Accy junior pick pocketed,losing new 800 quid phone

[Accy cyclist]

A question for you @Accy cyclist I cant work it out, how does she KNOW she was pick pocketed and didn't simply lose it /leave it somewhere.

I did ask her that this afternoon. She said it was in an outside of her coat, 'deep' pocket. One minute it was there the next it'd gone.

 

[oldworld]

My SIL has a business repairing phones and is always busy. His view is paying hundreds of pounds on a phone is madness but provides him with a good income repairing them. Only a small part of his work is actually repairing an electrical fault, mostly it's cracked screens because they've been sat on or dropped or been soaked in water.
His view on iphones is that are good but not worth the price Apple charge.
He told me to buy a Chinese Mi 5C as for the money (£100) it was hard to beat. I've been very pleased with it and would get another
I'm amazed by the ads on tv for the latest phones that focus (no pun intended) on the camera's features and little else.
When I want to take photographs I take the camera. Snapshots on the Mi 5C are OK but not as good as my camera but then I don't expect them to be.

 

[Cuchilo]

Ive never paid for a mobile phone since they where invented . Always had a nice phone supplied when i renew my contract .
I run my business through it and on it all day for about £40 a month . I find it odd people pay for a phone .

 

[winjim]

Ive never paid for a mobile phone since they where invented . Always had a nice phone supplied when i renew my contract .
I run my business through it and on it all day for about £40 a month . I find it odd people pay for a phone .

I paid outright for my phone because it was cheaper than getting it on a contract. You know the contract includes the price of the phone, right? Keep the old phone, swap to SIM-free and it's much cheaper. Phone up and ask them to sweeten the deal and it's even better. I've been with Orange/EE for twenty odd years and they do seem to acknowledge loyalty. (Plus as an NHS worker I've got unlimited data now thanks to Coronavirus.)

 

[OldShep]

Ive never paid for a mobile phone since they where invented . Always had a nice phone supplied when i renew my contract .
I run my business through it and on it all day for about £40 a month . I find it odd people pay for a phone .

I find it odd you don’t think you are paying for your phone in a contract.

 

[I like Skol]

I find it odd you don’t think you are paying for your phone in a contract.

THIS! You are paying for your phone and more.....

 

[Accy cyclist]

Yeah,surely contracts work out more than buying the phone outright? Mine's on contract,but those who sold it to me told me contracts worked out cheaper...and i took it in! I'm not that bothered though,as i've only another year to pay £17.50 a month and the thing's mine. Plus i get my internet in that £17.50 a month and seeing as i'm on it nearly all the time i'm at home i'm happy with the deal!

Will i update my phone when the contract ends i hear you ask! No,i'm very happy with my Samsung Galaxy (I think it's a 10). It does all i need,so i'll keep it till it either conks out or a sit or i accidentally sit or step on the thing.

 

[winjim]

Yeah,surely contracts work out more than buying the phone outright? Mine's on contract,but those who sold it to me told me contracts worked out cheaper...and i took it in! I'm not that bothered though,as i've only another year to pay £17.50 a month and the thing's mine. Plus i get my internet in that £17.50 a month and seeing as i'm on it nearly all the time i'm at home i'm happy with the deal!

I worked it out once and I'm sure I remember that over term of the contract the cost of the phone was exactly the same. I think they hope that at the end of the term they can either convince you to enter a new contract, ie sell you a new phone, or you'll just carry on with the existing contract at the inflated price, even once the phone's paid off. You have to proactively ask them to move to SIM only, they don't just automatically do it.

Edit: Also there are SIM only deals that they don't advertise online or in shops, you have to phone up and get them. And they do upgrade them, data is getting cheaper and cheaper so it pays to check once your contract's up.

 

[Accy cyclist]

I worked it out once and I'm sure I remember that over term of the contract the cost of the phone was exactly the same. I think they hope that at the end of the term they can either convince you to enter a new contract, ie sell you a new phone, or you'll just carry on with the existing contract at the inflated price, even once the phone's paid off. You have to proactively ask them to move to SIM only, they don't just automatically do it.

So if i move to SIM i'll have to buy a 10 quid a month top up?🤔

 

[winjim]

So if i move to SIM i'll have to buy a 10 quid a month top up?🤔

SIM only means you just pay for calls and data, not for the cost of the phone. Most of them have unlimited calls and texts so you're really just paying for data. It's still a fixed price for a fixed time, usually 12 or 24 months. So not a top up as such, still a contract.

