Budget PAYG Phone Dilemma.

I'm looking for a new phone. I jumped into the Microsoft pond when the new Lumia 640 launched 2 and bit years ago. Have to say it's a brilliant phone, was upgraded to Windows 10 and still worked great. Best battery on a budget phone in 2015 and up until a few months ago lasted a whole day on battery! The app gap was a big downer through. But everything else was beautiful about the way the phone worked and handled. All for £90. Then Microsoft got rid of Nokia and decided to no-longer support
Specs at the time were:
  • Quad-core Snapdragon 400 processor at 1.2GHz
  • 1GB RAM (IDEALLY NEEDS TO BE 4GB NOW)
  • 8GB storage (30GB free cloud storage) (NEEDS TO BE 32/64GB now)
  • 2500mAh replaceable battery (3000 seems reasonable now)
  • 5in screen (ideal for me)
Been doing my research, and with Android you get quickly left behind, so a bare minimum should be 32GB internal storage. In a year or so, apps will take up more internal storage as well as Android updates so that's the non-negotiable.
I'm payg. £240 for calls across 12 months (300 mins, ultd texts 500mb data). I usually buy a budget phone for £100-150.. but stretching to a 32GB might cost me. Removable battery is not a must but great to have. It must be able to take the Android Oreo update. It must also be compatible with 4g networks (a big problem with the Chinese phones!).

Oneplus 3T would be ideal but might have to wait to Black Friday to get a good deal (maybe on contract).

Tesco,s 12mths contract.1000mins/5,000texts/2gb..£10pm mate...on O2 system
 
Was in two minds today with Black Friday... went into Carphone Warehouse and played around with the different handsets. Samsungs and Sony at £150 performed a bit better against the Moto's/LG phones. The one that I kept going back to was the Nokia 5 @ £99 (usually 150) and the Sony XA1 £149 with 02 (219 at CW)..

Went with the Nokia.

It was tempting to go contract. Virgin Media have the Sony XA1, with "free" PS4 with FIFA . But it's 24 months contract and Virgin can up the payment of £19 like they do the TV/BB. I could get £
45 cashback via topcashback too. But its Virgin and I don't trust them.
The maths wasn't bad though v PAYG for the same phone. It was just the fact I didn't want a PS4 nor want to be commited to the nominal amount of £411 over 2 years. As I suspect Virgin have costs that they hit you with if you pull out of TV/BB.

So in that time, my costs are 99 today. £10 a month PAYG. Although I can now negotiate my own sim deal if I want more data/no contract etc. So after 2 years, the monthly cost would be £14.12 and I'll probably end up getting a Switch for my kids anyway.
 
Last edited:

Don't have an account? Register now and see fewer ads!

SIGN UP
Back
Top
  AdBlock Detected
Bluemoon relies on advertising to pay our hosting fees. Please support the site by disabling your ad blocking software to help keep the forum sustainable. Thanks.