More help with buying a mobile phone.

woof woof

woof woof

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Hi All :D

Thanks for the help in the last thread I posted about mobile phones and contracts and sorry about all this but I need more advice as nothing seems to sink into my mind maybe because I have no interest in phones and contracts what so ever :D

Me and Mrs WW went to ASDA today and we spotted a Samsung phone but when we got home she said she was going to do some research and later announced that I should get a Samsung A32 5g but googling this raises lots of questions. I want to be able to get one of those cheap sim only deals that cost £5-£10 a month so I assume I need a sim free phone? And does it need to be unlocked?

Mrs WW always points me at stuff on the web site of suppliers I've never heard of that looks like it's coming from China so I googled it myself and found this...

www.appliancesdirect.co.uk

Samsung Galaxy A32 5G Blue 6.5" 64GB 5G Unlocked & SIM Free Smartphone SM-A326BZBUEUA | Appliances Direct

Buy Samsung Galaxy A32 5G Blue 6.5" 64GB 5G Unlocked & SIM Free Smartphone SM-A326BZBUEUA from Appliances Direct - the UK's leading online appliance specialist
www.appliancesdirect.co.uk www.appliancesdirect.co.uk

I think this would be what I want but I just want to be sure.

I then googled cheap sim only deals and got here...

www.appliancesdirect.co.uk

Samsung Galaxy A32 5G Blue 6.5" 64GB 5G Unlocked & SIM Free Smartphone SM-A326BZBUEUA | Appliances Direct

Buy Samsung Galaxy A32 5G Blue 6.5" 64GB 5G Unlocked & SIM Free Smartphone SM-A326BZBUEUA from Appliances Direct - the UK's leading online appliance specialist
www.appliancesdirect.co.uk www.appliancesdirect.co.uk

All this looks ok to me but I just wanted to check with people who know something and are interested in these things as I'm not sure if I can get this phone and use it on a network of my choice and also I have no idea if Vodaphone is any good or not. So, any advice would be very welcome :D

Also that sim only deal lasts a year so what happens then? Does my phone go dead on the day or automatically roll on?
 
woof woof said:
Hi All :D

Thanks for the help in the last thread I posted about mobile phones and contracts and sorry about all this but I need more advice as nothing seems to sink into my mind maybe because I have no interest in phones and contracts what so ever :D

Me and Mrs WW went to ASDA today and we spotted a Samsung phone but when we got home she said she was going to do some research and later announced that I should get a Samsung A32 5g but googling this raises lots of questions. I want to be able to get one of those cheap sim only deals that cost £5-£10 a month so I assume I need a sim free phone? And does it need to be unlocked?

Mrs WW always points me at stuff on the web site of suppliers I've never heard of that looks like it's coming from China so I googled it myself and found this...

www.appliancesdirect.co.uk

Samsung Galaxy A32 5G Blue 6.5" 64GB 5G Unlocked & SIM Free Smartphone SM-A326BZBUEUA | Appliances Direct

Buy Samsung Galaxy A32 5G Blue 6.5" 64GB 5G Unlocked & SIM Free Smartphone SM-A326BZBUEUA from Appliances Direct - the UK's leading online appliance specialist
www.appliancesdirect.co.uk www.appliancesdirect.co.uk

I think this would be what I want but I just want to be sure.

I then googled cheap sim only deals and got here...

www.appliancesdirect.co.uk

Samsung Galaxy A32 5G Blue 6.5" 64GB 5G Unlocked & SIM Free Smartphone SM-A326BZBUEUA | Appliances Direct

Buy Samsung Galaxy A32 5G Blue 6.5" 64GB 5G Unlocked & SIM Free Smartphone SM-A326BZBUEUA from Appliances Direct - the UK's leading online appliance specialist
www.appliancesdirect.co.uk www.appliancesdirect.co.uk

All this looks ok to me but I just wanted to check with people who know something and are interested in these things as I'm not sure if I can get this phone and use it on a network of my choice and also I have no idea if Vodaphone is any good or not. So, any advice would be very welcome :D

Also that sim only deal lasts a year so what happens then? Does my phone go dead on the day or automatically roll on?
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As far as I am aware all new phones are UNLOCKED it is the act of putting a sim-card in them that actually locks the phone to a particular network.

