Smartphone Running costs

[Guest Oak]

Hello Newbie here!

I'm coming up to the end of my contract and my next phone WILL be a smartphone.

I think I will hold out for the MPX220 or if not the C500.

Anyway my question is this, what are the average costs in having a smart phone compared to a regular phone?

I currently spend £50 a month on all contract and calls, but with the smartphone I expect to also use MSN messanger, and the odd bit of browsing?

Any indication of cost would be a help!

BTW any network?

[Guest James]

Firstly, Welcome to the site mate :)

well, from what you are saying it wont be that different from what you are spending now.

do you currently use GPRS?

GPRS is what you 'will' need for MSN and browsing.. this is charged by the amount of data you download. you can get a various size data packs.

i use MSN and browse (also download music a bit) and i usually use around 4-6 MB of data a month.

if you have a look on the www.orange.co.uk website you should be able to work out the 'Access Pack' you would require.

hope this helps, at least a bit :lol:

[Guest mavisdavis]

Welcome to the site Oak

I'm on Talk200 £25 prmth 100 texts

120 Text bundle £8

10MB Data bundle £8 (I think)

Insurance (essential) £5

TOTAL = £46

I hardly ever go over my minutes but I text shed loads my average bill is around the £60 mark which includes alot of picture messages ( note to self to get a picture message bundle)

+ New customers get the pleasure of double minutes and texts for the 1st 6 months

Hope this helps ya :wink:

[Guest Samsonite]

make sure you get a bigger data bundle from what you might think to start with... if you get a nominal coupla meg, if you go over it- which is likely for a new toy- the upfront charge will be lesser than the per meg charge you'll incur. my first coupla bills have been nearly twenty quid higher than i thought due to playing with messenger and browsing! Posted from my SmartPhone!

[Guest Oak]

Cheers Guys, Thats been a big help!

Just a quick question on MSN is it always on when you are not making a call? Does this cost and does it kill the battery leaving GPRS on all the time?

Thanks

[Guest chucky.egg]

Good questions...

You can set MSN so that it stays on, but if you make or receive a phone call it logs you off. You have to manually log back on after each call. So far there is no way to automatically log you back on.

There is a "tweak" called SmartEase to keep GPRS on all the time after your initial connection, which will keep MSN live (until you make a call!). When the time comes do a search on MoDaCo and you should find the app.

GPRS being always on will drain your battery a faster, but only a little bit if you're not travelling. If you travel a lot it will drain quicker because it will be constantly trying to find the best cell. AFAIK that applies even without GPRS on.

The amount of data you use to keep MSN on all the time is quite small. I did some tests on another handset (Symbian) and I think it was a few Kb per day to stay connected (without sending or receiving any messages).

[Guest Oak]

Cheers!

So it sounds like having GPRS on all the time hardly costs anything!

I'm still weighing up which phone to get, the C500 seems a little buggy to me! So I might go with the MPX220 when it eventually comes out!

[Guest chucky.egg]

GPRS only costs if you transfer data (you get billed for the data you transfer, not the length of time you are connected), and MSN only uses small amounts of data to send and receive messages so even using the app probably won't eat up much of your GPRS bundle.

Having said that I'd agree with Samsonite - get a bigger bundle than you think you need, you are quite likely to "play" a lot initially and use up more data than you would in a normal month

There are bugs and problems with the C500, but not that many. I'm very happy with mine and (aprt from MSN logging me off all the time) none of them have really affected my use or enjoyment of the phone. I swore a while back that I owuld never have another HTC handset (they make the SPVs) but here I am with one again, and happy too... never thought I'd say that!

I'm not a Moto fan, but I know a lot of people are. It's dificult to get a balanced view from the posts on the forums (if everything is fine then you don't post, so the posts can give an unbalanced negative impression).

My advice would be get a phone on a new contract from a web site, try it and send it back before your 14 days runs out if you don't like it (in the UK you have 14 days to change your mind on any "distance selling" purchase). If you use your existing SIM card you won't have to pay anything at all, but if you use the SIM card that comes with the phone you'll have to pay call/sms/GPRS charges for what you've used in those 14 days

[Guest cardinal__b]

OK,

Can this question be answered?

Say I was to chat to someone on Messnger for an hour, approx how much data would this take up??

[Guest Pigo]

that depends how much data you send and receive. my tip is get Agile messenger. it has a built in data counter for every connection you make. it tells you exactly how much data you've sent and how much you've received. plus it has 4 other chat program's (Yahoo!, AOL, ICQ and Jabber)

Pigo

[Guest Confucious]

I have just got a C500 (my first smartphone) and think it's the pooches nuts.

I disagree witheveryones suggestion about signing up for a big data bundle to start with.

Orange let you try services for free for a month. Get them to give a month's free data access then you can see what you're using then make up your mind :)

The only problem is there is no way of telling how much you are using until you get your bill - a major flaw.

[Guest Taoski]

Also, i found that my GPRS usage went down after the first few months anyway (after the first exitement of having it) - so also something to bear in mind when costing in the packages.