 

[PaulSB]

So if i move to SIM i'll have to buy a 10 quid a month top up?🤔

It depends on what level of service you need. As said above the real cost is data. With the widespread availability of wi fi my experience is I rarely use much data. I don't understand what it is people do to use the vast amounts of data they purchase.

I'm with Tesco SIM only. I paid £150 outright for my Motorola G6. £5/month for 100 texts, 100 minutes and 250MB of data. I get a warning when I've used 80% of the data. At this point, on the rare occasions it happens, I turn off mobile data to save the last 20% for emergency use.

Tesco offer a range of bundles from £5 >£20/month. I have the £5 package on auto renew. If I'm going abroad, such as when we visited Vietnam, I paid £20 to get 40GB for that month only - didn't use it as free wi fi everywhere but it gave me the reassurance I wanted.

The sums of money you talk of for your daughter are simply throwing money away. Your choice but I suggest it's an uninformed one driven by the supposed "need" for the "best" phone and huge amounts of data which go unused.

Ask your daughter to check her data usage for the last six months. It will be a surprise.

 

[winjim]

It depends on what level of service you need. As said above the real cost is data. With the widespread availability of wi fi my experience is I rarely use much data. I don't understand what it is people do to use the vast amounts of data they purchase.

I'm with Tesco SIM only. I paid £150 outright for my Motorola G6. £5/month for 100 texts, 100 minutes and 250MB of data. I get a warning when I've used 80% of the data. At this point, on the rare occasions it happens, I turn off mobile data to save the last 20% for emergency use.

Tesco offer a range of bundles from £5 >£20/month. I have the £5 package on auto renew. If I'm going abroad, such as when we visited Vietnam, I paid £20 to get 40GB for that month only - didn't use it as free wi fi everywhere but it gave me the reassurance I wanted.

The sums of money you talk of for your daughter are simply throwing money away. Your choice but I suggest it's an uninformed one driven by the supposed "need" for the "best" phone and huge amounts of data which go unused.

Ask your daughter to check her data usage for the last six months. It will be a surprise.

Ha. My usage resets on the 24th of the month. I've used a gigabyte since then.

 

[Cuchilo]

Yeah,surely contracts work out more than buying the phone outright? Mine's on contract,but those who sold it to me told me contracts worked out cheaper...and i took it in! I'm not that bothered though,as i've only another year to pay £17.50 a month and the thing's mine. Plus i get my internet in that £17.50 a month and seeing as i'm on it nearly all the time i'm at home i'm happy with the deal!

Will i update my phone when the contract ends i hear you ask! No,i'm very happy with my Samsung Galaxy (I think it's a 10). It does all i need,so i'll keep it till it either conks out or a sit or i accidentally sit or step on the thing.

Contracts work out cheaper if you are using your phone a lot . If you need to be careful and have the time to be topping up then its probably not worth it . Funny , i never get phone calls from friends on PAYG Those on contracts can call and talk rubbish for hours

 

[winjim]

Contracts work out cheaper if you are using your phone a lot . If you need to be careful and have the time to be topping up then its probably not worth it . Funny , i never get phone calls from friends on PAYG Those on contracts can call and talk rubbish for hours

I think there's a bit of confusion over the term 'contract'. Ignoring PAYG, buying a phone outright and putting it on a SIM only monthly contract can work out cheaper than a monthly contract which includes the cost of the phone. It's then even cheaper if you just keep the phone and don't feel the need to 'upgrade' it every two years just for the sake of it.

I see you can also get flexi contracts which are a fixed price but be cancelled at any time and are marketed as a halfway house between contract and PAYG. I expect they're more expensive than a fixed term monthly contract though.

 

[bikingdad90]

I’m an apple fan boy and currently have an IPhone XS on a decent monthly contract price with Tesco.

Prior to this IPhone I had an iPhone 6 which unfortunately smashed when the wind blew it off the garden table so reverted back to an IPhone SE that I had before that for a good few years until I filled it up with photos and the battery had a dud cell in it and used to die at 20% but then reboot and work down to 0%?

Apple did try and slow down the phone with updates but then got caught and amazingly the next update sped the phone back up again!

I went for the XS because I wanted more memory, it was less than £30/pcm and the camera features are brilliant; I use it as my camera and don’t have anything else to take pictures with. If I hadn’t smashed the 6 I would have kept on using it until it was unsupported and the battery failed as saw no reason to upgrade.