[tomtom]

Get em fixed! £50... going rate..

[slackline]

Still not convinced damp is something that either can be avoided, or in the situations you describe is really an issue.

I walk & cycle in the rain and get soaked through/sweaty too, the phone (Galaxy S2 with rubber case) gets damp and the screen sometimes needs a wipe before using & working properly but its never suffered water damage.  I don't swim regularly but unless you're going twice a day the phone would be in a locker with dry stuff whilst you're getting wet and then a dry pocket would be preferable over being in a bag with wet kit.  As for damp hands, simply dry them before using it (nothings ever that urgent).

Regardless if its a decent phone the price is good so go for it, the chinese ROM is as you say a non-issue.

[slackline]

Whilst on the cheap nexus devices this is a good price for a Nexus 7.

[chris05]

Whilst on the cheap nexus devices this is a good price for a Nexus 7.

Nice one slackline. Thats my Mums Birthday sorted!

[sjw]

Just noticed that the Nexus 4 has gone down in price on the google website... 8gb £159, 16gb £199 . Yikes!

[slackline]

 

[sjw]

Oh. Silly. Me... Sorry 

[Clart]

Clocked that this morning and cursed under my breath as I purchased one for my wife a week ago.

Fortunately she likes it though so the cost is now irreverent.

I'd get one myself if it a) had a microSD slot; b) had an exchangeable battery.  Perhaps the price has been dropped due to a newer Nexus device being imminent (they did recently spruce up the Nexus 7, but didn't add these features to them so not holding my breath).

Yeh, that's what puts me off. Thinking of replacing my trustee Desire, planning on an S3 (with me £12/month virgin sim) as they now be cheap(er) due to S4 release (£240ish). Can't find a bad word against the S3 apart from size, anyone found something better?

[Jaspersharpe]

Absolutely love my S3. The S2 was decent but had the S3 since January and it's different class. Where have you seen em for £240 as that's a right bargain?

[Paul B]

I've been with Giff Gaff for a while now but since returning from the USA they've been really terrible with 2 days of service outage in 7 and giving Nat a tethering warning (and 30 min data ban!) as we were heavily using the data connection (they only go on data use, nothing more). Supposedly the 2nd step is they turn off your data and get you to contact an agent which realistically is a minimum of an effective 24 hour ban as they take an age to respond (probably longer now as they'll be sifting through a mountain of complaints).

Yesterday the network failed me when I was out searching for a car and it was pretty infuriating not being able to call, text or use data, and I've pretty much decided that its time to look at getting something else.

My phone (HTC Wildfire original) is also pretty frustrating now as I've just bought a Nexus 7 which highlights just how good Android can be (whereas Froyo does not). I can't really work out if I'm better to go on a contract or try and upgrade my phone via Expansys, CEX etc. to some middle ground (at least ICS) with a Three, all you can eat data package?

Contracts seemed not only long but expensive.

[underground]

Paul, giffgaff explicitly don't allow tethering, simple as that. On an iphone apn is disappears as an option. You have to buy a 'gigabag' for that but can only use it on a seperate sim so it's no use on a phone. However, I was with them for under a month and found (aswell as the outages which really pissed me off) that the data connection is rubbish. My benchmark is being able to listen to spotify in the centre of Sheff, 5 vars etc. and it was so broken up I could not, This was on the 18 quid 'goodybag' with unlimited data...
I looked at Ovivo which is amazing value if you don't use data or talk much (£15 one off payment for the sim and a rolling 'quite a lot' of mins and texts for free from then on) and they do the same for data, and was thinking of just buying the sim and using an old HTC hero as a wifi access point.

But, 3 / Three 'One Plan' is also 18 quid a month, 30 day contract, and has unlimited data and way more mins and texts than I could use ever (might be 600 mins / 5000 texts). And they didn't muck about with porting the number, 24 hours max. Just get that one, I've done the research already.

[Paul B]

Paul, giffgaff explicitly don't allow tethering, simple as that.

Yes they do, but only on limited packages they've also got a fair usage limit on that based on download per hour and total per day as far as I understand it.

