Pay as you go plans make it easy to own a nice new phone without having to spend several hundred pounds to do so. Networks like Vodafone, T-Mobile, Orange, Virgin and O2 have for a decade offered free handsets to customers willing to sign up for 12, 18, or 24 month contracts. This is good for the networks because the more subscribers they have locked in for a lengthy contract, the more financially stable and consistent their company can be. For consumers, the deal is a bit like a lease-to-own deal; customers pay for their monthly plans, in return receiving the handset of their choosing.
Is there a Big Difference in Plans for Variably Priced Phones?
Seemingly, it would be unfair were retailers to hand out the same Nokia Lumia 920 to everyone signing a contract with them, whether that contract was for £7 a month or £70. In fact, that is not how it works. Consider the deals on phones like the Nokia Asha, one of their budget phones. With prices as low as £7 a month, customers have access to 50 talk time minutes, 100 text messages and 250 MB of data. While these limits are on the low side as far as contracts go, so is the price.
For the same price, customers choosing a pay monthly deal can opt for the Lumia 520 also by Nokia and receive the exact same minutes, text messages and data limit as set forth with the Asha. The only two networks willing to go this low for these two phones are T-Mobile, who likes to gain as wide a customer base as possible and stretches far to gain every income level and personality type it can, and Talk, a network gaining in popularity as it follows T-Mobiles lead.
There is no deal on the high end Lumia series phones, and retailers are not even giving out a free 900 series phone for less than £25 a month contracts.
Nokia Slide Phones as Pay as You Go Phones
The Nokia 6500 or the 6600 series is largely a matter of personal preference. The 6600 was designed to take over the spot filled previously by the 6500, but the specs remain largely the same. The design of the 6600 is a bit trendier with its single-colour design. Memory remains low at 20 MB of internal storage, but both 6500 and 6600 have micro SD slots for an upgrade in memory up to 8 GB.
There are not currently contract deals for either of these phones. The reason for this is largely that popularity of higher end feature phones is being taken over by lower end smart phones. At least that is what the numbers indicate, with more than half of all phones sold in 2013 outstripping those feature phones or dumb phones sold. This marks the first time in history that smart phones have outsold their lesser qualified rival phones, and the turning point is causing many feature phones to be hidden away as pay as you go phones.
That is alright for those who like precocious technology that does not take itself as seriously as do many smart phones. Feature phones with slide out keyboards were quite popular ten years ago and still are today, to some extent. The touch screen is only good for so many people; there is also a market for those who text and email with keyboards and prefer to do so on a slide out feature phone with fewer bells and whistles than found on todays family of smart phones.
Pay as you go on a 6500 or 6600 is a reasonable deal for those who like paying what they can, when they can. The 6500 costs £70 brand new and the 6600 can be found for around £120 brand new. T-Mobile has some deals on minutes, text messaging and data for those who opt for the pay as you go route. One such deal, and the least expensive, costs just £10 and entitles customers to 100 talk time minutes, 400 text messages and 1 GB of data.
Nokia Touch Screen Phones On a Contract For Free
The Nokia Lumia series of phones offers great flexibility in both price and functionality of plans and phones. The 500 series is the most economically priced line of phones, with free phones coming with contracts beginning at just £10.50 each month for 24 months.
In contrast, the more expensive 700 series, which costs £175 more than the 500 series, can be had for free for as low a monthly cost as £19. While that might sound too good to be true, it is true, and is not too good to be so. The cost of the phone is calculated and spread out over the length of the contract period. It is a little like giving away a car to a customer while locking them in to buying petrol from your petrol station at a slightly higher price than customers who bring their own cars to your station.
The most advanced Windows phone to date is the Nokia Lumia 928, and it is priced accordingly. To get one of these on contract customers are going to have to agree to spending £25 a month for a 24 month contract, and even then will not be getting a whole lot of data, text messaging, or calling capability. The limits imposed in order to obtain a phone this expensive for “free†with a contract this budget-friendly are quite tight; customers only have 300 talk time minutes and 250 MB of data each month, while getting a whopping unlimited text messaging allowance.
Deciding which phone to buy or which to opt for a contract on depends largely on the line you have drawn in the sand between price and features. If your line is closer to the price, you may want to opt for a lower cost smart phone with a contract in order to obtain more minutes, text messages and data. If, on the other hand, you draw than line closer to the features department, you can have just about any smart phone if you are willing to spend more or give up some minutes, data and text messages.
Getting one of the latest Nokia slide phones was not a problem for Sam Jones. He simply made use of comparison services such as uSwitch and found a great deal, saving himself plenty of money.
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