[slackline]

Temperamental in what regards?  If its getting a signal, then yes, most likely Orange, my wife is with them and struggled to get a signal in our house where I have no problem on T-Mobile.  Things have improved slightly since Orange/T-mobile merged and you can essentially roam on each others network (providing you've set the phone up to do so).  Several people I know have Desire's and have no problem, and if you are worried about Orange you could always go with someone else.

[Paul B]

I got my HTC as an O2 upgrade but through a third party and it came without any branding.

2.2 On a Wildfire... Sadly Angry Birds doesn't seem to work very well. Disaster.

[slackline]

2.2 On a Wildfire... Sadly Angry Birds doesn't seem to work very well. Disaster.

Likely down to the specification as its half the CPU clock speed of the Desire and 384Mb RAM (Desire has 576Mb and runs Angry birds fine on mates phones).

Also the fact its written in Java won't be helping things either.

[Jaspersharpe]

Angry Birds works perfectly on my Legend. Just ask my son who is hopelessly addicted to it and has to be rationed to 1/2 an hour's play per day / a few days per week.

As slackers says, the Wildfire is a much lower spec phone. Not really sure why people would go for "budget" models unless your budget really is c£10 a month. You don't have to be spending a fortune to get a top of the range phone any more.
 

[Paul B]

As slackers says, the Wildfire is a much lower spec phone. Not really sure why people would go for "budget" models unless your budget really is c£10 a month. You don't have to be spending a fortune to get a top of the range phone any more.
 

It overclocks up to a much more respectable speed fairly easily it seems. Certainly I couldn't find any HTC 'budget' phones for that price.

[Jaspersharpe]

It overclocks up to a much more respectable speed fairly easily it seems.

Cool.

Certainly I couldn't find any HTC 'budget' phones for that price.

What deal did you end up getting? I wasn't being clear and should have elaborated. What I meant was that considering what mobile phone bills used to be like (and what the best phones cost sim free), the fact that you can get a top of the range smartphone with pretty much unlimited usage for £30 - £35 pm over 18 months is pretty bloody good (even better when O2 give you £15pm discount *smug*).

As everyone used to pay way more than that for a shit normal phone with shit restrictions on usage I can't see the point of scrimping down £10 - £15 a month when the difference is getting the best phone. However, if that's your budget then the cheaper phones make sense, obviously.

[Paul B]

I'm with T-mobile now as three were quite frankly behaving like CVNTS. Told in the store that we could have an upgrade to any phone and remain on the same contract ($$$ signs showed in my eyes). When we came back to claim that they turned around and said, oh no, not on THAT contract etc. They couldn't move an inch on anything and even the offers over the cancellation line were worse than walking in off the street fresh faced.

It took Nat over an hour and 15 mins on the phone today to cancel her current contract.

I can't remember how many mins/texts but easily enough + unlimited data for £20 pcm, my damn Dad ended up with the same for £15 with Vodafone after being a long time customer. It was a pre-xmas deal and they wouldn't extend it to us.

[Jaspersharpe]

That's fucking shit of 3. It's odd how the phone companies policy seems to completely alter from month to month (or even day to day, although in your case it could well have just been a shop monkey getting it wrong of course).

O2 went through a stage (when I was upgrading my wife's phone) of being total fuckers and refusing to shift on what deals they were offering having been completely flexible a few months prior to that when I'd got my previous phone. It seemed they were intent on getting all their customers onto iphone contracts (as they were still the only provider then) and FUCK YOU if you didn't want one. One bird I spoke to actually apologised and said they were getting loads of complaints and people leaving but it was company policy and the staff just weren't being given any option to discount contracts.

Then when I came to upgrade again they'd reverted to being completely reasonable and gave me the same discount I'd had for the previous 18 months on my new contract. Perhaps it's not a coincidence that they no longer have exclusivity on the iphone.

I know a bit back the phone companies were falling over each other to offer better and better deals in order to hold onto customers as the market had almost reached saturation point. Suppose the explosion of smart phones and the willingness of fuckwits people to get tied into extortionate 24 month rip off contracts has changed all that.

[galpinos]

I'm always baffled by three. On the phone they always offer better than the "internet only" deals. My Desire is £20 a month with unlimited internet stuff.

[slackline]

Whatever phone you have T-mobile are now reigning in your data usage.

Fucking retards, "browsing the web" does include "watching videos, downloading files or playing games."  's

[tomtom]

Whatever phone you have T-mobile are now reigning in your data usage.

