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Thinking of entering the world of smart phones but wondering how much data use i will need. Currently on PAYG with an old nokia (mate saw it in a museum it's that old!) and use around £10 mth. What are your monthly data usages?
Most places say 500MB is way more than enough, is 100Mb to small if i have wifi at home. Was looking at O2 who do 50min, 250 txts and 100mb data for £13.50/mth or with 500mb for £16.50/mth. Both are for 24 month contracts hence would be keen to get it right first time.
Was thinking of the samsung galaxy s2 which seems to be just out and getting pretty awesome reviews. Would work out at £19.75/mth or £22.75/mth respectively after paying for the phone on top of the monthly price. Was considering the motorola defy but it seems to be £25/mth for a lower spec'd phone although is "waterproof"
your guidance and wisdom would be appreciated by this smartphone newb 🙂
I hit my 500MB limit on my phone (iPhone) fairly regularly, but then I use it a fair bit when I'm out and about.
It really depends on your usage. Watching movies, iplayer, youtube etc will kill your allowance pretty quickly. Likewise podcasts. Also beware of GPS that uses streaming maps (Google) or live traffic reports (Waze).
Email, facebook & general surfing won't use too much provided your not on sites with loads of pictures (or Flash).
Also worth checking if you can switch contracts once you are in - I think O2 allow you to change contract/tarrif after 50% of it is up or something.
As above, anything that requires a lot of data like Google Maps, or streaming radio in particular, will bite you in the ass. I used to listen to 6music for around five-six hours a day, which I worked out would now use my entire 500mb allowance in a week, in fact a three hour show = 100Mb. If you want to use maps, then you need to have them installed in the phone, something like Viewranger, and Naavi for Guided street level mapping, or whatever the Android equivalent is. It's a good idea to find a data usage app as well, and keep it running all the time. According to mine I've used 392.3Mb, or 72%, so I've got to keep an eye on mine until the 16th.
I would say that a 100MB contract is not going to allow you to get the most out of your phone - personally I'd find the extra £3 (those prices seem pretty good anyway). Depends how you use it of course - emails, sub-Pavlovian tweeting and a bit of browsing and you might be ok. Pictures, audio and video are the hungriness. Problem is you're not going to know what you use until you have it. Much can be saved until you're on your home wi-fi, though. But as above, beware things like moany mapping applications which download map data at the point of usage (there are several which allow you to preload OSM or proprietary data).
The one time I checked mine recently I was just over 500MB for the month (unlimited contract with 3MB FUP), that's with quite a lot of web browsing but I only very rarely use streaming radio (at low bitrate) and don't watch video over 3G.
Part of me says consider Giffgaff's monthly PAYG bundles which have good internet offerings (assuming you can spring for the cost of the phone up front), but it's not the part of me that got fed up with their website repeatedly not working and then went elsewhere to someone who would actually allow me to pay them.
If you're just doing email and a bit of browsing, you're not even going to get close to 500Mb. I used 150Mb last month and I just left my 3G turned on all the time. It checks every 5 minutes for emails, news, weather updates, twitter and facebook updates. I use it as a mapping tool so it'll be off collecting data files all the time when I'm riding (I ride quite a lot too).
As above, I expect videos and music are what hammers it but I usually do that when I'm in the house so it just uses the wifi then.
Got 1gig on Tesco (o2) and have never came close to it but then again I don't use it for radio and only the odd youtube clip.
Only time I have gone over 500MB is when we recently moved and had no internet connection at home for 6 weeks. I was using my phone as a wi-fi hotspot and that put us up to almost 1GB in a month.
If you get an Android phone, there's a great program called 3G Watchdog. It keeps tabs on how much data you are using and can warn you when you approach a %age of your limit (that you have set).
I think it can also disable 3G on your phone if you go over your limit, should you want it too.
I used it for a few months just to get an idea of how much data I was using, then deleted it.