Advice on new phone, please.

[Giraffe]

Help please! I'm really not up to date with phones - had the same Doro 612 one for about 5 years and do like it. It's only 2G so no data.
Was using Vectone's* £1/month scheme; that's now stopped and it will be £5/month - I used only about 10 - 20% of the £1.

3's PAYG looks pretty good for my useage, but I'd need 3G at least - damned nuisance as my Doro still goes a week on a charge.
Looking on 3's site, http://www.three.co.uk/store/mobile-phones?type=payg I'm wondering if one of the cheaper ones would be any good - an on-screen keyboard would help with texts. The Xiaomi 6A looks OK-ish.


*Vectone was Delight Mobile, so there might be some difficulty in getting my number back.

[PC-LAD]

3 is best PAYG, I also have a nokia 1 lying around which if you pm me a price I'll be happy to consider.

[DanceswithUnix]

Three payg is pretty good, I keep data switched on and always use Waze when driving to avoid traffic and it costs me about £3 per month.

Phones is tricky, the low end ones tend to have not enough RAM so are sluggish, not enough storage so you end up juggling which apps are loaded. Often the screens have really low resolution.

Not a lot of choice in the Three shop though, I would suggest browsing around Carphone Warehouse as well, their phones are unlocked and should work on Three. The Moto E has a pretty big battery for a little more money, though I haven't tried the latest generation the first ones were good.

https://www.carphonewarehouse.com/mo...o-e5-play.html

[PC-LAD]

Phones is tricky, the low end ones tend to have not enough RAM so are sluggish, not enough storage so you end up juggling which apps are loaded. ]

Nokia phones run andrid one. The most I had happening when navigating manchester was soundcloud and maps go. I found it quite capable in most regards besides games XD.

[Millennium]

Three payg is pretty good, I keep data switched on and always use Waze when driving to avoid traffic and it costs me about £3 per month.

Phones is tricky, the low end ones tend to have not enough RAM so are sluggish, not enough storage so you end up juggling which apps are loaded. Often the screens have really low resolution.

Not a lot of choice in the Three shop though, I would suggest browsing around Carphone Warehouse as well, their phones are unlocked and should work on Three. The Moto E has a pretty big battery for a little more money, though I haven't tried the latest generation the first ones were good.

https://www.carphonewarehouse.com/mo...o-e5-play.html

huh? I pay £8 or 9 a month for EE 4g (!) 4gb data a month etc. Am I wrong on this s ? Should I look for another contract? I use tidal on my phone rarely and I think about 3gb a month would cover me (EE seems to have reasonable 4G in west London %)

[DanceswithUnix]

huh? I pay £8 or 9 a month for EE 4g (!) 4gb data a month etc. Am I wrong on this s ? Should I look for another contract? I use tidal on my phone rarely and I think about 3gb a month would cover me (EE seems to have reasonable 4G in west London %)

Difficult to say, unless you are using a phone locked to EE in which case the cost of unlocking or replacement might make it not worth it (until next time you want to upgrade).

I used to be contract with EE, I got a 3 sim from the supermarket and stuck it in an old phone to check the signal strength before I switched over at the cost of £1 for the sim and £10 for the top-up. I think if you go via Three you can get the sim for free. At the end of my testing I had used something like 20p, so I switched

Also handy for a spare phone as the minutes don't expire (as long as you use the phone once every few months so the number doesn't expire).

Edit: The payg is 1MB for 1p as a flat rate. I have wifi at work and at home, so it is really just navigation data and a bit of browsing which doesn't actually add up to much. If you are really hitting 3GB per month then you are better off on contract and the contract you have seems about the going rate.

[Giraffe]

Thanks to all for the tips - as I said, I'm really not familiar with modern 'phones. My nice old Doro has quite a lot of intrinsic protection, so, with the addition of a padded, shower-proof case, has a chance of surviving my cross-country walks.

@PC-LAD: thanks, but if anything goes wrong...
@DanceswithUnix: that's made me think (I've taken some Anadin!), so looked on Argos where the reviews can be useful and the Alcatel 3 looks OK and has a 2-year warranty.
https://www.argos.co.uk/product/8794246

I might get the Alcatel and then try to extract my number from Vectone - wish me luck!

