC10 when browsing web pages at 'the chateau' and I have
to step the zoom up.
--
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| Pete Fisher at Home: |
| Aprilia Shiver Yamaha WR250Z/Supermoto "Old Gimmer's Hillclimber" |
| Gilera GFR * 2 Moto Morini 2C/375 Morini 350 "Forgotten Error" |
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Most of the contracts I've seen are 24 months, so I've got in my head that
I'd be doing that anyway.

I'd rather do without all the faffing of sending in bills.

 

Yes, you can do that. It's called "tethering" if you want to look it up.

Depends on the network whether it's a chargeable thing (some of them lock
down the phone software so you can't do it for free).

 

So long as it doesn't have any additional cost over the usual £10 for 24
hours/50 Mb abroad I don't mind.
--
+-------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Pete Fisher at Home: |
| Aprilia Shiver Yamaha WR250Z/Supermoto "Old Gimmer's Hillclimber" |
| Gilera GFR * 2 Moto Morini 2C/375 Morini 350 "Forgotten Error" |
+-------------------------------------------------------------------+

 

I used buymobilephones.net to buy my Nokia E72 (which has good battery life
for a smart phone btw). I'm found them helpful at sorting out little
problems and generally a good company to deal with. Seem to have some good
deal on handsets and contracts.

Worth considering t-mobile contracts as they usually offer 1gb of data for
the same money and with the t-mobile/orange merger, you can now opt into use
both networks (if you haven't already done so).

Tim

 

Where did you find it for £315?

 

I'll need to study the small print a bit more on the deal that they had.

I didn't know that, so haven't already done so.

Ta.

 

o2 shop on the high-street (well, Enfield Town's shopping mall); I
think it was mispriced because it was listed at £385 on o2's website
at the time. This was back in July, so the mispricing, if that what it
was, may well have been corrected since then.

 

ah, I see.

contract-slave.

 

it up.

Even easier than that with the latest version of android. It has a
built in wifi hotspot, so your phone looks like a wifi network to a
pc and bridges the connection over the mobile network.
Abroad though, I'd recommend using local wifi services where
possible. Using roaming data is more expensive than divorving ivana
trump.

 

Indeed, but does it then use the £10 for 24 hour/50 Mb charging system
or the truly eye watering tariff?

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That's still called tethering, perversely enough.

 

The latter. At least on the Orange deal I have.