Contract phone's advice

[Daniel306]

Im looking at buying a new phone and currently looking at the Sony xperia S on the one plan from 3, £31 a month and 29 today, its unlimted internet and i can connect my laptop to it when im working away from home(fairly common), the minutes and texts im not to interested in as i dont use lots.

But the last new phone i bought was a w810 and im currently using a w995, and iv never had a contract phone. Is this a good deal and is there anything i should watch out for?

[4WayDiablo]

Just looks at the stats and it looks to be a very good phone even if it is dual core (saying it like its a bad thing lmao)
Only thing I'd be worried about is the 1650mah battery which sounds like it lacks

[samass]

in my experience, stay away from xperia, and three.
but im bitter, i've had my x10i fro two years now, and its terrible, been in for repair three times, twice got a new handset. issues with it being slow, freezing, signal loss, 3g signal loss, not getting texts/calls.
but having said that, the x10i was quite an early sony ericson andriod phone, and they might have learnt a lot from then.
as for network, i've been with three since 2008, and i dont really get any signal indoors, but outside, in any built up area [like london] signal is fine. they are cheap, thats their biggest plus point, the 3g coverage is ok, but i find indoors in most places, ill have one or max two bars, while my mates on orange or o2 get three or four.
im not going back with three, i hate the shit signal. customer service is ok, standard language barrier as their callcentres are in bangalore, india, but they are reasonably helpful, and sort you out.
having said that, they did manage to lose my phone for about a month when it went for repair, but they didnt charge me for that month, so that was good.

in short, my experience has bee ok, im just sick of shit signal. customoer service is ok, and they are cheap. im going to pay more to get better signal, but thats just me.

hope that's a little helpful

[Toby]

As Daniel said though, he is likely to use the internet tethering feature quite a lot and 3 are one of the only providers to offer a decent amount..

If he went with Vodafone for example, they would only likely give 500mb/month for a contract of that price.

[samass]

true. but my sister on t-mobile has unlimited i think. and she uses tethering a lot on the train, and has never gone over

[Toby]

I've just checked on the 3 website though.

All you can eat data does not cover tethering..

If your smartphone plan includes all you can eat data, then this is for data consumption actually on your smartphone. It does not include using your smartphone as a modem to connect other devices such as laptops and tablets â?? also known as â??Tetheringâ?

[samass]

ah. whoops. might stop doing that then...

[Daniel306]

The one plan dose include tethering as standard, but the the other plans they want £5 extra a month

[thms182]

Unlimited doesn't normally mean unlimited...

[Daniel306]

http://support.three.co.uk/SRVS/CGI-BIN ... %283833%29



f you're on The One Plan you can use the internet when you're out and about with other devices including laptops, tablets and games consoles, just by connecting them through Wi-Fi or USB to your phone. You can tether on all our One Plan tariffs including SIM Only with a one-month rolling contract.



If youâ??re on one of our Pay Monthly plans, including the Essential Internet and Ultimate Internet Plans and want to tether, youâ??ll need to buy an Add-on. Youâ??ll then get a tethering allowance. You can only use this allowance in the UK.

[mark_airey]

Unlimited doesn't normally mean unlimited...

^^ this, all "unlimited" anything have a "fair usage policy" applied to them.........

Edit:- OK so after a quick google this "limit" on the 3 "all you can eat" tariff's is 1000GB, you would do bloody well to use all that in a month!

[Toby]

Unlimited doesn't normally mean unlimited...

^^ this, all "unlimited" anything have a "fair usage policy" applied to them.........

To be fair, with 3, their 'fair use' policy is 1000GB/month for all you can eat data on smartphones..

That's pretty much unlimited

[Daniel306]

All-you-can-eat-data allowance on your phone this feature allows un-restricted data access without any fair use policy,

this is what they said, but i really have no idea about it all

[mark_airey]

All-you-can-eat-data allowance on your phone this feature allows un-restricted data access without any fair use policy,

this is what they said, but i really have no idea about it all

from their website smallprint here - http://www.three.co.uk/smallprint/terms ... 0469566802

I found this

Does all you can eat data come with any limits? The limit is how much your device can consume â?? if you were to actively use data or the Internet on your phone every second, of every day, in every month (and we would be worried if you were !!!!) you would, subject to the current traffic management requirements (which vary from time to time), use up to 1000GB per month. So in essence there is a limit of how much data you can actually consume which is up to 1000GB. All this means that you can have absolute piece of mind and enjoy all the internet you need on your smartphone, without worrying.

