Pay As You Go Vs Contract

With a mobile phone (or as my American friends call it, cell phone) you have two main options when choosing how to pay for your minutes, internet and texts. Either pay as you go, or contract.

Pay As You Go

There are various different people offering pay as you go tariffs and deals. Some pay as you go providers are targeted towards those who use their phone more for calling, whilst others focus on those who text a lot. Shop around and you can find a deal that suits you.

Pay As You Go is probably best for those people who use their phone less often. If you spend less than £10 a month on your phone, Pay As You Go is probably the cheaper option for you.

Contract

If you love to use your phone, and it rarely leaves your side then you probably have it on a contract. This means that you get a certain amount of minutes, texts and MB per month. If you are lucky you may even get unlimited on some of them. For this, you pay a fixed monthly fee.

Different mobile phone network providers - Virgin Mobile, Orange, Tesco Mobile, T-Mobile, Vodafone, 3, Talk MobileSometimes you can get a really good deal and get your phone chucked into free! A recent example of this is iPhone 4S contracts, if you take out a contract with some iPhones, you get the phone at a reduced price, or even for free.

Like with pay as you go SIMs, it can often pay to research all the deals on offer, as there are different contracts for different people. If you don’t mind an older model, but can’t stop talking, then there are contracts with unlimited minutes, but no freebies when it comes to the phone itself. Likewise if you really love having the latest model, there are contracts where you can get new phones as they come out, for free!

The only problem with contracts is that the more you want, unfortunately, often the more you have to pay. Yes you can have unlimited monthly calls, texts and internet usage, along with the latest phone, however it can cost you the earth!

It depends who you are as to which you think is best. Both pay as you go and contract deals have their merits, shop around and you are sure to get yourself a good deal that is right for you 🙂

How to choose the right iPhone 4S for you

Buying an iPhone 4S is more complex than brain surgery! There’s a mind boggling 6 options to choose from if you count the black and white colour variants. Next you’ve got to make the dare devil decision as to how much memory you’ll need (or rather how much memory you can afford!).

A brain showing the decisions that need to be made when choosing a new phoneAfter all that it’s a question of whether you buy SIM free, pay as you go or on contract. Choose to get the iPhone 4S on contract and you’ll walk into yet another wall of confusion.”Help!” you say! If you’re thinking of getting your paws on Apple’s latest must-have, then the following guide should point you in the right direction.

It don’t matter if you’re black or white!

There’s no difference whatsoever between the white and the black iPhone 4S. The white option is slightly more prone to finger marks as the black is to dust gathering. Whether you choose virgin white or classic black is down to taste. For whatever reason, the white iPhone 4S does sell on eBay for a touch over what the black fetches – so if you’re concerned about re-sale value, white is right for you.

Don’t forget your memory!

The difference in price between the 16GB and 64GB versions is around £200, so you best think carefully about how much storage you’ll actually need. With the A5 chip from the iPad on board, the iPhone 4S is capable of delivering a gaming experience like never before, but as such we can expect the games themselves to grow in size considerably (the current version of FIFA 12 for the iPhone is already more than 1.5GB). Download more than 10 games of this size and you can kiss your 16GB goodbye (let alone any music, films, pictures, videos and email attachments you want to store on your device).

Own an iPhone already? Check to see how many MB’s you’ve munched and then add 15% on top – if this adds up to more than 16GB, splash out the extra and go for 32GB option. On the hole, the 64GB monster should be reserved for the rich or super-geeky – but if you’re not the one stumping up the cash, then why not?

SIM free, Pay As You Go, or Contract?

OK, so as you might expect, there’s no definitive right answer here. There’s plenty of reasons that you might choose any of these options – it’s just a case of figuring out which is best for you.

A SIM free iPhone 4S will suit those who don’t want to be ‘tied in’ to a particular network. Perhaps you move regularly between two locations where signal is only available on a certain network, or maybe you’re moving abroad imminently.

Choosing Pay As You go for regular use will always work out more expensive than contracts, but if you want total control over your bills it’s worth investigating further. Remember that if you buy the iPhone 4S on Pay As You Go, it’ll be locked to the network that you bought it with.

