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inexperienced mobile user need advice
malcom
19-02-2016
Hi. I have a very basic pay as you go mobile phone from Tesco. top up when needed with no time limit on top up usage time.

Now. I have a lap top but was thinking about getting a tablet as a backup for the internet should my laptop become faulty in some way. As well as the convenience of portability.

However I have had second thought and think instead I would be better off getting a smart mobile phone pay as you go. This would satisfy my needs and also be a backup phone for my basic one that I have at the moment.

My dilemma is I just cannot after research understand how pay as you go services work which included web browsing as well as telephone functions.

The pay as you go schemes seem to be of the type where you top up with say £10 or £20 whatever. But the top up is only valid for 30 days. So presumably if you don't use your top amount the money is lost after 30 days. This would be like monthly contract which I don't require.

My question is can smart phones have pay as go that is literally pay as and when needed without losing top up money because it has not been used within a certain time period.

The phone I am interested in is the Samsung galaxy j5 advertised as without a sim card.

I have searched on google for info and am none the wiser. can someone explain to a novice with mobiles just how the pay as you go schemes operate with web browsing devices.
Mick Jones
19-02-2016
Look at Three 3-2-1 pay as you go.
SkipTracer
19-02-2016
Originally Posted by malcom:
“Hi. I have a very basic pay as you go mobile phone from Tesco. top up when needed with no time limit on top up usage time.

Now. I have a lap top but was thinking about getting a tablet as a backup for the internet should my laptop become faulty in some way. As well as the convenience of portability.

However I have had second thought and think instead I would be better off getting a smart mobile phone pay as you go. This would satisfy my needs and also be a backup phone for my basic one that I have at the moment.

My dilemma is I just cannot after research understand how pay as you go services work which included web browsing as well as telephone functions.

The pay as you go schemes seem to be of the type where you top up with say £10 or £20 whatever. But the top up is only valid for 30 days. So presumably if you don't use your top amount the money is lost after 30 days. This would be like monthly contract which I don't require.

My question is can smart phones have pay as go that is literally pay as and when needed without losing top up money because it has not been used within a certain time period.

The phone I am interested in is the Samsung galaxy j5 advertised as without a sim card.

I have searched on google for info and am none the wiser. can someone explain to a novice with mobiles just how the pay as you go schemes operate with web browsing devices.”

This is something that comes up time and again and what causes the confusion is bog standard PAYG and bundles.

If you’re a low user and do not buy bundles you will be charged for minutes, texts and data every time you use these services however any balance that is left will not expire and as far as I know no PAYG networks take your money away unless you have used it on minutes, text or data.

A good one as a low user to use, like Mick Jones said is 3, 3-2-1 sim, that’s 3p per minute calls, 2p per text and 1p per Mb of data.

The only one I know to be a slightly better deal and it is only slightly and that is Delight Mobile (also 3-2-1 charges) and this is because they’ve got the added benefit of free Delight to Delight calls and text without the need to top up but no good if you don’t know anyone else on Delight but they also got good 2G coverage because they use the EE network but the downside, while 3 let you use the 4G network with their sims, Delight is 3G and 2G only.

Just to add because my memory has been jarred is with both Delight and 3 you can top up on line at only £5 at a time however with 3 the first top up has to be £10 but £5 thereafter and also with 3 they give you 150 Mb of free data every time you top up but this does expire after 30 days but your remaining credit stays put.
malcom
20-02-2016
I am still confused. I have sky broadband so as far as home usage is concerned am I right to say the internet is not charged from the phone top up.

I would not be using the internet outside of my home. I would mainly use it for phone calls and internet browsing all at home. I am not into texting.

The networks clearly states that top ups last 30 days. So I can only interpret that to mean you lose the balance that is not used after the 30 days.
Aye Up
20-02-2016
Originally Posted by malcom:
“I am still confused. I have sky broadband so as far as home usage is concerned am I right to say the internet is not charged from the phone top up.

I would not be using the internet outside of my home. I would mainly use it for phone calls and internet browsing all at home. I am not into texting.

The networks clearly states that top ups last 30 days. So I can only interpret that to mean you lose the balance that is not used after the 30 days. ”

Its not the top up that lasts 30 days, its usually a bundle which gives you say 1GB of data, 200 mins and unlimited texts for £10 (for example).

When your phone or tablet is connected to WiFi at home or in cafes where its free, your phone network doesn't charge you for that, as you are not using mobile data. That changes when you leave the house or a place of free wifi, your phone then beging to use mobile data.

If you are to use your phone for browsing at home then you won't need a data bundle. As you say connected to your Sky router it will be wifi, then you won't pay any mobile data related charges, you would just pay for the phone calls as that would still use your mobile network.
prking
20-02-2016
Originally Posted by Aye Up:
“Its not the top up that lasts 30 days, its usually a bundle which gives you say 1GB of data, 200 mins and unlimited texts for £10 (for example).