As I told you in the previous thread, I am with EE and their PAYG costs me the price of a phone call and that is it. There is no monthly top-up, there is no rolling over of unused minutes, I just pay for what I use. When my credit runs low I top-up the phone and that credit lasts as long as it takes to use it. The only stipulation is that I have to make at least one chargeable call every six months otherwise the service will be terminated. But at 15p per minute it is going to cost me a grand total of 30p per year just to keep the line alive, which is a hell of a lot cheaper than a £5 per month sim only deal (£60 per year).

So it all comes down to how much use the phone will get.
 
L320Rio said:
As far as I am aware all new phones are UNLOCKED it is the act of putting a sim-card in them that actually locks the phone to a particular network.

As I told you in the previous thread, I am with EE and their PAYG costs me the price of a phone call and that is it. There is no monthly top-up, there is no rolling over of unused minutes, I just pay for what I use. When my credit runs low I top-up the phone and that credit lasts as long as it takes to use it. The only stipulation is that I have to make at least one chargeable call every six months otherwise the service will be terminated. But at 15p per minute it is going to cost me a grand total of 30p per year just to keep the line alive, which is a hell of a lot cheaper than a £5 per month sim only deal (£60 per year).

So it all comes down to how much use the phone will get.
Click to expand...

I really don't know what's gone wrong with my PAYG and it's my fault as whenever they've sent me a txt I've just deleted it but I assume the terms have changed and now it just eats my money even when I'm making short calls. Another £20 disappeared this week and when I went to use it there wasn't enough to make a call. Also the Virgin landline is expensive so I'm hoping a monthly contract can replace my money eating PAYG and the rather expensive landline.

I could go for another PAYG but I still need a new phone no matter what I do.

Looking at the EE website I can't see a PAYG deal like the one you describe. They only seem to offer subscription packs starting at £10 a month. This is one thing about the phones and deals that phases me a bit, lots seems to be hidden or obfuscated.

Googling got me to a forum and from what people are saying on there (I didn't post, I just read it) I think I'm being charged for a pack and if I text "Stop Pack" to 150 they'll stop taking my money and I can then use the phone for calls and txt's but no data. But I'll still need to buy a new phone.
 
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woof woof said:
I really don't know what's gone wrong with my PAYG and it's my fault as whenever they've sent me a txt I've just deleted it but I assume the terms have changed and now it just eats my money even when I'm making short calls. Another £20 disappeared this week and when I went to use it there wasn't enough to make a call. Also the Virgin landline is expensive so I'm hoping a monthly contract can replace my money eating PAYG and the rather expensive landline.

I could go for another PAYG but I still need a new phone no matter what I do.

Looking at the EE website I can't see a PAYG deal like the one you describe. They only seem to offer subscription packs starting at £10 a month. This is one thing about the phones and deals that phases me a bit, lots seems to be hidden or obfuscated.

Googling got me to a forum and from what people are saying on there (I didn't post, I just read it) I think I'm being charged for a pack and if I text "Stop Pack" to 150 they'll stop taking my money and I can then use the phone for calls and txt's but no data. But I'll still need to buy a new phone.
Click to expand...

Have a look at 1p mobile for cheap PAYG. There are no packs that take all your money, just a simple 1p/minute, 1p/text and 1p/Mb Data.

They run on the EE network so coverage is good.

The only caveat is you need to top up a minimum £10 every three months.
 
