1. #1
    I am Murloc! Mister K's Avatar
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    Galaxy S4, Pay as you Go or Contract? (UK) Which Carrier? + SD Card advice

    Hey guys just quick question, what is better - Pay as you Go or Contract here in UK?

    ATM im planning with '3' and Pay as you Go with their £15 addon.

    All-in-One 15 Add-on.
    This Add-on gives you 300 minutes, 3,000 texts and all-you-can-eat data to use within 30 days.
    All-in-One 10 Add-on.
    This Add-on gives you 100 minutes, 3,000 texts and 500MB of data to use within 30 days.

    Pay As You Go plans do not allow tethering. If you would like to tether, you will need to choose a Pay Monthly plan and / or an Add-On that does allow tethering.
    That said is this ideal? Reason why contract is not as appealing to me is due to not being able to pay the monthly fee if my situation goes sour. Even if there was a job loss, I guess I can't make many excuses as finding another temporary job shouldn't be too hard (I am sure within few weeks id find one).

    PS: I don't pay any bills, other then giving my parents £50-£100 a month for food and what not.
    Last edited by Mister K; 2013-04-27 at 06:54 PM. Reason: added to title

  2. #2
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    Best thing is to decide what you want from the service and pick a product that best fits your requirements (I appreciate that's easy to say and harder to actually decide upon!)

    Presumably with the pay-go service you have to actually buy the handset? On a contract the cost of the handset is normally built into the monthly price.
    Tethering is useful if you have another device (notebook/ultrabook/tablet) and you want data on the go.

    I have an S3 with a 2GB monthly allowance and admittedly I don't go anywhere close to that although I'm not a particularly heavy user and/or most of the data comes down various forms of WiFi. If you're out and about a lot and use the phone quite intensively I can easily imagine 500MB being consumed fairly quickly but it all depends on your usage profile.

    Do the maths for each option, consider all the things you get or don't get, and see which is best value.
    Factor in some kind of insurance, maybe you can get that with your provider or often your bank will do a current account option that includes phone insurance. If you drop the thing on day two and smash the screen you don't want to be /sadface. Check the policy details to make sure it covers these things!
    Last edited by mmocabe77c30e6; 2013-04-27 at 04:40 PM.

  3. #3
    I am Murloc! Mister K's Avatar
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    Thanks Zatie,

    When it comes to mobiles I am terrible about the plans and what not. Wifi is something I am always connected to, making phone calls isn't big issue and anything under 300-500 minutes I guess would be fine. That said I use Skype and possibly KiK and Steam 24/7 which I guess counts as a text message?

    I might go pay as you go at the end of the day, I don't see that there are huge differences, tethering is something I will not use at all.

  4. #4
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    Quote Originally Posted by H3llion View Post
    That said I use Skype and possibly KiK and Steam 24/7 which I guess counts as a text message?
    A text message is exactly that, a text message. Anything like Skype, Steam, etc, that's all part of your Data allowance and separate from your text messages.

    All I can really recommend is that you pick a package that is suitable for you and do the maths to work out, say over a 2 year period, which is most cost effective. If you start around about the 1GB data allowance mark and consider what would happen if you needed to upgrade to say 2GB, or if you didn't need that much and downgraded to 500MB. If you went either way, what would be the cost implications? Would your choice of pay-go/contract still be the best choice. I know there are many things to decide upon and that's why I'm being kinda vague about it, just trying to guide you towards thinking about the right choices

    It's an open marketplace in the UK with many providers, contracts and options all competing against eachother. It's great in that regard, but can also be quite daunting!
    Last edited by mmocabe77c30e6; 2013-04-27 at 05:35 PM.

  5. #5
    I am Murloc! Mister K's Avatar
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    Thanks for the guidance nevertheless.

    I think Unlimited Data or as much as possible at "affordable" price would be ideal due to heavy Skype, Steam, Kik and what not usage.

    Edit:

    Just went with pay as you go and all in one 15 addon pack thing as quoted in the OP. Run me around £564.99 and all you can eat data which seems mostly ideal for me. Provider, 3 since it was either that or O2 (EE is expensive and 4G is irrelevant for me).