Fucking retards, "browsing the web" does include "watching videos, downloading files or playing games."  's

Yup - towing to O2's line... O2 have now also changed the ifern 'tethering' charge from £10 for 3gb month (reasonable) to £7.5 for 500mb month (not reasonable..)

Too little bandwidth for too many people all round???

[slackline]

Too little bandwidth for too many people all round???

Most probably, but then they should be investing their takings in improving the networks   

Be interested to know what "reasonable notice" constitutes.

At least you get a reduction in what your paying, no mention of this yet from T-Mobile.

[Stubbs]

As they made tethering an official part of the phone software and now you get flash so you can watch videos online, I was wondering how long it would be before they realised that this was going to lead to a lot of usage!  At least it sounds like you'll always have access to your emails, even if you go over the limit.  Hardly the 'unlimited internet' I signed up for though, and I hope that any of the software upgrades, etc. that the phone goes through won't be included in this amount!

[dave]

Whatever phone you have T-mobile are now reigning in your data usage.

Fucking retards, "browsing the web" does include "watching videos, downloading files or playing games."  's

word does that mean the monthly limit for android phones is down fro 3gb to half a gig?

http://www.t-mobile.co.uk/services/uk/fairuse/?WT.mc_id=fup#fup2

[Paul B]

Can anyone tell me where I stand having bought a phone at the weekend? It seems pretty shit to be able to move the goalposts like that. 3gb is reasonable, 1gb is f*cking not.

[Jim]

i think you can cancel within the first 14 days

[Paul B]

i think you can cancel within the first 14 days

I HAVE used it though so I don't know if that changes things?

What a waste of time, I can't really see how things like this don't ever fall within the unfair contract terms act as basically they can do what they want with regards to data. If you previously deemed 3gb of data to be fair use and attracted people with that offer then it seems ludicrous to now say 500mb is fair use.

[Adam Lincoln]

3gb is reasonable, 1gb is f*cking not.

I doubt you will come close to 1gb data, never mind 3.

[Paul B]

The point is many people will reach the 500mb cap whereas with 3gb they wouldn't? I'm fairly heavy with bandwidth generally.

Anyway... *sigh of relief*

http://twitter.com/#!/TmobileUKhelp/status/19556910031

[Jim]

just cancel and send it back and go with someone else. i'm fairly sure they have to give you 14 days cancelation period by law, doesn't matter if you've used the phone or not

[Paul B]

just cancel and send it back and go with someone else. i'm fairly sure they have to give you 14 days cancelation period by law, doesn't matter if you've used the phone or not

aye, it seems like they've renaged on that tweet anyway and are now reporting it as "affecting everyone"

[Jaspersharpe]

It is very shit getting people to sign up for "unlimited usage" and then slapping a limit on it but they're all doing it.

However, an extra two fuck alls to have 1GB instead of 500MB isn't too bad IF I find I'm regularly using more. However, having checked my bills, by being a bit more clever with using Wifi I've reduced my usage from 900MB to about 250MB without realising so I can't see it being a problem.

I also just looked at the O2 iphone contracts for comparison. 

[slackline]

3gb is reasonable, 1gb is f*cking not.

I doubt you will come close to 1gb data, never mind 3.

Depends what you use your phone for.  I stream mp3's via Moozone and Last.fm both of these push the data usage up pretty high.  Neither are illegal (unlike torrenting movies/cd's).

The other issue is that I'm yet to receive official notification from T-mobile, and with 21 days left until this change is due to come into effect I wouldn't call it a "reasonable notice" period for contractual changes.

aye, it seems like they've renaged on that tweet anyway and are now reporting it as "affecting everyone"

Its dated 26 July, presumably 2010 so a bit old.

As they made tethering an official part of the phone software and now you get flash so you can watch videos online.

Ultimately these were changes with Android and not by T-mobile.  The later had the opportunity to remove these functions when they customised the ROM if they felt it would be a problem but I guess they didn't as they'd have gotten a load of grief for putting crippled versions of Android on people's phones.

If the heavy data usage that is now occurring is the underlying problem the solution would be to take a portion of the profits that the company makes each year and re-invest in improving the 3g network coverage, and/or work on the 4g network.

[Jaspersharpe]

But why bother when they can just get people to pay more?

[slackline]

Ah I forgot we live in a penny pinching capitalist society.  Ultimately it will disenfranchise people to their company and they'll vote with their feet going elsewhere so they're shooting themselves in the foot and loosing out in the long-term.  Personally I switched from 3 for the unlimited data usage but never had a problem with 3 before then (other than they couldn't match the offer I had from T-mobile).  3 now do offer unlimited data usage.