When your phone or tablet is connected to WiFi at home or in cafes where its free, your phone network doesn't charge you for that, as you are not using mobile data. That changes when you leave the house or a place of free wifi, your phone then beging to use mobile data.

If you are to use your phone for browsing at home then you won't need a data bundle. As you say connected to your Sky router it will be wifi, then you won't pay any mobile data related charges, you would just pay for the phone calls as that would still use your mobile network.”

Indeed, if you are not going to use mobile data outside the home you could just put your existing Tesco SIM in the new phone. (If its physically a different size then Tesco will swap the SIM for you - same account so you'll keep your credit and number)
planetf1
20-02-2016
I'd add my vote for the 3-2-1 tariff. Even if you don't intend to use data out of the house, as you get more used to the phone you may find it useful, or may do by accident! With 3 the charges are low so no massive surprises... and in fact very low for calls too.
swb1964
20-02-2016
3p a minute for calls is almost certainly less than you are paying at the moment on Tesco, so you will save some money there.
victorslot
20-02-2016
Originally Posted by malcom:
“I am still confused. I have sky broadband so as far as home usage is concerned am I right to say the internet is not charged from the phone top up.

I would not be using the internet outside of my home. I would mainly use it for phone calls and internet browsing all at home. I am not into texting.

The networks clearly states that top ups last 30 days. So I can only interpret that to mean you lose the balance that is not used after the 30 days. ”

If you are not going to use the mobile internet away from home and not going to text anyone you don't need a mobile phone, assuming you have a home phone with your Sky broadband. If you just want to be able to use the Internet without having to sit at your PC then you would be better off with a tablet connected to your router via wifi.
PrinceGaz
20-02-2016
PAYG credit on mobiles does NOT normally expire. It is exactly what the name suggests, you pay for what you use and nothing else. You can add credit when needed (usually a minimum amount of £5 or £10 depending on the network) and if you don't use your phone for a month, the credit will still be there in full.

Now what you are seeing which expire after 30 days are PAYG BUNDLES, where you spend some of your PAYG credit to buy a bundle which includes a certain amount of free minutes and/or free texts and/or free data. This bundle which you are purchasing using your credit does expire after 30 days, regardless of how much or how little of the calls/texts/data you use.

Tesco Mobile for instance charge 25p/min, 10p/text, 10p/MB data on PAYG. However you can choose to buy a 2GB data bundle on Tesco Mobile for £10. That bundle is valid for 30 days and means you can use up to 2GB of data without being charged the normal 10p/MB for it. It's worth noting that 2GB at the normal 10p/MB would cost £200 if used in full. If you don't use any data, it still expires after 30 days and it will cost another £10 for the next 30 days.

A few people have mentioned Three's 3-2-1 tariff, and for good reason. At 3p/min, 2p/text, 1p/MB, low to medium users will find it far cheaper than other networks without any need to purchase bundles which expire every 30 days. If you don't use your phone for a month, it costs nothing. One hour of phone calls would cost £1.80. On Tesco Mobile you would be looking at £15-- unless you purchased their £5 150-minute call bundle first, and that will expire in 30 days.

Edit: one thing to check with Three: make sure you get a signal where you would be using the phone most of the time, and take care because their coverage checker can be slightly optimistic at times
spiney2
20-02-2016
Yes, as already said, 3 have a payg sim which does not have a time limit expiry, on phone or data. But as also said, their coverage is not quite as good as some other networks. Swings and roundabouts .......
spiney2
20-02-2016
But ...... If using the smartphone at home for data, normally u just connect to your router via wi fi, for internet. But, if your home phoneline goes faulty, or you're somewhere else, then the 3 sim retains unused phone/data allowance indefinitely .......
malcom
21-02-2016
Originally Posted by victorslot:
“If you are not going to use the mobile internet away from home and not going to text anyone you don't need a mobile phone, assuming you have a home phone with your Sky broadband. If you just want to be able to use the Internet without having to sit at your PC then you would be better off with a tablet connected to your router via wifi.”

I do feel I need an additional mobile phone. Yes I have sky and a lap top but when a few days ago my land line and internet developed a fault and I only had a simple Tesco mobile phone to contact sky with. The connection quality was poor and had problems reporting the issue. Sky also said it could be 2 to 5 days before Openreach dealt with issue. Fortunately it was only 24 hours.

Regardless of this I had decided a tablet would be useful for more portable browsing around the house than a lap top gives. However as a result of my recently being dependant on one simple mobile I am instead considering a smart phone instead of a tablet. Hence my queries regarding the cost of using a smart phone.
malcom
21-02-2016
Thanks guys for all your info and advice. Indeed it was the bundles adverts that were confusing and giving the wrong impression by not stating they also have normal none bundle PAYG with no loss of top money.
David (2)
21-02-2016
I can only speak from experience.

