aaargh! Phone upgrade time. HTC Desire or Samsung Galaxy?

[NorbertDentressangle]

As I said its phone upgrade time.

Up until now I've just had call time and texts included but never used anywhere near my max allowance.

I now have the option of 100MB included (same price overall, less texts and mins but thats fine) so thought I'd go for it. I've never accessed the internet via phone before. My current phone is an LG touchscreen.

The phone options are :

Samsung Galaxy Mini
Samsung Galaxy Y
HTC Desire C

Any pros and cons to any of those?

Also, realistically speaking what does 100MB give you? It would be for MNing browsing I guess, no fancy business!

Thanks

anyone please?

100 MB is a few hours of music from an internet radio service for me, but some people do get by with that. You'd probably want to use wireless hotspots anywhere you could (eg at home).

The Galaxy Mini is a bit old now, and probably 'behind the times' compared with the more recent Galaxy Y (Y for 'Youth' apparently). Not sure about the HTC Desire C, but you can get some comparisons on GSM Arena

*> HTC vs Galaxy Y HTC vs Mini Galaxy Y vs Mini

Should add that I use the Three network with 'all you can use' data which is why I play music via the internet a lot of the time - they're getting my 15 quid a month and I don't use all 3000 texts or 600 minutes, but do use a fairly large amount of data instead.

Also that SOMA FM (from San Francisco) and JazzRadio.com are not UK stations

From my experience not the Htc desire - my mum just upgraded to it and it's a nightmare to use. I'm pretty tech savvy but it has had me screaming in frustration.

Hi, I'm not at all techy, BUT I got my first smart phone over 2 years ago, ws an iphone. I went from never using my phone to using it loads. When my first ever upgrade came I wanted to get something cheaper. I got the galaxy s3, it is THE BEST PHONE EVER. I can only compare it to the iphone, it's cheaper, quicker, cooler, lighter, but doesn't have the feel of quality the iphone has. Also, my iphone constantly needed to be plugged in to the net and the Samsung doesn't. I realise you're not choosing between these two, but this is all I know, I love my samsung!

100MB is plenty - I have this as a monthly allowance and rarely use more than 10% of it. I use my phone for MNing, facebook, facebook messaging (via the app) and checking email mainly, also uploading photos to facebook and checking things like the weather forecast or train/bus times when out, I sometimes listen to internet radio or music on youtube, but only for about 2 hours a week max, the others are more constant. Just be careful if your apps download updates automatically - there's a setting you can choose which means they'll only update when connected to Wifi. If you've got wifi at home and/or work and you don't plan on watching videos etc when out then it should be more than enough. I went over on my first couple of months because I was downloading so many apps to try them out and then they kept updating. I use an app now called 3G Watchdog which lets me know how much data I've used.

Of those phones I would go for the HTC because it has a decent amount of internal storage, just because that's the thing that annoys me the most about my phone. Certain apps, like Skype and email apps will download data to your phone itself and on phones with little internal memory this can fill up very fast and stop the app from working properly. I'd still use an app such as App2SD to move as many apps as you can onto an SD card, but having wiggle room there will help a lot with the general running of your phone.

Plus the HTC interface is nicer, IMO I prefer Samsung in general but the HTC interface is so pretty! Also NetworkGuy is right about the latest version of Android being a plus point.

Mama they all use the Android operating system so will be pretty similar in operation.

I am hopeless and everything IT, but my HTC desire is great. I use it for everything and that really is saying something for someone who is a complete technophobe!

I need to know how NetworkGuy got all that for £15, they charge me double that.

Thank you -some interesting info there which I will need to read properly tomorrow when my brain is free of wine and endless phone info!

I keep finding better offers than my current provider Vodafone eg. Tesco (who will offer same texts/calls but with 500MB for same price) so am trying to weigh all that up too.

It seems as if the HTC v Samsung is just down to personal preference I guess.

Please keep suggestions, info etc coming though as it all helps.

Thanks

100MB is not much. I use about 1GB a month and that's not including what I use at home over WiFi. That is all used through general browsing, Facebook, etc. Plus whatever my phone uses for email syncing and app connectivity. If you've never had smartphone before, you never know how much you might use as many people suddenly start using their phones more! 500MB would probably be ok for light use.

Is there any reason you are looking at those 3 phones? There are much better out there right now for very little money.

SB6699 - it's because I bought a cheaper phone on PAYG (after being bankrupt some time back, and not being on the local electoral roll when I first moved here, I fail most credit checks).

