UK Mobile Internet advice needed

mobile, web, internet

[longen]

By Monday i need some mobile www, which could do forum admin sort of stuff. Is there a PDA+keyboard + reasonable tarrifs, in the UK, which you would recommend.

[marcel]

I absolutely love my MDA Vario from T-Mobile :)

(I have the Web'n Walk plan with them for unlimited internet)

[longen]

I found the t-mobile site during my searches today. I looked at a few of the Blackberrys but i don't think the keyboards are easy to read, and some don't have 3G, which i assume is faster. So i've settled on the Nokia E61, which i hope to get Monday.

[Frank_Rizzo]

Anyone have any suggestions for light usage?

I rarely use a mobile. I pay about £20 a year in PAYG - I only use it for txt alerts when there's a server problem or a customer has mailed an order.

I don't want to go on a payment plan if I don't use the darn thing so what options are there for PAYG with www usage?

Usage would be for checking messageboard postings and basic admin stuff (editing drop down lists, checkboxes).

[DamonHD]

I use a Nokia Communicator on Vodafone. The tariff is just changing, but has been reasonable for me (on contract) in the past. The Nokia browser is Opera Mini, so has some quirks/bugs...

I separately have a 3G data modem that I use with my Mac, on Vodafone.

I do a little admin via the phone, and lots via the laptop.

Rgds

Damon

[edited by: DamonHD at 7:56 pm (utc) on May 13, 2007]

[mack]

I absolutely love my MDA Vario from T-Mobile

Same set up here! T-mobile web 'n' walk is a pretty decent offering £7.50 per month on top of your price plan. If you're only going to use it for web access and not often for calling FlexT might be an answer along side Web 'n' walk. Starter plan works out at £20 per month, with your web 'n' walk on top of that.

Only problem With T-Mobile is coverage, not quite the best in the UK, This is currently Still Vodafone, but having said that you can do a postcode check for any areas where you intend to use it.

Mack.

[Frank_Rizzo]

Are there no PAYG offers for web access?

[mack]

Pay as you go is available, but full cost of handset less subsidy from network will need to be paid. A standard cost that is pretty much the same across the 5 networks is £7.50 per meg of data either through GPRS or 3G, most of the networks will offer packs that can be bought. This will allow you to access the web by paying in advance and buying in bulk, T-mobile for example offer £1 a day access that is unlimited subject to fair use (bit of a contradiction.) Orange allows you to buy £14 worth of web access for £5, they refer to this as an "Orange world extra" Vodafone don't have any packs on Pay as you talk, but they are soon to reduce the price from £7.50 per meg to £2.50 per meg, downside being Vodafone live access will no longer be free.

There are bolt on internet bundles from O2 called browse and download bundles. there are two main options 2MB of data for £3 or 4MB of data for £5.

Three offer 50p per hour or £1 for 24 hrs 3g/2.5g internet access.

With pay as you go access from three and t-mobile the pay per day offers need to be set up on your account, they are not automatically there. Once provisioned you can go online and you will be charged, then once you reach the £1 level the rest of the day wont be chargeable. There will be a start time and an end time for the "day" it is not based on when you start using the internet service.

Hope this gives you some ideas.

Mack.

[Frank_Rizzo]

That sure is a lot of help Mack.

It was driving me crazy trying to find prices on Orange and T-Mobile. There is no direct link via a menu: it's like they make the service desirable but don't want you to know the cost.

A good example is Orange PAYG section. Choose phone by feature 'HTML Browsing' and then select the W810i. Nothing on the following pages say how much that HTML Browsing will cost.

--

Argos are going half price on a T Mobile Sony Ericsson K610i. That looks a great deal but I'd prefer to stay with Orange.

I have a Nokia 3310e with Orange. Can I put the sim from that into the K610i and use Orange world service instead?

[mack]

Using your orange sim in another handset depends on your handset being sim free. By sim free I mean ble to use any sim card. Usually when you buy a phone on pre pay or get a contract phone, the handset is locked to the provider. The main reason for this is the provider will subsidise the cost of the phone when new. If you want to unlock your phone you can request a network unlock code, sometimes called a GUD1 code or subsidy code. The schematics seam to vary a lot from provider to provider. The procedure for unlocking your phone also varies a lot from handset to handset. There will also usually be a charge for the NUC code. With Vodafone and Orange you pay a fee for the unlock code if the phone is 12 months or younger, with T-Mobile you pat £15 regardless of handset age.

On the Orange website it has become a lot harder to find what you're looking for now that all the Wanadoo content is also blended in there. I find this page to be more useful then the homage when looking for info on services..

[www2.orange.co.uk...]

Mack.

[longen]

Just home with the MDA Vario II - choose it for the keyboard and screen.
The colour scheme is not so cool though - i'll have to tell everyone that it it was a gift from my grandmother.

[mack]

lol yea the MDA I have is pretty much the same. Sort of resembles the size of a mobile from 5 years ago. Good features though.

Mack.

[ronin]

Right now, I am in a similar position to longen was before the weekend (though I have more time to choose a new phone).

I had settled on the Nokia E90 Communicator... but, given the recommendations you guys made, I decided to check out the T-Mobile Vario.

From what I have managed to glean from various reviews and forum posts, the unit which T-Mobile calls the Vario is the HTC Wizard.

The successor to the HTC Wizard is the HTC Hermes (the Vario II which longen bought) which, by all accounts, supercedes the Wizard in all aspects.

The forthcoming successor to the HTC Hermes is the HTC Kaiser.

The Kaiser has really piqued my interest - I'm guessing the T-Mobile will bring it out as the Vario III - but I'm not sure that can credibly take on the Nokia E90.

That said, I know nothing about mobile phones. Can anyone who knows more than I do throw in their expert opinion as to which model has more to offer - the Kaiser or the E90?

[Rehan]

I'm also in the market for this kind of thing, though not in the UK.

Does a VGA (640x480) screen make much of a difference for web browsing and SSH? or is QVGA (320x240) generally good enough?