There are lots of cheap sim only deals out there , don’t go with the big companies they will rip you off .. a unlimited calls and texts with just a couple of gigs of data should cost no more than £5 to £10 per month .
Like wise do not go for pay as you go deals there more expensive . Will try and find some names to look for when I wake up a bit more. Car phone warehouse or tescos are both good in respect of cheap deals and will also supply the phones if needed or buy your phone then get the cheapest sim card deal
 
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I have been really happy with GiffGaff, which uses the O2 network, for sim-only. You buy a bundle, which really just means unlimited phone and texts and a certain amount of data, for a month, and have the option to set it to recurring monthly, but you can change the bundle every month depending on what you plan to do. My wife's costs £6/month as she uses only a modest amount of data, mine is either £8 or £10 depending on whether I plan to travel anywhere for work.
 
Thanks all.

As I said above I think somehow I must have ended up on a monthly pack and they must be charging me £10 or £20 a month so after reading about this sort of thing on a phone forum I'll see if I can stop that and revert to how it was six months or so ago when I only paid for calls and texts and the money lasted months. That might stop my money disappearing until I can get a new phone and possibly a cheap monthly deal or just stick with PAYG with no monthly fees if I can do that.

The reason for wanting a new phone is that the one I have and have been using for years is an old hand me down and it's pretty useless for going online and the screen is pretty much invisible in any sort of daylight, I can't even see how to swipe to answer a call half the time. I won't be going online whilst walking down the street but if we are out anywhere where there's free wifi it would be nice to be able to see the football results or the security camera footage at home. Plus a better camera would be nice as although I don't like using phones for photography sometimes when I don't have a camera with me and I spot something I'd like to snap something better than the phone I have now would ne nice and as I think I mentioned somewhere my network sent me a txt saying it's all change in January and I might need a new phone so I'll have to look into that.

I'll leave buying a phone until tonight or tomorrow just in case anyone comes along and says that the phone I linked to above isn't right for me and if there are no objections from you experts :D I might buy one later or tomorrow and then reread this thread and my last one and make a decision on staying with a no monthly charge PAYG if I can do that or a cheap monthly deal.

Thanks again all. All this asking for simple advice may seem a bit basic but since I left the computer/tech industry my mind seems to block out stuff about a lot of tech and it just doesn't sink in anymore. Camera and lens and hifi info seems to stick as I'm interested but phone and contract talk seems to go in one ear and our the other :D
 
I'm on Smarty (part of Three) it's a 5g network with unlimited calls and text, I pay £6 for 4gb data. for 12gb data it's £8 , 50gb is a tenner and there are 200gb and unlimited packages too. Unrestricted tethering in the UK and it's a one month contact .
 
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Just remembered the one I used to use iD mobile ,paid around £8 per month very good service to. . They do a monthly roll over on unused data to , I’m currently on EE via my sons contract which works out with slightly better coverage . But most these days offer unlimited calls and texts with data limits
 
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I'll have to think about PAYG, assuming I can get it, and any advantage over the cheap monthly deals and which is going to be best to give me coms out of the house and partially replace the expensive land line at home.
 
we have FTTP installed about a year ago lightning fast wi-fi and have totally done away with the land line .works far better and as we are totally apple in house calls come through to phone/i.pad/or Mac usually got one or the other to hand
 
the black fox said:
we have FTTP installed about a year ago lightning fast wi-fi and have totally done away with the land line .works far better and as we are totally apple in house calls come through to phone/i.pad/or Mac usually got one or the other to hand
Click to expand...

Unfortunately we can't do away with the land line completely as it's in a pack from virgin with broadband. We could just unplug it but we'd still have the standing charge to pay. It doesn't get used very often and of course we do get incoming calls.

The most expensive calls we've made in recent years have been to the immigration people for Mrs WW's visas. There have been problems with the processes and the online ID things which have meant us needing to make calls and of course it can take a couple of hours to get through and the bills have been high as you obviously need to call within office hours. The long phone conversations with family members have stopped due to issue I've posted about in other threads. Mrs WW uses Line which is a free over the net thing so all her calls to the far east are free.
 
