Samsung Galaxy Ace

[maggiethecat]

considering one for dd's 10 birthday in a couple of weeks. want her to be able to get in touch as necessary plus few extras of camera, internet etc (she already has an itouch) so this is really for on the go purposes.

would anyone recommend?

think there may be a deal for £7.50 pm giving talk time, texts and some data, 24 months and free phone. That works out to £180. Can buy phone unlocked for about £100 but would need sim card - can I get a sim card that allows talk, text and data without having to pay monthly, ie she can top up as and when she requires?

Yes definitely. It's a great budget phone IMO.

Pay as you go will all allow data to be paid for/used too. Most of them have sort of bundles that you pick, to get a set number of MB for £2 worth of credit or something like that. It might be worth checking though if there's some sort of block you can put on accessing the internet once the allowance she's set is used up so it doesn't eat all of her credit.

I would go into the individual shops of the different networks and see if they offer this service or what their data charges are like. They're all pretty comparable for calls and texts, so the data will be the biggie. You may be able to get the handset on PAYG cheaper locked to one network too, you can always get them unlocked later for about £20 if you needed to.

I had checked a few sites and it seemed as if most of them offered the monthly pay as you go and I could not seem to find any breakdown of charges for the top up option.

Am trying to work out if I should go for a 'cheap' monthly contract or buy the phone and top up according to need.

As an owner of several different Android mobiles, I'd really strongly say the Galaxy Ace is way down the list as far as those I'd recommend.

The two things going for it are (a) the size of the screen, if using it to watch some video clip {or playing a game} and (b) that it has a 5 Mp camera.

If you search the last year or so of 'Geeky Stuff' for 'Galaxy Ace' you will see a number of comments in the negative (because of lack of memory in this model). There's the Ace 2 phone and several others which are better. At the risk of boring other readers, I'll say there's the Sony Xperia Tipo (which has been sold at around 50 quid, new, in recent months) which has a load more memory and runs Android v4 (rather than v2.3).

Three has just (1st July) launched its PAYG '321' plan. 3p/ min for calls, 2p/ text, 1p/ MB. Now that's a bit expensive for data (compared with the unlimited options which start around 12/13 pounds for a SIM only deal) but generally much cheaper than other PAYG options from other networks... Best bit is that the credit doesn't run out until you use it up, it's not one of those 30 day nasties like most PAYG deals.

Alternatively, you might consider Ovivo Mobile (ovivomobile.com) where for 15 quid (one off payment) you get 150 minutes, 250 texts and some data {500 MB} each month

I have to admit to not yet having used Ovivo but plan to get one of their SIMs as I tied myself into a 24 month contract from Three (unlimited data, but only 100 minutes, plus a BlackBerry mobile and costing 13 quid a month)... and I think the extra 150 minutes a month for a very low cost is worth having. I have oodles of texts and data on Three but no easy / cheap way to trade those off for more 'talk'...

If I had known what Three were planning in July {their One Plan dropped in price from 25 to 15 pounds} I'd have gone for that, with 2000 minutes, 5000 texts and so on, instead of getting myself a BlackBerry phone, but it was either unlimited data and 200 minutes for 12.90 /month or 100 minutes, unlimited data and a phone, for 13.00 /month, so I opted for that!

not good if she wants to run more than a handful of apps as the internal memory is poor and apps generally need to go on the internal memory not the sd card

The memory problems are a pain. You can't add more. Apps run from phone memory not SD card. Some apps wil use SD card for storage, example Map data. Ok for running a couple of apps - I run Waze (satnav), a twitter client, ViewRanger (OS mapping).

It crashes quite often - web browser just reset whilst accessing mumsnet.

I would say that you should aim for something newer if you can.

hear what's said about memory - was thinking that she could use this phone for on the go, if she needs to call us etc and that she can use her itouch at other times. also, i don't plan to let her have a lot of alllowance/credit for data, so she'll probably be limited anyway.

Guy, will look at Ovivo, not sure what you mean by one off £15.

*> Ovivo

YBB - "It might be worth checking though if there's some sort of block you can put on accessing the internet once the allowance she's set is used up so it doesn't eat all of her credit."

On an Android phone there's a great utility called 3G Watchdog (I think someone here on MN recommended it), which can be set up with your monthly allowance and can disable the internet at a set level (so it could be set with a limit of say 250 MB a month and at 75% or 90%, just stops all internet connections).

