Phone buying

[sobrique]

Anyone got recent experience of buying a mobile handset (or PDA or similar) online?
I'm thinking that as my contract renewal cycle is up with my phone provider, I might buy a handset, and go for an absurdly cheap and ludicrously good contract, rather than going for an 'upgrade' deal.

And that way I don't get their 'branding' built into the handset, which is usually the first thing to go when I get it.

My current thinking is that the HTC Desire looks a strong contender, and is due for release in a week or so.

Handtec look to be about the best price:
http://www.handtec.co.uk/product.php?xProd=2749

Comments

[mister-jack.livejournal.com]

Go iPhone, buy Alien Swing :)

[sobrique.livejournal.com]

I'm rather afraid that the iPhone is one I'll be avoiding, until the day that Apple decides to renounce their design principles. I suspect this might not happen any time soon.

[ammos.livejournal.com]

Dare I ask what you mean design principles. I have an iphone well this is my 2nd one in a row I upgraded to new iphone when my contract ended and I love it soo much.

[sobrique.livejournal.com]

Fundamentally the notion that Apple get to decide on what I'm allowed to run on my device.

I also have minor grievance over the fact that if you look at what you get for your money, when it's not wrapped up in phone reseller packaging, iPhones are actually phenomenally expensive.

[ammos.livejournal.com]

Very fair on both points.
Then again I run very little on my iphone and my music comes from my patheticaly small cd collection. I'll not get onto my rants about paying lots for downloaded music and stuff its not only apple who annoy me on that one.
Still in love with my phone although I loved my old sony erricson which wasn't nearly as fancy.

[ammos.livejournal.com]

Oh and depending on if you want to be tied into a more expensive contract and get nice free stuff I know a good site online.

[sobrique.livejournal.com]

I'm undecided on that. I can probably get a fairly good rate out of my phone company, but ... well, am unsure I want to sign my life away for 18 months/2 years.
On balance I might well just opt for a shorter term contract, and accept that that might well work out more expensive, but in return I get to be more flexible about my contract rates.

[draconas-rage.livejournal.com]

Oooh let me know how you get on as I am also looking at the desire. But I will probably just take the more expensive contract.

[sobrique.livejournal.com]

Ironically, it may well work out cheaper on contract, depending on your contract usage - you get an 'expensive' contract, with a built in subsidy, or a cheap contract with really good terms.

The net result is that if you're a high usage user, you may well find that unsubbed is good, as ... well, my vodafone 'upgrade' contract is looking like £20 for something silly like 900 minutes and 6000 texts per month. Problem is, I'm probably not going to use that much, and the only reason I'm paying that rate is because I want the 1Gb of data to go with it.

But on a £400 handset, 18 months of subsidy is £22/month. So works out as 'effectively' a £42/month, where a contract might well be less than that. (It would of course, come with less minutes and texts, but at the same time I don't use that much anyway)
On the flip side though, I'll have a cheap monthly bill, and I won't be tied into it, so ... well, whatever really.

[draconas-rage.livejournal.com]

Indeedy it is swings and roundabouts. I am on £15/month now and don't make enough calls to use that, but I will be wanting a plan with a high internet cap as it's data that I will mostly be pulling with the new phone.

I'll see, but if you get a desire, let me know how you get on.

[ammos.livejournal.com]

I love my no data cap that I have with o2 as its been a real godsend when ill in hospital to still be able to use the net without making someone drag my laptop and dongle in if its only a short stay.

[sobrique.livejournal.com]

I'd be surprised to find you have no data cap - in my experience that's quite rare, even amongst 'wired' ISPs. They usually weasel it with some kind of 'fair use policy', that allows them to be arbitrary about it.
I'm somewhat happier about places that are upfront about it these days - I'm fed up with 'unlimited' which isn't really.
Vodafone, for example, will give me 'free' 1Gb, and 50p per day after I've used that allowance. Given my current usage is around 100Mb/month, that's acceptable.

[ammos.livejournal.com]

If there is a cap I've never hit it. And at times I've really used the data a lot when I'm in hospital. Then again I admit I have no idea ho9w much data is used for each action I take. It was the no data cap that kept us with o2 this year rather than changing to another provider. It could be that we've been with them for a while so have just rolled the contract on and on.

[mrbear.livejournal.com]

Can't comment on the whole upgrade vs handset purchase thing, but I can tell you that I really like my HTC Tattoo which uses the same "Sense" UI that the Desire does. Nice software, intuitive operation. Very customisable. All in all very satisfactory.

[csi-ellie.livejournal.com]

Once you have a new handset i'll happily take your old HTC off you hands!