I recently realised I was getting totally rinsed. Paying £28 a month (SIM only no contract), for 16GB of data. Changed to Smarty - paying £8 now. Same for the wife. Annoyed I didn't do it months ago.
11 Nov 2023
89
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Disclaimer: 2 ish days. If not constantly streaming and browsing. Typically about 45 mins to an hour total of spotify during daily commute, then the odd 10 minute browse and IM (messenger, whats app) here and there. I dont often actually call people unless its work (in which case I use work phone anyway). Because people.
Does 02 still carry Giffgaff? I've never had a reception issue and I live in the Lincolnshire Fucking Wolds with the inbreds and swamp donkeys.
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Went for an ex-demo Pixel 6a off of the eBay from a seller with 99.9% positive feedback, £220.
For cheap monthly bills:
Smarty on Three network
GiffGaff on O2
Lebara on Vodafone
Lyca (not recommended, no customer service, couldn't send SMS, even the short code to obtain a PAC was wrong on their literature) on EEuSwitch have great deals for these.
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Never had an issue with giffgaff myself, even out here in the sticks.
If you can get past the Shady Hipster customer experience which offers no direct customer support as such, just a conglomerative community of the above mentioned. But, that enables to offer the very decent unlimited calls / texts bundles with decent data allowances.
A 10 quid a month 'Golden Goody Bag' (I know, I know) is more than enough for the usage I described in my last post and very probably overkill. Cool, cool.
You will need additional 'credit' on standby for MMS (if thats still a thing) and calling Grotlines / Teamtalk (if that's still a thing).
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I'm giff gaff too, never had a problem here in balmy NW Leicestershire either.
Different areas have different black spots I would just check which networks are best in areas you go to.
Jr is on Voxi, that seems decent too
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I realise that I am specifically excluded, given the framework of the enquiry. But ya boo sucks.
I am on giffgaff. For the areas that I use it in, I also have experienced generally excellent coverage. I have a £10 a month goodybag with 5G, and never get close to consuming my 'in contract' allowances. Mostly because I am using wifi in my regular locations, although I do use it for laptop internet (via the phone as a hotspot) occasionally in pubs, and generally out and about.
I mostly use the phone for web browsing, messaging, and technical and product research. I do also, on occasion, use it for ssh'ing into servers for maintenance and upgrade, when I am not near a secure office computer. For which I use termux. I have also taken to calorie counting using a phone app, which accounts for a fair amount of usage, as well as navigation/maps. Some phone calls, not much, but more email and sms. I run/contract some specific server applications to provide services to my phone (baikal for contact/calendar, movim for xmpp messaging, vaultwarden for secure encrypted password/otp store, mxroute for email). Nextcloud is another likely incoming on this front, I've toyed with podfetch and a couple of media repositories, but I just don't consume enough of this sort of stuff while on the move to make it worthwhile.
In current usage I have two poco f3's (two years old) and two moto g7's (older). I use neo backup and syncthing to sync phone settings to my work computer, when on the home network...which allows me to recover all settings (apps, email, call lists, etc) to any of the phones up to the latest backup - such that any of the four phones can become my current working phone...and I always carry one as backup in case I throw my current active phone into a river, or set fire to it while burning a church down. Also it means that I have a working phone if I become battery compromised with my current active phone.
I do periodically look at new phones, but there is no development that would positively impact on my usage, and certainly nothing of an improved cost benefit value. All phones run lineageos 20 (currently android 13, likely to upgrade to android 14 shortly). Maintenance upgrades occur weekly...but it's not necessary to upgrade every phone every week. Having multiple phones reduces my exposure if an upgrade goes bad. Several of the phones have had replacement batteries...to date none are exhibiting any hardware failures.
It seems to me that most current phone sales are driven by built in obsolescence, and 'need new shiny' fomo. Although i have close contacts in the photography and social media spheres, where up to date mobiles are more necessary tools of the trade.
What would my must have criteria for a phone be? Does what I want for my particular usage. Is easily backup-able as part of an ongoing non-intrusive routine. High level of maintenance updates. Software upgradable to avoid obsolescence (more regularly an issue than hardware obsolescence nowadays, it seems to me). Support for privacy respecting applications and software, and able to cut out the cancer of data collection and other organisations running software on your phone, at your expense, to your detriment. Can play radio streams, run navigation, record gpx tracks, log activity (eating, drinking, location), and provide connectivity and messaging to systems/people that I need to.
--edit--
One of the under-appreciated benefits of giffgaff, is it's sim registering procedure. I have a couple of spare sims in my wallet. If I do throw my phone into a river, or set fire to it in a church, all I need is internet access somewhere, and to log into my giffgaff acount, register one of the spare sim cards with my account, and put it in my spare phone. In an hour it will be activated, and my spare phone now fully working.
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O2 have clearly put all their investment into the arse ends of nowhere. Have a couple of spots on my train in to London that I can use to try and refresh stuff otherwise nothing.
Think it might be the 5G they claim to offer. It shows full bars signal but nothing ever loads.
EE 5G was perfect in all the places O2 isn't.
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Anyone got any thoughts on smart watches? I'm looking on Amazon and there's a wide range of devices from $600 for the latest Samsung down to $50 for a wide range of Chinese knock offs, and they all seem to have broadly similar features. I'm really looking for the following:
- Exercise tracking
- Basic health monitoring
- SMS display
Is there any reason to not go with the cheap one, especially given I've never had a smart watch and don't really know how or how much I'll use it? Are the Chinese going to use it to harvest all of my data?
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I've got this one. I purposefully bought a smart watch that didn't do too much. It pretty much has the functionality that you descibe and not much else. I use it for tracking my runs, checking the time, glancing at text messages whilst cycling/running, and occasionally for bemoaning how little sleep I've had in the last week. it does all the 'health' stuff great. If I was buying it again I'd get a slightly newer model as this one doesn't track swimming well/at all. My mates has sensors which tracks the distance/lengths he's done.
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{sits, waits}
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Should probably add another criterion: does not look like a rubber sports watch. I'd probably take it off in the gym anyway, it needs to be something I'd be happy to wear with a suit or blazer as much as a tee shirt and jeans.
For example, I really like this one:
www.amazfit.com/products/amazfit-balance
But it's running something called Zepp OS, which is made by Xiaomi who I've heard of but know nothing about. My concern with all of these lesser known brands and OS/apps is that I'll be nervous about using it for things like contactless payment in a way which I wouldn't with a Samsung watch.
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Your requirement list has just had contactless payment added to it, which changes things quite a bit.
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That's not really a requirement, more just a feature that seems to be fairly common among a lot of them.
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I have a Samsung watch. Not the latest one. Its fine, I imagine the amazfit is fine too. My car is Chinese so I am already having all data harvested.
I have never used Samsung pay on the watch or phone, in the UK it doesn't seem to cover a lot of banks. I'm not sure you can use Google pay on the Samsung watch? Maybe you can on the new model?
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If you really want a proper smart watch just get the Google one. If you want something more akin to a normal watch but with sports stuff, get a Garmin. That's that.
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I've been pretty pleased with my Garmin Venu 2 Plus (now superceded by a 3 version). The activity tracking is accurate, it stores music, you can make and receive calls on it, and the health/fitness/wellbeing stuff is really good.
However, it will fall down for you on the looks front. I'm happy to wear it with a work shirt in the office but can understand why people might want something smarter-looking.