It 'logs' use on 3G and Wi-Fi but only 'restricts' the 3G usage (I have been meaning to contact the author to do a Wi-Fi usage Watchdog - for those who have a monthly 'allowance' using say BT hotspots while out).

Guy, this is very helpful. The 321 deal sounds good as long as I can set limits by disabling internet - would not want her not to be able to call just because she's been busy on the net.

Still don't get the Ovivo deal - are they relying on you overusing the monthly allowance and then charge you comparatively high rates for overused calls, texts and data?

Will have a look at deals for Ace 2 (although I think the basic phone should suit her needs, if I can get the Ace 2 for not much more than its forerunner, it might be worth getting

I have the £7.50 contract. It does not cap your internet nor does it tell you when you reach your limit.

Also yes this phone crashes or loses signal a LOT! Very annoying to have to turn your phone on and off several times a day.

Actually am just going to go have a look at that 3G watchdog thing!

FeijoaVodkaStat - which contract, and am guessing you mean the Galaxy Ace phone (don't think mine has ever crashed, and I use several phones most of the day, every day {monitoring a few different GMail accounts})

My Galaxy Ace was bought March last year and working well, albeit with the limitations on how many Apps can be installed (so I have different Apps on different phones... at least 6 Android phones in use).

maggiethecat - have you looked at their website ? It shows the Freedom plan at 0/month.

You don't top up monthly with that one (unlike many networks), and it's a once only payment (presumably to cover 12 months). From what I've read, the internet use is funded by them playing adverts, but you don't have to use the data part of the plan (so if you turn on Wi-Fi at home, it wouldn't get the Ovivo data connection and therefore could not show their adverts).

I think they assume that people will eventually want more than 150 minutes or more than 500 MB of data and pay for one of their other plans. As for the Three PAYG 321 plan, use the 3G Watchdog to set a limit of say 100 MB a month (that'd be charged at 100p a month if fully used) and set the limit to be say 90% (so the watchdog app will shut down internet use at that point, whether it's at the start {watching a few /single YouTube video might use that up} or end of the month... You could check the amount of credit remaining via the web, and get some idea of an 'average' month of phone calls and texts.

Probably an idea to talk to customer services to see if you can block costly 'voting' lines (short codes that are cost of a text + 25p or more) - don't want all of DD's credit to be (ab)used by some bully at school who decides to vote 'out' someone on Big Brother (or whatever TV shows / music video services, etc, are available) just because they "borrow" her mobile.

(OK, worst case scenario, but it would be easy to sign up to some silly "ring tone" site that charges 4.50 a week {yes, there are such services} with just a few minutes access to her phone, and then her credit would be burnt up, half way through a month!) I'm sure teenage mags have all sorts of expensive music/ fashion / gossip numbers in the adverts, and boys would probably see "get Babe photos sent to your mobile" only £1.50 {except it is that price per picture message, and they send 3 a week to grab lots of cash}

I have the talk mobile contract. They've changed my sim once which helped, but it still has issues.

highly recommend virgin you get unlimited everything if you top up with £15 or text / calls for £10 or text / internet for £10.. and they share signal with t mobile and orange so you always have coverage.

Sorry Kidsloft but I have to take issue with "they share signal with t mobile and orange so you always have coverage."

I joined T-Mobile on their "full monty" tariff (reduced from £31 to £16 / month {with a bonus of £101 cashback}) in late January. Signals were poor in late April and I kept on having problems (and blamed my 12+ month old phone). In case it was the phone, I bought a new Sony Tipo on PAYG from T-Mobile and continue to have problems...

Around 20 June I rang tech support and they explained that with the EE merger there was a reduction in masts (I estimate each mast probably costs a network around 10,000 a year, based on maintenance and other costs).

The reduction was significant in my area and the sent me a signal booster (a small cell transmitter that plugs into my broadband) just so I could make phone calls and use the internet. They allowed me to cancel the contract early without it costing me any penalty (so I've had 6 months use for free, in effect). I was able to transfer my number with a PAC and got a letter the other day telling me they'd refund a quid or so of unused rental.

Virgin Media may be great and if the coverage in your area is good, then fine. I have 2G (ie no internet access) phones too. I think I have 3 Orange PAYG SIMs and another 3 Virgin Mobile PAYG SIMs (plus a few Asda!) so I am not dismissing Orange/T-Mob/Virgin completely, but I had major problems with the internet and 3G connection on T-Mobile, with or without any mast sharing with Orange !!