Have a look on hotUKdeals for your sim only package. I got mine from there...O2, unlimited calls and texts, and 25 gig a month for £8. Coverage is excellent here. ( Alnwick)
 
I have an iPhone which my son gave me and having using PAYG with O2 for several years with a £10 top up lasting 12 months, but I had data definitely switched off. I only used the phone for calls and text. Recently I heard that O2 will end PAYG so I would need to make a change anyway. Then I find my new Tom Tom did not include a Sim so needs to pull data from a phone. I tried using the PAYG with data on but it used £2 a day. So, I have given in and obtained a SMARTY sim card which is £5 p.m for 4Gb. I manage easily within the 4Gb. I do not wish to watch a movie on my phone and prefer any internet browsing on my PC.
 
If you have Virgin Broadband and Landline they are showing a virgin sim only deal for £7/month with unlimited calls and texts and 10gb of data , it might be cheaper for existing customers I pay £8/m for unlimited calls , texts and 2gb data which I never use.
For a phone have a look on backmarket, they do refurbished unlocked phones for not a lot and have a 12month warranty.
I have not used them but I am debating a galaxy flip phone from them
 
Phone wise I'll recommend either Xiaomi or Poco. For about £180 you should get 6 to 8gb ram, 128 or 256 GB storage, decent processor, daylight-readable screen, 3 to 5 day battery life and reasonable camera. This 5G ready Poco X4 was £180 back in the spring, my wife's M4, which is a little nicer with smaller screen and rounder edges, £145. We previously had a pair of Xiaomi phones for 4 years, and still got a 2-3 days battery life.

Be prepared to spend a couple of hours getting to know and setting up any phone you buy.

Like Lindsay, we use Giffgaff and £6 a month gets quite a lot, £10 15GB and unlimited UK calls etc. Only downside is when traveling I only get 5GB in Europe. I may move to Libara for better European data.
 
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If you're going SIM only then pop into your local cex. They have second hand phones with a 24 month warranty. A decent grade b will cost you around half what a new one would and has a longer warranty.

Then you can buy something from 2-3 years ago which will be very capable instead of a budget brand new.

I just traded my elderly Samsung in for a pixel 6.
 
woof woof said:
I'll have to think about PAYG, assuming I can get it, and any advantage over the cheap monthly deals and which is going to be best to give me coms out of the house and partially replace the expensive land line at home.
Click to expand...
Ultimately it comes down to usage. If you are going to make a lot of calls then these data packs are really good value for money. However, if you are only going to be making 30 minutes worth of calls in a year then you need to choose an option that only charges you for the actual calls that you make and doesn’t require a monthly top-up. In that instance even if the calls were charged at 40p per minute you would only be paying £12 per year, as opposed to somewhere between £40 to £120 per year using data packs.
 
I bought the phone I linked above. A nice blue one :D It's the one Mrs WW recommended so that'll keep the peace :D

L320Rio said:
Ultimately it comes down to usage. If you are going to make a lot of calls then these data packs are really good value for money. However, if you are only going to be making 30 minutes worth of calls in a year then you need to choose an option that only charges you for the actual calls that you make and doesn’t require a monthly top-up. In that instance even if the calls were charged at 40p per minute you would only be paying £12 per year, as opposed to somewhere between £40 to £120 per year using data packs.
Click to expand...

PAYG is still in the running but as I said above PAYG deals which don't charge you £XX a month or have some other catch are the ones you seem to have to hunt for as I said when looking at the EE website for the deal you mentioned which I just couldn't see anywhere on their website. I'm not saying they don't offer it anymore, just that I couldn't see it although there was that mention on the phone forum about signing up and then stopping the pack and then only paying for calls and texts.

As a poster said above and I did spot this gogling, some companies seem to be on the verge of dropping PAYG.

Anyway, I'll look into PAYG v a cheap monthly deal next.

