Hey guys and gals ... Im getting my better half a new phone tomorrow and im completely out of touch with the new phones / contracts available .

All I can tell is she mainly sends texts rather than calls , no internet use or listening to music etc . A decent camera /video would be nice , of course .

She's not bothered what make/model of phonebut she's with o2 so that may be a factor as she wants to keep her old number .

Finally we are looking at a £10 month contract ... up to £15per month , if its a big difference ...

Any suggestions please - phone / contract options / deals etc


Loads of people are raving about Blackberry , is that an option... aren't they going downhill these days ??

Hello there,


I believe that if it's mainly for texting then you cannot beet a Blackberry as they are designed for business users typing EMAILS, but my wife had one for a couple of weeks to find she did not get on with it. Although I believe the problem with Blackberry was just that they had network problems for quite a few days (think this was a first)?

There is something called SWYPE or SLIDE-IT for Android mobiles where you just slide your fingers across the keyboard and it works out what word you wanted to type. Once you have got used to it it's a lot quicker than even physical buttons and I believe that the world speed texting record was set on one of them a couple of years back.

I would go into a Tescos store and ask their advice as they are normally good in there and if you get a phone on a Tesco mobile contract they actually use O2's network so you will get the same coverage.

I have seen Tescos doing some amazing deals in the past and am going to check them out when the mobile I want comes out.

I've added some links below as it's hard to describe how SWYPE and SLIDE-IT work.

TESCO MOBILE

SWYPE

SLIDE-IT

I would personally go for the HTC Wildfire S deal as I've always liked HTC phones (not sure if anybody else would like to advise who has one)? There is a review of the Wildfire S HERE

Also are you sure that she would never use the Internet as well, as you also get included DATA in the package?

Might be worth just going in store and having a play though as not every mobile suites everybody.

Also don't be fooled my the number of mega pixels each camera has as anything over 5mp on a mobile is a waste and can actually cause image quality problems in low light where the sensors are jammed in right next to each other.


Mark.

O2 are doing the Galaxy Ace or Wildfire S for £129.99 on PAYG. Get out of contracts, She could use the O2 Ace/Wildfire S with a GiffGaff sim (£10 a month). Easy to transfer her number.....

That may work out cheaper, but I guess it would depend on how long she wanted to keep the phone for, as over 24 months on the above would work out at £15.42/month over the 24 months + also GiffGaff could always put up their tariff (I'm guessing they may do some time as it's a great deal with unlimited Internet and even I'm on it). It will work out a lot cheaper though if she is keeping it more than 2 years.

Also wondering if she is with O2 at the moment if they could do a deal with a contract?

Sorry, should have said we just want to pay a tenner a month and not pay much ( if anything at all) for the phone.

Presumably that's going to limit our options considerably ??

Yeah...it will...but if it's mainly for texts then it's no biggie

You can get either of those two phones from O2 for a tenner a month, phone free....

Thanks everyone keep the suggestions coming ..we have delayed things slighlty ...

please ....

I think you've had the best advice for a cheap contract phone that will not embarrass you.

What's wrong with the choices you have?

Simply because a few people have also mentioned other options such as BB Curve 9300 and BB 8520 and Samsung Chat 335. so just waiting to see your opinions on them tbh

They are very basic phones, good if you just want to make calls and text, but you'll find the chat a bit lacking when it comes to the internet, games and other media. (might be something she does in the future) The chat and 8520 are 2G phones as well so they're not exactly todays tech.

I'd recommend a Samsung Galaxy Ace or a HTC Wildfire S, even the Nokia Lumia 710 if you can find that on a cheap contract. Other than the Lumia the other phones are around the £129 mark.

You can get a Sim Only from 3 for £12pm which includes 600 Mins/ 3000 Texts/ 1GB Data and buy the phone. It'll probably work out cheaper than a contract deal.

The 9300 is okay but i'd say i've seen about 80% of them break within 1 or 2 years. Plus blackberry services/messenger is £5 extra per month. So unless everyone she knows has a blackberry i wouldn't go near that phone.

If she's just texting and calling then yeh the chat is an okay phone, just don't expect it to do much like take good images.