Time to upgrade my old and broken HTC Sensation. I’ve been reading the threads on android battery life, etc., and I’m ‘seduced’ by the giffgaff model and pricing especially as they are also doing phones now by p2p lending. However – a few questions:

1/ GG piggyback on O2, and according to the coverage maps O2 coverage isn’t great for 3G, and def not for 4G in even the areas i live, work and ride – which aren’t wilderness by any stretch. If a phone can’t get 4G or 3G does it switch on to 2G so you can at least make calls? i realise that in an emergency 999 will go on any network, but I’m more concerned if someone needed to call me urgently.

2/ I like the HTC setup / system (maybe I’m a luddite but it’s what i had, and learned and therefore anything else is change). My work phone is a Samsung, which i can work and could learn but I don’t really want one of them because they sponsor Chelski (yes, fickle). And the Sony Experia gets good reviews and is rated on the thread that’s running about battery life, etc. Is the Sony system easy to work? (I had a S-E mobile back in the day and it was **** compared to the Nokia i replaced it with)

3/ If i went down the route of buying a phone outright and doing a giffgaff SIM only, where’s the best / cheapest place to get one, given i don’t really want second hand or ‘obsolete’ models.

anyone?

Gift Gaff coverage was pants for me in local home valleys. You could buy a pay as you go SIM to try out the coverage. Virgin VIP is what I went for, with unlimited calls/text/data (no tethering) for £15.

1/ Giffgaff doesn’t yet have 4G. http://giffgaff.com/4g
Phones automatically fall back from 4G to 3G to 2G….

2/ Pretty subjective. Most are running Android with a ‘skin’, it’s swings and roundabouts but the underlying operating system is the same.

3/ Giffgaff themselves now sell some handsets for a reasonable price, direct, SIM free or on a deal. http://giffgaff.com/phones
I got a Nexus, direct from Google.

o2 and the MVNOs like Tesco / GiffGaff who use them still have very limited 3G coverage – it’s not long since both they and Vodafone risked losing their licenses due to a failure to roll out 3G to 90% of the population (compared to the 98/99% that EE and Three have managed).

o2 and Vodafone are effectively building a shared network through an initiative called “Cornerstone”. Cornerstone recently put back it’s delivery of the 98% target for 4G population coverage from 2015 to 2017 – EE will get there by the end of this year and are already at 70% 4G coverage.

If you want the best 3G coverage and keen prices, go for Three or Virgin (who use EE’s network). If you want the best current 4G service go for EE, and if you want unlimited 4G at no cost and good coverage then go for Three – who will also be rolling out 4g coverage to 300 towns and cities by the end of the year.

On the handset point – choose the network first then go for the best handset deal you can find – or go SIM only.

Cheers rob. But o2 and their piggybacked networks like giffgaff seem ok in population centres like London and the se, aren’t they? My work phone’s o2 and i’ve never seemed to have an issue, albeit I don’t use that one for much web browsing.

3 is the best one I have found for data, it works everywhere even in random villages I travel to rocking 15mbps, o2 wss pretty poor, but useable in major cities / towns, thats the only reason I left giffgaff

One of the big bonuses of of these cheap payg sims is that you can have a go. If you want a referral I can send you a link for a free fiver each (email in profile), you then need to put £10 on (so you’ll have £15 credit). Give it a go, if it doesn’t pan out when you run out of credit chuck it in the bin and try a different one. Not much to lose, rather than being locked into a contract for 18 months

I use GiffGaff and (piggybacked onto O2) and works fine for me, usually down South but didn’t have issues up North. Only problem area for me is the along the M4 around Swindon

theotherjonv – not sure o2 are much cop in towns and cities either.

Rootmetrics’ detailed testing indoors and outdoors over the last 18 months in towns and cities across the UK would seem to suggest that o2 is pretty poor – they are typically vying with Vodafone for the “worst performance” prize on texts, call reliability and data speeds in the majority of UK cities tested to date:

http://www.rootmetrics.com/uk/compare-operators/

Every area is different so whatever you do choose a network that works for you – but on the available data o2 has a significantly smaller coverage area for 3G and also underperforms other networks indoors and outdoors on tests of data speeds and call quality. Three typically beats it on these measures, has much better 3G coverage and is cheaper.

GiffGaff internet coverage is pants for me also (Aire Valley), despite O2 claiming coverage along the full length of the valley. No point in having the great GG package if it doesn’t work, I’m changing in a few days.

Tesco mobile have an offer on for £12.50 750 minutes, 5000 texts, 1 month contract – 2Gb data on 4G (well for iphone 5 compatible sims)… I’m being tempted to move from GiffGaff by this TBH

I can only say to avoid vodafone. They have completely given up on their 3G network coverage and bandwidth – and they’re hardly bending over backwards to fill the gaps with 4G. We moved to O2 last week after suffering for so long, only staying with vodafone because of their SureSignal femotcell box giving us coverage in the house over our broadband. But Sure signal got so flakey we gave up.

I went to London on the train from deepest darkest Worcestershire and for the first time I actually had a signal the whole route, and for most of that a 3G signal. I was lucky to bak 70% and 40% with vodafone.

wish they could give me Mrs one of these 😉