Right after a weekend of rain, and leaving my phone in my pocket, it has finally died…

So i’m getting a new contract and phone.

Think i’m going for the Nokia 5800, looks nice etc… main thing about it is the Internet, and 3G connections.

So my question is will i get charged to use 3G, and go on teh internet on my phone?

The pirce plan is a Orange £30 a month jobbie (18months long, 13 months half price)

Can’et seem to see if it says in the contact information.

Unless the offer states net usage and amount I reckon you will have to pay for an add on etc.

Best calling orange and checking first.

Some shops do offers of free net.

It’s handy for applications like maps and Assisited GPS etc.

After a while you realise you don’t need it as much. Try getting it as cheap add on for £5 like on 3 and stop it after a 3 months?

Yeh, think a phone call to orange could well be in order. You would think that if you didn’t have to pay for the browsing, then they would tell you…especially as all these new phones have 3g capabilities.

3G isn’t a chargable thing – it is like broadband and dial-up for the web – it is the same thing, just one is faster – the contract you pay for will likely work on both 3G and GSM (I think the other one is known – or 2G as I’ve heard some folk call it) – basically it is a faster connection service so is good for web browsing on your phone/sending large MMS message but not much else in terms of improving the telephone conversation quality. It is also very good for video calling but that can ramp up costs a lot.

Running a phone in 3G mode will kill the battery far quicker than having it in GSM mode – I get just over half a day when my existing phone is in 3G mode – mainly due to me not being in a very good 3G area, but I can get 2 days out the phone if I switch 3G off.

Depending on your mobile contract you may have unlimited data in the deal – but you need to get that checked. If not, you may be offered an ‘add-on’ which will allow you unlimited data which means you would pay a flat-rate per month and not get charge any more if you use the web every day (although they say fair usage applies and all that).

Saying all that, browsing on the GSM network isn’t bad if you are accessing mobile-enabled websites – it isn’t fast but it’s not crawling along either…3G is good to have in a lot of situations but so far I’ve been happy without it as I don’t tend to do video calling/send MMS files or browse that much web stuff/stream music or videos.

I’m hoping to finally get a Nokia 5800 today as Vodafone seem to be out of stock of them the moment they come in…been every day for a week I’ve been trying to get my phone changed. Phone looks good and the battery life seems to be very good.

Thanks for that DickBarton, very helpful indeed. My phone can go on the “mobile phone” internet now, but it is very slow, basic, and costs a lot!

Seems that 3G will solve the problem nicely, and especially as my phone is broken, i get a new phone also.

I’ll ring orange up i think, see what they say, if i already have some data allowance on 3G. However after looking lat night i did find that you could buy 500mb a month for £5… So looks like that is what they are offering…

3G isn’t a chargable thing

it is in the sense that it’s internet usage. However, it doesn’t matter whether it 2G or 3G connection, it will cost the same – so if you just started using 3G on your current tariff, you will be charged the same as using you 2G…. possibly more as it’s faster and you’ll prob use it more!

yep, with orange you pay five quid for 500Mb, 2g or 3g.

with vodafone at the moment, they are doing 10months half price on the 5800, so you get 600mins, alot of texts and 500Mb browsing for the equivalent of 25 a month. its advertised on their website, but also available in shops.

500mb – not really sure how much that actually is…any ideas on how much usage would use that up 😆

as long as you’re not downloading videos, or using it as your main source of internet (i.e. you use internet at home), then quite a lot!!!

You can forget about the 3G/2G issue. All new phones are 3G, and all except the basic ones are HSPDA, also referred to as 3G+, which gives you even faster download speeds than 3G.

As DickBarton said, 3G will drain your battery a bit faster than 2G, but new phones like the 5800 are built for HSPDA, so unless you live in a really marginal area it should not be too much issue.

Most web sites are now assuming users have 3G so are including more pictures etc, plus the fact you will get used to using TBT GPS, photo/music download etc. I would strongly suggest you pay the small amount extra for an unlimited data plan, because the more you use it, the more you will use it, if you see what I mean

I’m with orange and pay &7.50 per month for unlimited internet (probbers with some limit) and previously paid £5 for evenings and weekends)

The cost without this sort of add-on is extortionate IMO.

Data won’t always be faster on 3G. It depends on how busy the cell is. Sometimes you will find it better to fix it on 2G.

Battery wise, 3G will be worse, but you should find the newer phones better, and you should still get several days standby. It also depends on how strong the signal is where you live, weak cells use more power from the mobile. But it’s the display backlight which eats most of the the battery if you are browsing and using maps a lot.

re 500Mb, that’s a lot of data for a mobile. Unless you are downloading music and videos stuff you won’t have a problem. If all you do is stuff like maps, assisted GPS, and static web pages, you are unlikely to have a problem. There is a data counter on the “logs” page of the phone so check that out if you have doubts. I browse about in idle moments, Google things, use Google maps and sportstracker sometimes, but never any videos, and only a few photos to Flickr. That’s stacked up 150Mb in two months.

BTW1 you might find the 3G system locks you out if you spend time high up (eg riding up on ridge tops etc). If your phone can see too many 3G cells, the system gets in a mess. I find I sometimes need to re-set the phone (or run 2G) if I’m in placers like that.

BTW2, Asda PAYG does 20p/Mb data rate for anyone who wants to keep off the contracts. – I just got one out for Mrs MC.