My first smart phone was on pay as u go (Orange/EE). It was a rubbish phone, but in terms of the payment, it would cost between £2.50 and £3 a day, with the phone simply turned on but not in use. It seems this Was down to background updates, be it to individual apps or to android its self. I soon transferred to a fixed contract. Even then, that was capped at just 100mb per month. Ok while at home on wifi, but I would soon go over the 100mb when using the web away from home, or if any updates came down while away from home. There was no indication of when u were getting near the monthly limit. When u went over the limit, the features kept on working and you ended up with a nasty bill at end of the month.

My sister is currently in a similar situation. She was spending £3 a day because of the auto updates while on pay as u go. She took it to the shop where they turned off all the internet and update features. Basically she now has a smart phone which can only make calls and text, but she is no longer paying out £3 a day.
SkipTracer
21-02-2016
Originally Posted by David (2):
“I can only speak from experience.

My first smart phone was on pay as u go (Orange/EE). It was a rubbish phone, but in terms of the payment, it would cost between £2.50 and £3 a day, with the phone simply turned on but not in use. It seems this Was down to background updates, be it to individual apps or to android its self. I soon transferred to a fixed contract. Even then, that was capped at just 100mb per month. Ok while at home on wifi, but I would soon go over the 100mb when using the web away from home, or if any updates came down while away from home. There was no indication of when u were getting near the monthly limit. When u went over the limit, the features kept on working and you ended up with a nasty bill at end of the month.

My sister is currently in a similar situation. She was spending £3 a day because of the auto updates while on pay as u go. She took it to the shop where they turned off all the internet and update features. Basically she now has a smart phone which can only make calls and text, but she is no longer paying out £3 a day.”

I think it’s a little bit different today as background apps can be easily set not to update over the mobile network.

I use a Moto G with 4G + a 3, 3-2-1 sim and have a few apps running in the background like Rain-Alarm, 5 email addresses plus others and a few things on only when I need them and I only use about 10p on an average day data wise but my Google apps account is set to only update over wifi and this also includes the phone updates too, not that there is many of those.
malcom
21-02-2016
Originally Posted by David (2):
“I can only speak from experience.

My first smart phone was on pay as u go (Orange/EE). It was a rubbish phone, but in terms of the payment, it would cost between £2.50 and £3 a day, with the phone simply turned on but not in use. It seems this Was down to background updates, be it to individual apps or to android its self. I soon transferred to a fixed contract. Even then, that was capped at just 100mb per month. Ok while at home on wifi, but I would soon go over the 100mb when using the web away from home, or if any updates came down while away from home. There was no indication of when u were getting near the monthly limit. When u went over the limit, the features kept on working and you ended up with a nasty bill at end of the month.

My sister is currently in a similar situation. She was spending £3 a day because of the auto updates while on pay as u go. She took it to the shop where they turned off all the internet and update features. Basically she now has a smart phone which can only make calls and text, but she is no longer paying out £3 a day.”

That's scary. I think I might be safer getting a tablet for my portable browsing and a none internet mobile phone as a backup in case my one and only £10 Tesco mobile phone fails on me at the same time as a landline failure.

I have had a cheap basic mobile suddenly fail after charging it.
PrinceGaz
22-02-2016
Android certainly allows you to choose between apps: never auto-updating, auto-updating only over Wi-Fi, or auto-updating at any time (and it mentions that Data Charges may apply if you use that setting).

If you're really worried about data charges, perhaps because the wifi is dodgy, it is easy to have mobile data as one of the quick-access buttons on Android, and only turn it on when you actually want to use it. You can go a step further and having Sync is another quick-access toggle and turn it off before you turn Data on.

Most months I use well under 100MB as almost everywhere I go has free wifi, which at 1p/MB means less than £1/month.
malcom
23-02-2016
Originally Posted by PrinceGaz:
“Android certainly allows you to choose between apps: never auto-updating, auto-updating only over Wi-Fi, or auto-updating at any time (and it mentions that Data Charges may apply if you use that setting).

If you're really worried about data charges, perhaps because the wifi is dodgy, it is easy to have mobile data as one of the quick-access buttons on Android, and only turn it on when you actually want to use it. You can go a step further and having Sync is another quick-access toggle and turn it off before you turn Data on.

Most months I use well under 100MB as almost everywhere I go has free wifi, which at 1p/MB means less than £1/month.”

Thanks for that info. The ins and outs of todays technology is I bit of a struggle at times. Unlike youngsters I haven't grown up with computer tech. I am almost as old as Dr who.
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