Is it worth waiting until Vodafone release their Iphone on 19th Jan or go and get it from orange? Out of contract and with vodafone currently but cant wait!!

Well the phone is the same. Just depends on how the deals form each work out for you I guess.

more after details of what orange coverage is like and what people feel about the company?

Coverage is good in my experience and I've not had any problems with them in 8 years.

i doubt very much that vodaphone will bring it out cheaper than orange or O2 do,

so just go for the Orange one now…

though i do have a funny feeling the 3g will be with us around Feb-May time next year.. may be worth the wait… in the mean time get a rolling contract on virgin or something.. i pay £13 a month and currently am getting 600 minutes and unlimited texts for that!!

get a blackberry as it will last longer than 10 mins away from a plug!

Eh? My iphone 3G lasts 3 days. How long do you need?

iphone comes out in mid Jan with Vodafone.
Got Blackberry for work and it would just p&ss me off having two blackberrys… i dont sell drugs!

or well a new version anyway… not to sure what its guna be called…. 2g, 3g, 4g,5g,

oh so a 2year contract is not a good idea?!

Not used Orange mobile phone, so cannot comment on coverage.

BUT:
Was an Orange broadband customer, and if the customer services on the mobile phone side of things is as bad as it was with the broadband, I'll never get an Orange mobile.

(Problem was not tied in to a contract, we had been a customer for about 7 years, initially with Freeserve, then Wannadoo, then Orange. Orange had a server problem which meant no internet for us, constant promises of fixes "in the next 24 hours", useless, truly useless system that meant I had to go through all of the troubleshooting every time I rang for progress. In the end I knew it better than the operators, and just lost it mega style one evening which strangely resulted in my call being transferred from overseas to the UK. Problem was never resolved, but I avoided paying for 30 days of internet (the notice period) which they couldn't by their own admission provide to me).

Click for 3g coverage maps from Jan 09

Orange are better than Vodafone by the look of it.

the customer service with orange is terrible… hence why i left them…

a friend of mine who works for apple in New zealand tells me that there should be a version of the iphone out in the first half of next year..
hes pretty reliable too.. told me about the Macbook Air and the nano getting a camera etc…

so maybe wait a little bit! (and save cash in the mean time) what phone have you got at the moment?

Every month I visit London from Italy, where locking phones to service providers is illegal, and the last time I brought my iphone 3gs. Went into an Orange shop, explained to the guy that I wanted a PAYG data/voice card for my iphone, bought it, and popped it in. World of pain:

1. Couldn't find the settings for the internet connection in the sim card docs, so called customer support to get the APN address. This is a very basic setting. After holding for half an hour, the customer service guy told me that he didn't know and that the department that knows was unavailable until the next day. Your Orange iPhone would probably come set up, so you wouldn't have this problem, but the more applicable conclusion is that ORANGE CUSTOMER SERVICE SUCKS. They can't even answer the most basic questions.

2. iPhone refused to log into 3g, and would only work on GPRS, which is painfully slow. Again, this probably won't be a problem with Orange iPhones, but I was quite obviously sold a sim card which is not fit for purpose. The most charitable conclusion I can draw: ORANGE SALESPEOPLE DON'T KNOW WHAT THEY'RE DOING. At worst, something doesn't quite work between the 3gs phone and Orange 3g network.

3. Finally, and probably most importantly, I tried to grab a bit of porn off the web with my iPhone. My usual site was blocked by Orange, and I received the message that I have to PROVE to them that I'm over 18, and to give them a ring to sort it out. What?! It's not their place to filter my content. If they want to 'protect kids', have an opt-in system, not opt-out. Not only that, but straight after, many other sites I tried to access (including singletrackworld) was recognized as porn, and therefore blocked. Unbelievable. Conclusion: ORANGE WILL BABYSIT YOUR USAGE, AND IT WILL DRIVE YOU CRAZY

After the second day, chucked the card in the bin, went into a T-Mobile shop, bought a standard sim card, popped it in, and it worked perfectly straight away. APN settings auto populated, 3g without a problem, and all the porn I could download.

So in my opinion, stay as far away from Orange as you can. Can't speak to the quality of Vodafone…

The best thing, if you can afford it, is to grab an unlocked iPhone from italy, for 600 euro or so, and then you can use whatever network you want, with low switch cost.

Now that 02 & Voda are sharing networks, coverage is pretty good..
Having been been a customer of Orange, I personally would never go back.

Oh, and they are currently looking into UMTS 900 or 4g at the minute..

I'd pesonally stick with O2 as their iPhone tarrifs are the cheapest..

EDIT: just tried a couple more porn sites on t-mobile, and SOME get blocked too. Unbelievable.

I don't need a babysitter!

If kids have iPhones, it's probably their parents who bought them. Have the parents, if they want, filter dirty content with a password protected app! That would make a lot more sense — I suspect that the vast majority of iPhone customers are 18+, and the mobile ISPs are just inconveniencing [some of] them. 👿 If I want to squeeze one off on the bus home, I shouldn't have to ask the network's permission!!!!

If I want to squeeze one off on the bus home, I shouldn't have to ask the network's permission!!!!

Just clean up after yourself would you??

I recently (4 months ago) switched to Orange to get better coverage. I would have got an iPhone if I'd have known they were getting them. Anyone have an idea of how much an upgrade would cost for these?

I had an Orange contract and moved house only to find that there was really bad Orange coverage. having talked to their tech people (which was not easy…) they agreed that I was in an area with bad coverage (rather than the first response from customer service guy who told me "its a mobile phone – not designed to work indoors – your fault for buying a house with thick walls" – shut up sharpish when I said it didn't work at the bottom of my garden…

Even with the agreement from Tech that they couldn't provide me with coverage at home and that they had no plans to upgrade their coverage I could not get out of my contract, or even buy my way out at anything less than the full terms… It took me four hours of repeated calling to get to this point.

I don't like Orange – not for their product or deals, but their customer service is….

Clicher for me was the picture messaging, O2 takes 4 messages out your bundle (in which you get loads of messages) and Orange cost 25p each (on top of your contract). I've not hand an issue with O2.

Use quidco for £60 cash back – if you need > 1 then make sure you do it in 2 seperate transcations 😉

no web filtering on 02 and customer service is pretty good.