[samass]

its all well and good having 1000GB of free data, but if you cant get signal to use it...

[Daniel306]

Iv got a 3 mifi card for that laptop just now and it seams to work ok, but i dont know if it works better that a phone for signal, do you think they would cancel the contract if i was unable to get a signal even tho there site map says i will

[samass]

i dunno tbh. if you can get decent signal in most places with a mifi card, id imagine you should be able to get a similar service with a phone. trying to not be too negative about three, im just one of those people thats had a bad experience and cant wait to be rid lol.
got any mates on three? might be an idea to see if they get signal in places that you frequent

[Daniel306]

Do you have any other phones with the same kinda deal that you would recommend?

[samass]

not specifically, but htc are generally a good bet, or the galaxy range. i need to start looking up on whats out there, i need a new phone...

[mark_airey]

Avoid the "Wildfire S" though as it doesn't have enough internal memory which cause problems and was a bit of a cock up on HTC's part IMO!

[Eeyore]

You want to buy the phone and then get GiffGaff. I got an orange san francisco for £90 (prevoius phone was a W810i too) and i found android was amazing! With giffgaff its £10 a month but its only like a monthly contract so you pay for the month and thats it. You can upgrade packages etc to get different things...

With the £10 a month you get truly unlimited internet, unlimited texts and 250 minutes. It says please dont tether but i do it anyway and apparently if you use stupid amounts they just ask why and you can just say something like your pc has broken so you did all your browsing on your phone. Definitely recommend them. You get free credits if you can get other people to join etc which you can then exchange for money via paypal or for products in their shop!

Check it out here!

The orange san francisco / san francisco 2 i would highly recommend as a budget phone and is a brilliant step up from a W810i. Never had any problems, unlocking was easy and cost £1 or free if you find the right website. There are loads of articles about putting different ROMs on it etc. Bargain for £80/90! Its a little slow for the latest versions of angry birds and some games etc but for day to day use its really good value!

if you want to spend lots of moneyi highly recommend the galaxy S2 onwards as everytime ive used one it has been silky smooth!

[samass]

oh yeah, like mark said, avoid the wildfire, and any variations like the plague. terrible, terrible phone. so slow.

[Daniel306]

Is it worth testing the xperia s or should i got for a iphone 4s for a extra £3 a month and about £20 today, im not a iphone fan tho

[cwspellowe]

My iPhone's on 3 with all you can eat data, never had any issues with reception and the data part means I can use the sat nav, for instance, when i'm working as I seem to have misplaced mine.

Great to have as you don't need to worry about reaching your limit, I doubt I get 1Tb usage out of my home broadband, never mind on a phone!

[mark_airey]

oh yeah, like mark said, avoid the wildfire, and any variations like the plague. terrible, terrible phone. so slow.

The original Wildfire is an alright phone TBH, the newer "Wildfire S" is a crock of shite however!

[samass]

Is it worth testing the xperia s or should i got for a iphone 4s for a extra £3 a month and about £20 today, im not a iphone fan tho

personally, id stay away from xperia, BUT, the x10 that i have is an epic pile of shite. they might have fixed it for the later versions. have a look around for current reviews and see what problems (if any) that people are having with them.

oh yeah, like mark said, avoid the wildfire, and any variations like the plague. terrible, terrible phone. so slow.

The original Wildfire is an alright phone TBH, the newer "Wildfire S" is a crock of shite however!

my ex had a wildfire, always really slow, never really worked very well at all

[mark_airey]

my ex had a wildfire, always really slow, never really worked very well at all

My wife had one, I flashed CyanogenMod Rom onto it the other night and got rid of all Vodafone's bloatwear and its actually pretty fast and alright to use.

Plus for a budget phone you couldn't get much better for the money at the time!

[samass]

ah thats i should have done to my ex's. didnt really know about that at all back then tho, still dont really hahaha

[mark_airey]

ah thats i should have done to my ex's. didnt really know about that at all back then tho, still dont really hahaha

CyanogenMod is 80mb vs the 350ish mb of the branded up HTC version of Android, I'm currently running runnydroid on mine which is a mucho's improved version of Android Gigerbread

Anyway, a little off topic