What's the best deal on an iPhone/smartphone

takethehighroad

I want to get a smart phone some time in the near future, but I wanted some advice as to the best deals around.

I would like an iPhone, but I know how expensive they are, even on the cheapest tariffs. What I need to know is is the HTC any cheaper or is the difference in price in correlation with the change in quality? Also, is it worth considering a Blackberry?

What I'll want is unlimited texts first of all, unlimited internet, and lastly quite a lot of minutes (I use around 500-800 currently

Any advice will be appreciated, cheers.

redvee

Virgin are offering £25 for 600mins, unlimited text which means 3000, 1gb data. This isn't on a particulat handset though Blackberry tarriffs are slightly different and you need to promise to give them money for two years which is the norm these days. I've got this deal on a wildfire plus they gave me a nokia 5230cFOC.

bompington

I've just upgraded to a Galaxy S, which is impressing me so far, phone free on £20 a month from Orange for 200 mins / texts + "unlimited" internet (can't remember what the actual limit is but I' certainly never went near it with the old phone)

takethehighroad

That's the thing, I need unlimited texts. My phone's never out of my hand lol

The Virgin one looks decent, what's their coverage like?

rick_chasey

HTC desire is plenty cheaper than an Iphone.

I thought you were a student?!

takethehighroad

I was, graduated now.

rick_chasey

Fair enough. I have 600 mins, 500mg data (which, is way more than you'd ever need) and unlimited texts, with orange (and thus T-mobile too) for £30 a month - with an HTC Desire.

The point is, with an iphone or HTC desire, you can use any wireless network around and so not encroach on your data allowance.

APIII

I got a 32gb iphone 4 on 3 network for £189. £30 amonth for unlimited texts, 500 anytime minutes, 2000 minutes to other 3 phones and 1gb data allowance. The 16gb phone is £99. That was the best deal I could find at the time.

I'd look at www.quidco.com aswell, as there are usually some cashback deals on there.

Pross

APIII wrote:

I got a 32gb iphone 4 on 3 network for £189. £30 amonth for unlimited texts, 500 anytime minutes, 2000 minutes to other 3 phones and 1gb data allowance. The 16gb phone is £99. That was the best deal I could find at the time.

I'd look at www.quidco.com aswell, as there are usually some cashback deals on there.

That sounds like a brilliant deal :shock:

APIII

Pross wrote:

APIII wrote:

I got a 32gb iphone 4 on 3 network for £189. £30 amonth for unlimited texts, 500 anytime minutes, 2000 minutes to other 3 phones and 1gb data allowance. The 16gb phone is £99. That was the best deal I could find at the time.

I'd look at www.quidco.com aswell, as there are usually some cashback deals on there.

That sounds like a brilliant deal :shock:

Yeah, the price of the handset was way lower than anywhere else. The other positive was getting away from T-Mobile who are the most incompetent shower of shites I've ever had the displeasure of dealing with

rick_chasey

If you think T Mobile is a sh!tshow...

3 is by far and away the worst network in my unfortunate experience - there's a reason 3 is so much cheaper.

bompington

Pross wrote:

APIII wrote:

I got a 32gb iphone 4 on 3 network for £189. £30 amonth for unlimited texts, 500 anytime minutes, 2000 minutes to other 3 phones and 1gb data allowance. The 16gb phone is £99. That was the best deal I could find at the time.

I'd look at www.quidco.com aswell, as there are usually some cashback deals on there.

That sounds like a brilliant deal :shock:

I was first quoted £200 by Orange to upgrade to the Galaxy; now I'm not exactly Mr Hard Bargainer but it took about 5 minutes to reduce that to £0

Cubic

I've just renewed my contract on T-mobile. I was going to change provider as the signal was really weak in my house, but you can now get Orange signal with a TM phone, so I decided to renew.

I'm paying £20/month and getting 300mins/300texts and unlimited data(3gb in reality). With TM you get a free booster thing too - I went for unlimited calls to other TM phones, but you can also get unlimited texts too.

The phone I got is a HTC Desire. It seems really good so far, very nice interface, very customisable and the battery life isn't as bad as I was expecting.

APIII

bompington wrote:

Pross wrote:

APIII wrote:

I got a 32gb iphone 4 on 3 network for £189. £30 amonth for unlimited texts, 500 anytime minutes, 2000 minutes to other 3 phones and 1gb data allowance. The 16gb phone is £99. That was the best deal I could find at the time.

I'd look at www.quidco.com aswell, as there are usually some cashback deals on there.