Thanks all :D
 
woof woof said:
I bought the phone I linked above. A nice blue one :D It's the one Mrs WW recommended so that'll keep the peace :D



PAYG is still in the running but as I said above PAYG deals which don't charge you £XX a month or have some other catch are the ones you seem to have to hunt for as I said when looking at the EE website for the deal you mentioned which I just couldn't see anywhere on their website. I'm not saying they don't offer it anymore, just that I couldn't see it although there was that mention on the phone forum about signing up and then stopping the pack and then only paying for calls and texts.

As a poster said above and I did spot this gogling, some companies seem to be on the verge of dropping PAYG.

Anyway, I'll look into PAYG v a cheap monthly deal next.

Thanks all :D
Click to expand...
EE do a FREE simcard
Three do a FREE simcard

As far as I am aware all you have to do once you have got your FREE simcard is put some credit on it and then use it at your leisure.
 
L320Rio said:
EE do a FREE simcard
Three do a FREE simcard

As far as I am aware all you have to do once you have got your FREE simcard is put some credit on it and then use it at your leisure.
Click to expand...

The sim card isn't the issue as you can get free or very cheap sim cards all over the place. The issue is if you can put money on it and only pay for calls and texts or if they charge a monthly fee and your money will disappear each month.

You posted above that you only pay for calls and texts with EE but I can't see that deal anywhere on their website and all they seem to offer, unless the true PAYG is hidden somewhere, is subscription packs starting at £10 a month.

You can always prove me wrong by posting a link. It could well be that I've missed the deal you've mentioned but I've looked at the EE website several times now and I just can't see it. The monthly packs are all over the place but where's the deal where you pay only for the calls and texts you make?

As above, someone did say on a phone forum that you can sign up for a pack and then cancel it and then pay only for calls and texts. Is that what you did?

From their site "Order a free sim card and top up and buy a pack later" and if you click on the link you get a choice of packs starting at £10 a month.
 
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JonathanRyan said:
Just had a look at that link. I reckon you got a bargain. Enjoy.
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Good :D

I was a bit phased that the phone only came out last year and is already being phased out but I guess that normal with phones these days?
 
Well, my new phone came. I got to hold it when Mrs WW let go of it for about 30 seconds then she grabbed it back again. She's gone to bed in a huff because I asked her to stop down loading applications so I'm in the dog house... but I really don't see the point in downloading applications I wont use and having multiple screens full of icons as it'll just make it more cluttered and harder to find the few things I want. Hopefully she'll wake up in a better mood :D

Once she'd gone I set up some links just from google and saved them to the homepage rather than downloading the aps and I noticed that some things can't be set up as I had them on my old phone and I'm disappointed by that as some things that took one poke of an icon copied to the homepage now need a poke, a swipe swipe swipe up and another poke followed by one last poke. Other than all that it's massive compared to the one I've been using for years, both a lot taller and a bit wider too. It is faster on line though and I suppose I'll just have to get used to it and it is a lovely shade of blue. Oh, and compared to my old phone it takes an absolute age to power up.

I'll fiddle with it again over the next couple of days and then look at PAYG v a monthly deal.

Thanks all.
 
woof woof said:
Well, my new phone came. I got to hold it when Mrs WW let go of it for about 30 seconds then she grabbed it back again. She's gone to bed in a huff because I asked her to stop down loading applications so I'm in the dog house... but I really don't see the point in downloading applications I wont use and having multiple screens full of icons as it'll just make it more cluttered and harder to find the few things I want. Hopefully she'll wake up in a better mood :D

Once she'd gone I set up some links just from google and saved them to the homepage rather than downloading the aps and I noticed that some things can't be set up as I had them on my old phone and I'm disappointed by that as some things that took one poke of an icon copied to the homepage now need a poke, a swipe swipe swipe up and another poke followed by one last poke. Other than all that it's massive compared to the one I've been using for years, both a lot taller and a bit wider too. It is faster on line though and I suppose I'll just have to get used to it and it is a lovely shade of blue. Oh, and compared to my old phone it takes an absolute age to power up.

I'll fiddle with it again over the next couple of days and then look at PAYG v a monthly deal.