But, 3 / Three 'One Plan' is also 18 quid a month, 30 day contract, and has unlimited data and way more mins and texts than I could use ever (might be 600 mins / 5000 texts). And they didn't muck about with porting the number, 24 hours max. Just get that one, I've done the research already.

and then get a used S2 or something (so I can actually take advantage of the data)?

[Jaspersharpe]

Hmmm. So a quick look on ebay says used S2s are around £120 (buy it now prices), say you're going to keep it for 2 years like most contracts are that would equate to £5 a month. Plus the £18 contact is £23 pm.

For an extra 1.6 fuck alls a month you can get a brand new S3 from O2 on the refresh contract 600 mins, unlimited texts, 750MB. Also means your brand new and much better phone is under warranty. Also means you can actually upgrade it (or just walk away from the contract) whenever you want if you pay off the phone bit of the contract (which is £15 a month). Lets face it though, after upgrading to S3 from Wildfire you're probably going to be happy with it for the 2 years.

Might even be able to get a better deal than this. I got the Mrs one the other day on this contract and they wouldn't do a better deal cos I was already getting the upgrade 3 months early but they said if I'd waited til the end of the contract they'd match any deal on the usage bit (although £12 a month for this is pretty good).

[Paul B]

750mb is far from unlimited though.

[Jaspersharpe]

True, no use if you really need unlimited data. I just never find I need more than that (even when I've been streaming Google music a fair bit in the car) and the Mrs certainly doesn't.

Seems nearly everywhere I need it has free wifi these days.

[Clart]

Does anyone know if there is a phone that can read USB, i.e. I'd like to plug in a camera SD card or USB stick, via the micro USB port (using a micro usb to usb adaptor) of a phone, to download some of the content.

...err, glad I googled this before posting. Anyhow, didn't realise you could do this, opens up all kinds of possibilities, e.g. editing photos from your camera on your phone (with suitable app) then emailing or emailing top secret files from work rather than getting caught walking out with usb stick...

Here are the details for other luddities that weren't in the know:

http://www.mobilefun.co.uk/micro-usb-to-usb-converter-for-samsung-galaxy-s3-s2-note-note-2-p29842.htm

[slackline]

Shop around, I picked one of those up about a year and a half ago for 52% of fuck all (i.e. £1.30) and its worked fine ever since.  Obviously if you wish to host SD cards or such like an adapter would save a lot of ballache.


If you want to then check what your device can do as a USB host then use Chainfire's USB Host Diagnostics (could save some head scratching if/when it doesn't "just work^TM" as expected).

[slackline]

 

http://conversation.which.co.uk/technology/victory-ofcom-announces-new-rules-to-stop-mobile-price-hikes/

Doesn't exactly stop them companies hiking their prices, but you can leave with far less hassle if they do, even if you're on a fixed term contract.

[slackline]

Motorola developing open-hardware modular phones   

[slackline]

http://www.theverge.com/2013/11/13/5096680/motorola-moto-g-announced-price-availability

[Paul B]

GiffGaff have also announced they'll shortly be doing handsets. This includes refurbished iferns for people that like that sort of thing.

[tomtom]

Coming soon..

http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2013/nov/14/motorola-moto-g-review-best-budget-smartphone-135

[Paul B]

Coming soon..

http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2013/nov/14/motorola-moto-g-review-best-budget-smartphone-135

That looks interesting, I wonder what contracts will look like on it. Although, non-expandable internal storage is my current headache.

[tomtom]

Contracts probably the same as for nokia 520 which is a similar price... ie. about the same as the pay monthly sim rate...

[Obi-Wan is lost...]

That looks interesting, I wonder what contracts will look like on it. Although, non-expandable internal storage is my current headache.

I think the joy of these low budget phones is being able to buy them off contract, bung a PAYG or month long contract SIM in them such as the Three Ultimate Internet SIM 200 (200mins, unlimited internet, 5000texts) costing you all of 5 fuck alls per month (£12.90). If you don't use much data it could be half that! But the biggest bonus is not being tied to a 24 month upgrade cycle you can upgrade whenever you please (and sell on the phone whilst it still is a current model and has some value) 

Think a MotoG will likely be MrsObi's next phone.