    Edit 2:


    ---------- Post added 2013-04-27 at 07:53 PM ----------

    In terms of SD Cards, will faster cards be significantly different in terms of access times for files/music/games or is the difference minute? I am planning on purchasing fast 32GB or 64GB SD-Card with top end read/writes.
    Last edited by Mister K; 2013-04-27 at 06:53 PM.

  6. #6
    Deleted
    Quote Originally Posted by H3llion View Post
    Thanks for the guidance nevertheless.

    I think Unlimited Data or as much as possible at "affordable" price would be ideal due to heavy Skype, Steam, Kik and what not usage.

    Edit:

    Just went with pay as you go and all in one 15 addon pack thing as quoted in the OP. Run me around £564.99 and all you can eat data which seems mostly ideal for me. Provider, 3 since it was either that or O2 (EE is expensive and 4G is irrelevant for me).

    Edit 2:


    ---------- Post added 2013-04-27 at 07:53 PM ----------

    In terms of SD Cards, will faster cards be significantly different in terms of access times for files/music/games or is the difference minute? I am planning on purchasing fast 32GB or 64GB SD-Card with top end read/writes.
    Read/Write speeds on an SD-Card are all about the same. Don't pay over the price for a better brand. 45 MB/sec to about 95 MB/sec is about normal and you don't need anything more.

  7. #7
    Quote Originally Posted by H3llion View Post
    Hey guys just quick question, what is better - Pay as you Go or Contract here in UK?

    ATM im planning with '3' and Pay as you Go with their £15 addon.



    That said is this ideal? Reason why contract is not as appealing to me is due to not being able to pay the monthly fee if my situation goes sour. Even if there was a job loss, I guess I can't make many excuses as finding another temporary job shouldn't be too hard (I am sure within few weeks id find one).

    PS: I don't pay any bills, other then giving my parents £50-£100 a month for food and what not.
    Not sure this is really a computer question...you asked nothing about the technology but more about contracts...not a business forum. In the world as it is, contracts are a status symbol and allow better data rates.

  8. #8
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    you can get it on tesco mobile for £30 a month. comes with 1gb data, 500 mins and 5000 texts I believe. I asked in store about it today and they charge £6.50 per month for the sim and £23.50 per month for the handset. as it's done separately you can pretty much pay off as much as you like. he said you could pay £200 towards the handset which would then reduce your monthly bills for the remainder of the contract, or until you have paid the full price of the handset.

    it's a pretty nice way to go about because it means you can pay off a bulk sum if you happen to have some spare cash which will then make subsequent payments lower.

  9. #9
    Quote Originally Posted by crazypearce View Post
    you can get it on tesco mobile for £30 a month. comes with 1gb data, 500 mins and 5000 texts I believe. I asked in store about it today and they charge £6.50 per month for the sim and £23.50 per month for the handset. as it's done separately you can pretty much pay off as much as you like. he said you could pay £200 towards the handset which would then reduce your monthly bills for the remainder of the contract, or until you have paid the full price of the handset.

    it's a pretty nice way to go about because it means you can pay off a bulk sum if you happen to have some spare cash which will then make subsequent payments lower.
    Wow, that's a really good deal!

  10. #10
    I am Murloc! Mister K's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Milkshake86 View Post
    Not sure this is really a computer question...you asked nothing about the technology but more about contracts...not a business forum. In the world as it is, contracts are a status symbol and allow better data rates.
    I do not see other suitable forum. When we have a business forum then Il post it in there, for now Il sticking tech* related subjects into the computer forum. Feel free to move it.

  11. #11
    Titan
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    I don't know why anyone would get tied into a cell phone contract in order to pay for the phone, it's horrible. And Pay As You Go, at least around here is terrible because all you get is talk minutes and that is it. If a plan comes with unlimited data and you know you are going to utilize the data, do it, if you can live with 1 GB or whatever and it costs less money, go for that instead. Depends on your needs but Pay as you go plans generally suck complete balls.

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