[Kumagoro]

I use three payg 3 -2 -1 however I use the free data version where you get 200MB a month free. It is supposed to be a data sim but it has its own number and you can top it up and use it like any other SIM.

https://www.three.co.uk/Free_SIM_MBB/Order

I would suggest getting a Dual SIM phone then have two of them.

--

I also just bought a Three Data SIM from Amazon which has 24 GB preloaded and lasts two years for £43 (£1.80 a month)... actually it has gone down a couple of quid to £41 now.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Three-Mobil...s%2C128&sr=8-2

There is also a 12GB version for a year from my memory £27

https://www.mymemory.co.uk/3-payg-4g...12gb-data.html

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There is also 1p mobile where calls texts and 1mb of data is 1p. The downside was that you need to top up £10 every 4 months which for me was above my usual usage. If it had been every 6 motnhs of for £5 it would have been a winner for me at least.

https://www.1pmobile.com/

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Phone wise I like Xiaomi they are reasonably cheap dual sim and the batteries for certain models are pretty big. I have the mi A2 lite which has a 4000 mAh battery, dual sim and has Android One. The only down side really it the notch is a bit big and messes up the notification area. The newer tear drop types I would be okay with.

[Giraffe]

Some useful links, thank you.
I'm inclined to get just the PAYG SIM as I won't use much data - or anything else!

[blueball]

It depends where you live (in your case Northampton) and where you may travel to. I live in Scotland and 3 is an absolute bloody joke up here. EE is the best coverage in Scotland but use their subsidiary (Plusnet) for a much cheaper tariff if you think you will travel up here.
http://www.three.co.uk/Discover/Network/Coverage
https://ee.co.uk/why-ee/mobile-coverage

[Giraffe]

EE looks far better for coverage but doesn't do a true PAYG SIM - I view £5 for 30 days as simply a very short-term contract.
Dilema: PAYG SIM or, possibly, better reception?
No guarantee that EE will actually be better, given my exact location.

[DanceswithUnix]

Just make sure any phone you get isn't carrier locked so you can swap easily.

EE paygo is horribly expensive. Data rates are specially mental to make sure you get charged £1 per day.

Edit: BTW I thought if you want to transfer your number a provider has no choice but to provide a PAC code.

[Giraffe]

The Alcatel is SIM-free and, according to the questions that have been answered, can be used anywhere with any network.
Yes, I'd heard something about EE - I'll steer clear.
Couple of years ago there were forums discussing Delight Mobile's reluctance to release numbers; Vectone, I think, was associated with DM and they're now one. Vectone does seem more responsive than DM was. Oh, I'm also having trouble connecting to Vectone's site I wonder if there's a procedure for getting the number back if the provider won't talk.
It's a bit reminiscent of the problems getting away from TalkTalk about 10 or so years ago.

[Kumagoro]

I heard today that o2 now have a 321 payg. You need to top up every 6 months though or risk losing the credit and your number.

The three data SIM with 200 MB free every month is hard to beat.

£5 now lasts me about 4 months now I use hangouts for messages and calls. You get roughly 5 minutes per megabyte so a lot cheaper than normal calls and using sms really is not worth it.

[Giraffe]

AIUI from 3's site, it's necessary to make a chargeable call or use data every 6 months, no top up.
Topping up seems to be a bit convoluted - there's no automatic way when it drops to a preset amount - I see what happens! I don't know how much data it'll get through - that will depend on how much crapware I can disable and, of course, what I choose to use.

Anyway, I've ordered the Alcatel 3. I would expect a modernish 'phone to be more sensitive to weak signals than one that was designed probably about 6 - 7 years ago.

[DanceswithUnix]

AIUI from 3's site, it's necessary to make a chargeable call or use data every 6 months, no top up.

Sounds about right. The Three App is a bit hit and miss on telling me how much credit I have left, it doesn't like being on WiFi. I used to top up £5 at a time online as any topup gave 200MB free so it paid to top up small amounts, I think they fixed that though so last time I topped up £20 so I should be able to just use the phone for half a year at my usage rate.