Thanks all.
Click to expand...
Depending on your needs, you may find a launcher such as Nova gets things back to the way you're used to.

www.androidcentral.com

The best Android launchers for your phone

Give your phone a facelift in no time at all.
www.androidcentral.com www.androidcentral.com

But you also may find that in a week or two you prefer the new arrangement. I didn't think I liked the pixel's "raw Android" at first but nearly a week in it all seems very intuitive.
 
Looking at it again the biggest surprise apart from the size of it is how long it takes to be ready for use when you turn it on. I don't know if they're all like this so I'll have to have a sneaky look at Mrs WW's phones but it takes an absolute age, I assume because of all the crap it's loading whereas my old phone just turned on and was ready to dial a number pdq.

I don't know but I expect many people don't turn their off and rather just leave them on standby?
 
I also have over 2 screens worth of Icons and my wife is always criticising saying I could not possibly need that many Apps. I now realise that my son had used this iPhone for a while before he gave it to me so I did not install most the Apps myself. I do not normally switch the phone off.

Dave
 
Dave Canon said:
I also have over 2 screens worth of Icons and my wife is always criticising saying I could not possibly need that many Apps. I now realise that my son had used this iPhone for a while before he gave it to me so I did not install most the Apps myself. I do not normally switch the phone off.

Dave
Click to expand...

One thing I wasn't really surprised about was the number of icons that appeared on the screen as default. I don't know what they all were but some were social media icons and some were ap stores etc. Even going to Google gave a page full of absolute junk. As soon as she'd gone to bed I deleted the lot :D One thing which did please me is that one of the swipe screens was just full of nothing new stories and links but I could and did delete it. I have a Samsung tablet which does something similar and it can't be stopped and it annoys me every time I accidentally see it. I don't know if people expect all this crap to appear and like it or if people are paying Samsung to include it.
 
I never turn my phone off.
Samsung are the worst manufacturer for adding bloat ware to their phones.
 
Ricardodaforce said:
I never turn my phone off.
Samsung are the worst manufacturer for adding bloat ware to their phones.
Click to expand...

That's the word I should have used... bloatware... Thanks :D

The Virgin bill came through the other day and I think a smartphone is going to have to replace the landline for outgoing calls.
 
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woof woof said:
That's the word I should have used... bloatware... Thanks :D

The Virgin bill came through the other day and I think a smartphone is going to have to replace the landline for outgoing calls.
Click to expand...

As a VM customer you can great some great benefits if you take an O2 (because they are the same company).
 
woof woof said:
One thing I wasn't really surprised about was the number of icons that appeared on the screen as default. I don't know what they all were but some were social media icons and some were ap stores etc. Even going to Google gave a page full of absolute junk. As soon as she'd gone to bed I deleted the lot :D One thing which did please me is that one of the swipe screens was just full of nothing new stories and links but I could and did delete it. I have a Samsung tablet which does something similar and it can't be stopped and it annoys me every time I accidentally see it. I don't know if people expect all this crap to appear and like it or if people are paying Samsung to include it.
Click to expand...

When I get a new phone I spend a couple of hours deleting everything that's not wanted or, if it can't be deleted, then denying it access to microphone, camera, GPS etc. so it can't report back too much. I also have a set of apps: duckduckgo, firefox, kindle reader and so on that I use in place of the default google/manufacture determined apps.

Something you might do, if Mrs WW really wants you to have lots of apps installed is to put them in a single folder that can live on the desktop and remain closed when you use the phone so that they don't intrude.
 
ancient_mariner said:
Something you might do, if Mrs WW really wants you to have lots of apps installed is to put them in a single folder that can live on the desktop and remain closed when you use the phone so that they don't intrude.
Click to expand...

She had another go at my phone today and she's just gone to bed so I'll see if she's downloaded anything... and delete it :D

She's getting a new phone as soon as she says what she wants and she can put whatever she wants on it :D Mine is staying pretty basic :D
 
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