I’m fairly sure there’s an Easier Solution(tm)

We went back 5 months later with a broken U600. They remembered us and took it although we can’t find the receipt.

If anyone can help ease the Apple Pricing Pain the fine people there can.

My problem with the iPhone: I’d be looking at the £45 pm option, probably, and with that any other device would be heavily subsidised, most to the point of being free. Whereas the iPhone still costs the full £270. That’s a problem, but I fear it’s one that my gadget-lust may overrule…

I’m offended by Apple playing so fast and loose with the way the UK market is accustomed to working - and doing it to cost me more money rather than less. But am I offended enough to not get an iPhone?

I do wish it had HSDPA, though.

On Vodafone I was breaking 10 megs/month. But the better compression with the Opera Mini for the “better” Java phones helped shrink that use a little. As did having a phone that could hook onto my Wifi while in the house :D

Apparently for £10 per month you can get 20 megs. Which is still pricey.

I was tempted by the Vodafone “£1 max per day” thing till I realised that was still £28-£31 per month for data. And you hit the £1 at a meg.

N95 has a load of useless applications on it. I stuck Google Maps, Gmail and Opera Mini 4 Beta on it and it became a lot more useful. Oh, and ScummVM. Cos, y’know… cos.

I am at the moment checking out BT Openzone, I figure the maths goes something like this:

iPhone £270
iPhone version of my tariff £55 / month for 18 months = £990

My phone £ free
My Tariff £45.88 / month for 13 months left = £596.44

BT Openzone is doing a year for £117.50 inc Vat for “250 minutes” (whatever MINUTES are?? I thought we liked Bandwidth now?) /month. That’s £713.94 to finish out my contract on the N95 with the added WiFi. For the full 18 months it would cost £1013.34, which is still £245 less than the iPhone.

With the money I save I get the 2 iPod Touches ;-)

The major problem I had with the iPhone deal was that there was nice WiFi access but it was with the Cloud who don’t have many hotspots in NI. Whereas BTOpenzone do, and they have a roaming agreement with T-mobile.

Anyways that’s how I worked it out. The iPhone is seriously tempting, but in the end I don’t think I’m really a convergence device guy. Well. I am. But I like a LOT of devices that have ALL converged from different angles, so I can mix it up a little ;-)

Not convinced by the N95. Have played extensively with one. I was going to land on it as best of a bad lot of options, but am now seriously considering iP…

On Vodafone I was getting £30 a month data bills…

On O2 I got them to do me the £5 +VAT business data rate as an addon to the £40 normal package. I think once I paid another £2 but I’m basically inside my data limit now on the fiver :)

And the N95… Really recommend a play with it… All the stuff the iPhone has, but in something that still feels like a phone to me.

I need O2 because it’s the only network that works in and around our house, and the iPhone tariffs are far and away their cheapest data option. Seriously, their data rates are scary-ass expensive otherwise.

I pay T-mobile a tenner a month for all-you-can-eat data that I can use with my laptop, but T-mobile really abysmal coverage in NI… When I can get it, I use the mobile data a lot - hence my problem with O2’s ’standard’ data tariffs.

iPhone can’t be a modem, but I won’t need it to be as it’s native web etc seem good enough for my purposes.

BTW, I am a long-time fan of Opera Mini. Been using it for as long as it’s been around for my SLVR…

Your local Cloud hotspot is Bangor.

:-)

I grabbed an N95 and stuck Opera Mini on there… I pay £5 a month extra for enough megs that I never go over… And I use the Gmail Java applet.

Ta da.

Google Reader also has a completely awesome mobile mode. And you can use it on any web device thing, which is nice for work/phone/laptop/desktop/fancy pants Media PC use (tonight I’m fancy pantsing it).

As for the iPhone… His ‘n’ Hers 16 gig iPod Touches pre-ordered. I’ll still have my mobile Safari and nice screen, but 3mm thinner and I can keep the N95 and she can keep her U600.

Seriously, try Opera Mini. It’s…very usable. I was stunned, Beta 4 especially.

And if you want the WiFi bit of the contract, get a BTOpenzone account.

Oh, and try this for Google Reader. It wins. Especially on a Mac.
http://www.hicksdesign.co.uk/journal/google-reader-theme