That sounds like a brilliant deal :shock:

I was first quoted £200 by Orange to upgrade to the Galaxy; now I'm not exactly Mr Hard Bargainer but it took about 5 minutes to reduce that to £0

I had previously got a free upgrade to the galaxy with T-mobile, but a week later and 3 seperate trips to the shop in my lunch hour and the thing still wouldn't work (couldn't sync with the google server, so no email, internet, etc). They'd had "loads" with the same problem apparently, but still couldn't work out what the problem was. No worries, as it was within 7 days, they would just cancel it and I'd go back to my old tariff on my old phone. So I was back to square one.
I rang them up a month later to cancel. No, you can't do that you're on a new 18 month contract they said. I explained what had happened and an hour later after contacting the shop they agreed that they'd made a mistake, I was no longer in contract and I could cancel
Got my iphone from 3. Two weeks later, get a final bill from T-Mobile with a £180 early termination fee! Ring them up and again, they've said it's because I cancelled an 18 month contract early. Went through the same rigmarole as before, they agreed that the money would be credited. A week or two passed and nothing, so rang them up again. For the third time, I'm told I have to pay this termination fee! wtf?? another half an hour on the phone explaing and again they agree a refund within 14 days. Why 14 days when they could do it there and then? Eventually got the money back. A horrible waste of time in all, and a completely disorganised company in my view. This wasn't supposed to be a rant btw, just my experience!!

schlepcycling

I got the HTC Desire from 3 on their 1 plan, 2000 any network minutes, 5000 texts, 5000 3 to 3 minutes and 1gb of internet for £35p/m with nothing to pay upfront for the phone.

Pokerface

No doubt the iPhones are expensive. Worth it to some, not to others.

The longer you lock into the contract and the higher the monthly tariff - the cheaper the phone.

Tesco probably has the best short-term deal on the iPhones. You can get 12 month contracts for as low as £20 a month (250 minutes, unlimited texts and browsing included), but the base cost for the phone is £350. Compare that with a 24-month contract at £45 a month and the phone only costs £19.

Just depends how much you are willing to pay up front, how long a contract you want and how much a month you are willing to pay.

shouldbeinbed

Rick Chasey wrote:

Fair enough. I have 600 mins, 500mg data (which, is way more than you'd ever need) and unlimited texts, with orange (and thus T-mobile too) for £30 a month - with an HTC Desire.

The point is, with an iphone or HTC desire, you can use any wireless network around and so not encroach on your data allowance.

+1 but on vodafone. you'll not get much less than £25-30 for a 'free' phone and 24 month in handcuffs as the handsets are much more costly to recoup via the contract.

I looked at a lot and asked around all the shops and the desire is considered superior to the iphone, I know a few iphonists that are switching to the desire and I prefer it to the Mrs's 3g iphone. Also look at the resale sites etc if you do plump for an iphone, iphone 3gs are more popular than the 4's and people seem to be commanding more of a premium for them. could be wise to be a bit wary of getting a 4

mobiles.co.uk offer decent deals up front and offer giveaways/discount line rentals by redemption but the aftercare reviews show them to be a bit hit and miss. If you shop canny on there you'll potentially get a desire for the equivalent of £20 or so a month.

now the desire HD (faster cpu and bigger screen) and the Z (slide out proper keyboard) are out then the bog standard one (in the same way you can buy a bog standard ferrari) might begin to drop a few quid but probably not till after christmas.


@RC - I seem to have devoured my 1st month 200Mb(pro rata) data alowance within a week of getting my desire, is there a setting I've not clocked when wifi goes on, to check / ensure the phone picks the wifi over the mobile signal?

thel33ter

I got an HTC Hero about 9 months ago, I pay £20 a month, and get 600 minutes with unlimited calls and internet.

Just shop around and you are bound to find a bargain, as long as you aren't looking for an iPhone

verylonglegs

If you are upgrading to a smartphone from one of the more basic models then be prepared to find yourself charging your phone a lot more often, especially with the kind of usage you've described.

redvee

VM coverage is brilliant, they piggyback onto T-Mobile IIRC.

takethehighroad

Thanks for all the help guys, it's very much appreciated, but goes some way to demonstrate the difficulties one faces!!!

I'm torn between the HTC Desire or HD, and the iPhone. However, like Pokerface says, it's dependant on the length of the contract, as I don't want to be stuck in a 24 monther on the iPhone when they'll bring out an update in a year (although I know O2 did 12month upgrades on Business tariffs for similar £per month)

Once again thanks for the help, it's cleared a few things up for me

stigofthedump

I have a Nokia X6 on Virgin. It was free on £20 month unlimited internet and texts and 600 mins calls.
Nokia Phones have free sat nav and Sports tracker is a free app which is a brilliant way to record your training. I believe that HTC phones have a similar app which also uses the GPS feature.

RonB

I asked something similar last month and ended up with a iphone4 from Tesco on a 12 month deal, which seemed best at the time.