Although SIM free deals are marginally more expensive than Pay As You Go, if you’re planning on switching networks, unlocking your iPhone 4S might be more hassle than finding an extra tenner for the SIM free option.

If you make a lot of calls (by a lot I mean more than 300 minutes worth per month) an iPhone 4S contract will work out far cheaper than Pay As You Go, plus you won’t have the hassle of ‘topping up’ regularly.

Another advantage of choosing an iPhone 4S on contract is the inclusive data. Unless you’re going to be using your 4S for phone calls alone, it’s likely you’ll need to connect to the internet. Email, apps, social media and of course web browsing will all use ‘cellular data’. Most contracts will come with a monthly data allowance of between 250MB and 1GB (stay away from contracts that don’t!).

Finding the best iPhone 4S contract for you

Finding the most suitable contract is largely a case of matching what you’ll use with what’s on offer, then finding the best price. If you’e already on contract then finding out how many minutes, texts and how much data your using is simple. Just give your network a call and ask!

Most of the UK networks now have login areas of their websites where you can view your latest bills. Take a look at your usage from the past 3 months and note down how many minutes of calls you’ve made, how many texts you’ve sent and the number of MB’s you’ve downloaded.

Now you know roughly what you’ll use in a month, the quickest way to find the best iPhone 4S deals is to compare contracts using a specialist mobile phone contract comparison site. These sites make it really easy to pick and choose your options and see all the tariffs available without the need to visit every network’s website. Buying your iPhone 4S online also means you avoid commission thirsty ‘assistants’ you seem to find in every high street mobile phone shop.

When you make your contract comparison, you’ll notice that the shorter the tariff length, the more expensive the monthly cost tends to be. 12 month contracts are the most expensive and although networks must offer 1 year deals by law, they more than make up for it with excessive monthly charges. Most will find that a 24 month contract works out cheapest with 18 month tariffs falling somewhere in between.

So that’s about it! I hope you enjoyed my first post on Technology Bloggers, please comment below and I’ll do my best to answer questions.

Selecting the best mobile broadband provider for you

When it comes to mobile broadband providers then the options are certainly plentiful, but picking the right one can be a little less straightforward, particularly if you’re not all that savvy with current deals.An O2 dongle pluged into a laptop

There are essentially two options open to you, with one route being the pay as you go option, while the other is the contract route. Both are good bets, although it really depends on your circumstances as to which one you’ll ultimately plump for.

Either way, you’ll need a mobile broadband dongle in order to connect to whichever network it is you end up going with. These are the small plastic USB devices that slot into an available port on your laptop or netbook in order to pick up the signal and there are many to choose from.

Some mobile broadband networks give these away with certain deals, while others may make a nominal charge for them. The great thing about going for a pay as you go dongle is that you don’t need to stick too any one deal and after you’ve used up the available credit you can move to a better deal that might have emerged.

Having said that, you’ll probably find that many mobile broadband providers generally offer more flexible deals when it comes to things like data allowances with contract offers. Pay as you go is handy as it doesn’t require a contract and you’re not tied down for any period of time, but if you need beefier download allowances then contract may be the better of the two.

Of course, knowing which network provider is going to be the best relies on a number of factors as well as this, so lookout for the speed offered, although this is often much more optimistic in advertising than it is in reality. Look too for what sort of monthly cost there will be if it’s a contract deal and also if there is any set-up cost initially.

Mobile broadband providers are always coming up with new deals and incentives to try and get you to sign on the dotted line. Lookout for free laptop deals, which get given to you in return for signing up to a longer contract. Other goodies include free dongles, extra airtime, calls for nothing and all manner of other goodies if you shop around.

And that is where the secret to finding the best mobile broadband provider lies. One of the best ways to get the deal to suit your requirement, and also your wallet, is to use the services of a broadband comparison website. This is a free and easy way of locating exactly the right deal and also comparing precise details with all of the other current options.

Read some reviews too and don’t forget to ask around or check with friends and work colleagues as to their own preferences. One thing is for sure, there are plenty of deals and a little bit of homework up front can pay big dividends in the long run.