I was able to get the SIM600 (12 months contract) SIM ONLY deal and then put that in a phone I bought for 125 quid. I am unable to get a contract which includes a phone, though the guy at the Three store said that after a few months with them, it's more likely they'd allow me a contract with a phone (so at the end of 12 months I might consider it, or get an unlocked phone on Ebay to use with the same SIM only deal).

The newer HTC and top end Samsungs are likely to cost 400 to 600 pounds, same as the iPhones.

Many monthly contract fees are mostly paying for the cost of the phones, which are subsidised by the network (and locked to that network if bought from the network, but may be unlocked if bought at Carphone Warehouse / Phones4U or online at e2save.com or mobiles.co.uk (both are CPW web sites!)

Pedro - probably worth naming the "better phones out there" so OP can see what her network would charge (or whether it may be worth switching network and taking her number with her)...

I see, thanks for that. Might do that at my next renewal then. DH has 3 phones with them so would save us a fortune!

Just to let you know, my DH doesnt have a great credit rating but they gave him one on a certain contract and then after the year was up they let him have a better contract and the extra phones.

We've been with them for years and every time it comes round to renewing our contract DH threatens to cancel and they usually come up with some deal or other to make us stay. The contracts we have now are supposed to be £50 pcm with a crappy phone but we all have a Desire and pay £30 although we have so many minutes, texts and data allowance that we never even get close to using it all.

If you have a smartphone now, try the 3G watchdog app and see how much you're using currently.

My mum got the htc desire c yesterday. She paid £30 for the phone, £10/month contract and she gets unlimited texts, 250mb data and 100 minutes.

I've had a play with it and it seems fine for the money (I'm an iPhone girl myself)

i just got a galaxy advance s? or something and am very happy with it, i chose it over the htc as it got better reviews and seems easier to use :)

sb6699 - you could probably negotiate for a lower rental rather than replacing the phones each year/two if you don't see a new phone you 'really, really, want'.

I know with my situation (I have a load of phones on different networks) getting a brand new phone is not really top of my list - so long as the current 'most singing and dancing' is doing what I want, but paying less or getting more might be a decider...

This month have 250 minutes left and 3 days to use them up so I know I don't need more minutes... (250 left mainly because my eldest sister managed to divert all calls to voicemail by accident, and it took a while to get through to her as I initially felt she had switched the phone off for a few days!)

Unlimited internet for 3 quid a month as part of my deal was the best bit for me, even though I don't use Skype or FB/Twitter I do use plenty of data instead... but with just 1 GB a month it would have been 12 quid.

NB price has gone up a bit recently (50 or 75p, cannot remember exact amount) rise unwelcome but not excessive, whereas someone else has had an 8 quid/month increase on her Virgin Media cable bill and that does seem a big jump!

veeeee - probably an idea to mention which network and where she found that deal, as it could help others...

I changed a few months ago from an HTC Desire to a Samsung Galaxy S.

I will probably go back to an HTC next time, purely based on little things, like preferring the way the predictive text works on the HTC.

My main issue with the HTC was the lack of memory space, but that seems to have been resolved now.

I just changed from an HTC Desire to a Galaxy S2 yesterday on T-mobile. The predictive text on the Samsung is a bit annoying but I'll turn it off. Apart from that, I really like the phone.

SB6699 -I'm interested in what you said about your DH threatening to cancel contracts and them coming up with a better deal as I was thinking about trying that with Vodafone (anything to avoid transferring my number to another provider with a new contract etc!!)

Do you have to be good at haggling and be really tough or are they likey to cave in pretty much straight away?

I was a PAYG customer with them for about 8 years and then contract for last 2 years if that makes a difference.

For everyone with predictive text issues, I'd recommend downloading one of the 3rd party keyboards. I use SwiftKey 3 and it's excellent for predictions and corrections.... Means you don't need a new phone anyway!

I'd say one of the Samsung as well. I've just got the galaxy s3 over waiting fir through iPhone 5 and it's fab much better than any iPhone and I had everyone including the 4s

Norbert - they were a lot tougher this year compared to previous years but that could be because our existing tarriff was already reduced.

I used to haggle with Vodafone every year and a couple of times they ended up paying me to take a new phone.

Doesn't work any more though, Voda lost me as a customer when they stopped giving me retention offers and I moved to Tmob who don't really offer much either. However, I'd say it's always worth telling them you're leaving and quote another high street offer. They'll usually knock a bit off or find some weird contract deal for you!