Mobile Phones UK

[belalala]

so, what's the deal? need to get on a plan pretty much the day i get into london before heading out for outlook the next day so i'd like a little advice from the ninjas who know best.

i'm going to be honest here--i've been really spoiled by my iphone here in the states, and especially with GPS functionality in a largely unknown city, i'm keen on continuing with one while i'm in london.

i text frequently, but not constantly by any means. i have unlimited texts here, just because i don't like having to worry about overcharges. don't spend a whole lot of time talking on the phone either.. and if possible, could hook up my account with my fella's if that saves money at all (like a family plan type deal, but i'm not sure if that exists for just 2 people?)

i know several carriers have the iphone in the UK, but a few questions
1- any carriers to stay away from, or any with particularly good and affordable service?
2- does anyone know if there would be any phone charges for bringing my used, unlocked phone from the states and putting it on a new contract in the UK?
3- what type of budget should i be looking at, approximately?

here's a gif for your sweet time

[Gewze]

stay away from orange, pure shite. o2/ vodaphone/ t-mobile are safe. can iphones take sim only things? coz you can get unlimited text and internet on o2 for £15 quid top up

[firky]

You see I found Orange by far the best in terms of customer service and coverage. They're a little bit pricier but I was always happy with them.

Belalala, you're used to American mobile networks where you have to pay for silly things like receiving text messages. Nothing like that here.

I just use PAYG. £10 a month gives me 500 free texts, 60 free minutes (that I never use) and 2GB of tinternet. Most months I just roll-over my texts, credit and web from the previous month. So it probably works out at around £5 a month for me

[cityzen]

O2 all day, every day.
The rest are gash. T-Mobile in particular can suck out!

Hope this helps!

[festi]

used to work in a phone shop and to be honest all the networks are no worse than each other, people will have good and bad experiences with all of them
t-mobile and orange both use each others signal so youll tend to get the best coverage with those, but tbh most networks have good coverage around built up areas anyway, you can check coverage on the network websites by postcode/street to get an idea of whats good for where your gonna be staying/working

in terms of using your american iphone here, i would check with the networks or even with apple that it would work, i would imagine it should be fine as long as it isnt locked to a network but would double check that, dont think any network would charge you for it if it will work though

if you can use the same phone you should be able to get a fairly cheap sim only deal around the £15 a month mark as has been said before and most plans will offer unlimited texts, if not and your still looking for an iphone expect to be looking at £35+ per month to get the iphone4 for free, but you could always go for a cheaper deal and pay a percentage of the phone cost up front depending on how cheap a plan you take out, could even ebay your old one and use those funds to pay that up front cost or w/e

other than network specific stores, Carphone Warehouse and Phones 4 u are probably the 2 most well known high street phone shops though if you have time and are near a tesco with a phone shop i would check it out as they have some good deals from time to time as well

hope this helps

[test_recordings]

Virgin have the best pay-as-you go rates as far as I'm aware (don't know about internet rates but I bet they'll be competitive as Virgin has quite a significant market share of internet providings)

[Sheff]

O2 all day, every day.
The rest are gash. T-Mobile in particular can suck out!

Hope this helps!

this

plus you get bareeeeeeeeeee free stuff with o2 and its cheap as fuck

[autobot]

Don't go on 3, I hate those guys with a passion and everyone i talk to have also had shit experiences.

Im on vodaphone, £10 for 300 texts and 30 or 60 minutes - i cant remember :/ anyway haven't had any problems with them....so far

[DRTY]

Wouldn't use a UK phone in Croatia!

[yoowan]

buy a phone in crotia

[firky]

Don't go on 3, I hate those guys with a passion and everyone i talk to have also had shit experiences.

They're fucking shit. Back when they were a new kid on the block I got a contract off them, one of those square nokias when nokias where boss.

Check out this don:



It was fucking awesome. It even played mp3s on it's 16MB of memory

Best of all they never debited my account for it once. Then one day they cut me off and asked for the money, I pointed out I had given my bank account details in store and they were checked and it was their fault they didn't debit my account or charge me. Cut a long story short I had a free phone for about six months with unlimited usage and i got to keep it. They caved in when I got in touch with CaB.

They're fucking useless, but their fuck up proved in my favour this time

(still have hte phone too haha)

[noam]

[wub]

When they first started doing the viral marketing for that, I remember seeing an advert for the Wasp T12 at Paddington and thinking "that looks quite cool"

[test_recordings]

It looks like a turd that's been dried out then painted with a sticker as the 'screen'

[wub]

It looks like a turd that's been dried out then painted with a sticker as the 'screen'

It folds out and has twin MP3 decks in it.

[oski]

if you want a monthly plan i think you need a bank account.. and for that you need a permanent address and some kind of bill with your adress on it.. i doubt you'll be able to get that in a day..

[belalala]

ah, so maybe pay as you go is the way to go for the first bit, at least, until we've been fully settled.
really keen on taking a phone to croatia as i had quite a bit of trouble not being able to get in contact with artists etc. for meet ups and interviews last year.. would prefer not to go back to that decrepit little t-mobile payphone again this year.

thanks for all the advice; any knowledge about a plan with flexibility for roaming outside of the UK?

[DRTY]

dont even bother. Get a PAYG sim card in Croatia, and if you're staying in the UK then get a contract

[belalala]

afraid i don't have a sim card on my phone though...

[DRTY]

what do u mean? I mean buy a Croatian PAYG sim card and shove that in your phone, voila cheaper calls whilst in croatia