The New Nokia 3310 - What's the point?

The new Nokia 3310 is a niche product which has generated a lot of interest, but what is the point of it exactly?

Many of the tech websites have stated reasons for or against buying one.
As a long term Nokia fan, I'm interested - but I cant see myself buying one.

For a start, Nokia churned out some really great phones ten years ago which were much, much better than the new Nokia 3310. These older Nokia phones were better specced and certainly looked a great deal better than the garish, blocky and generally ugly New Nokia 3310.

I could moan about the inability to do pretty much everything other than make calls and (slowly) send texts using the new Nokia 3310, but we all know that's not the point of this phone.
For me, the lack of any real web browser, no satellite navigation and token 2mp camera are the deal breakers. Nokia had these in their feature phones ten years ago, so why bother with the borderline cute monstrosity which is the new 3310?

It's not even as of feature phones ever went away: Alcatel and Doro have basic handsets available from virtually every mobile retailer in the UK, and some of these handsets are far better specced than the new 3310, so apart from a bit of a nostalgic talking point (for the hipsters), the new Nokia 3310 is pretty pointless.

One of the main reasons that I ditched my Nokia  Symbian series 60 phone in 2011 was that I'd had enough of trying to sync and maintain my contacts and calendar - losing this feature by switching to a basic feature phone just seems like a waste of the last six years.
I'm still not 100% happy with Android, but Windows Phone is dead (and increasingly horrible to use), so there aren't really any other viable options.

Sorry Nokia. This isn't the comeback that I've been waiting for.

Giffgaff - Changes for the better?

Giffgaff, the O2 MVNO has recently revamped their PAYG monthly bundles, aka "Goodybags".

Overall, I am pleased with their new offerings, because most of the Goodybags now contain more data and minutes, which makes them much better value than they were.
No price increases this time (thankfully!), so giffgaff's Goodybags are now much more in line with many of the other networks.

For me, the £10 Goodybag is now pretty great value for PAYG, though 2GB of data is still a bit tight - SIM only deals offer more at this price.

1p Mobile Mobile Network: PAYG Contract that takes the Pee

1p Mobile (www.1pmobile.com) has finally launched.
1p Mobile hasn't done very much marketing as of yet, possibly because of several months of delays in launching.

They are a new UK MVNO with the cheapest PAYG rates of any network.

1p Mobile's PAYG rates are a flat 1p per minute, 1p per text and 1p per MB of data.
This beats Three's 321 PAYG rates, but there is a big catch.

The 1p Mobile website is almost mis-selling their services:
They state that there's no contract, but by signing up to this service you're bound by an agreement that to cancel the service you'll give them 30 days notice. This includes obtaining your PAC code if you want to transfer your number to a different mobile network - That's a contract in my eyes, and it's blurring the lines between PAYG and contracts.

Secondly, you don't get these great PAYG rates on a PAYG service - you must top up your account by £5 every 30 days - This is completely contradictory to what 1p Mobile states on their website: They say that there are "no bundles to buy", yet every 30 stays your credit expires.
That's purchasing a bundle to me and you.

So, altogether this service is a bit of a con.
You have to spend £5 every 30 days to get the 1p per unit rates, so casual PAYG users will find that their credit has disappeared after the first month.
No credit? No service.

Admittedly, this mix and match approach could work for some people who regularly spend £5 a month buying a PAYG bundle from another mobile network, only to find that they don't have enough minutes or megabytes.
- There aren't many PAYG networks who offer 500 minutes for £5, so for some people this tariff could be great.

What irks me is the fact that 1p Mobile forces customers into buying a £5 bundle every month in order to use their mobile. There's no ability to have credit in reserve, so you are effectively tied in to a £5 a month contract.

For anyone wanting to sign up to 1p Mobile, they use the EE network and are hoping to provide 4G from mid October 2016, though with a maximum of 500MB (assuming you won't make a single call or send a text in this time), that 500MB won't get you very far.

Customer service is UK based (Alton, Hampshire), and I'll expect that they'll get a lot of calls from people who find that their credit has been taken after the first 30 days.

It's a novel idea which T-Mobile ran with a number of years ago.
Kontakt Mobile have offered a similar (but much better value) service for a few years now on the Vodafone network, and at least you don't lose all of your credit with them every month.

I test a lot of PAYG networks and I'm glad to see another UK MVNO, even if it is yet another one that uses the EE network.
However, 1p Mobile is taking the pee: It's a rolling, compulsory £5 a month bundle/contract which actually doesn't offer good value, unless your mobile use very closely matches this 1p per unit pricing structure.

I shan't be testing 1p Mobile.

Mobile Network Coverage in the South of England - Back to giffgaff

Where I live, all four UK mobile network operators have "good" coverage.
In reality they can all be a bit flaky.

Earlier this year EE vastly improved their coverage in my area, and after doing a few speed tests I decided to give them a go.
I have been using EE MVNO Life Mobile for several months because they are cheap and provide a good allocation of minutes, texts and data on a 30 day rolling contract.
However, I have had a few issues with a weak signal on this network over the past week or so, despite a day where there was no signal whatsoever due to a "mast upgrade" - If anything, the signal is now much worse.

So I have been looking at the various SIM only and PAYG options (even referring to my own PAYG bundles website) to see if I can find a better deal which works.

The best network for coverage is Vodafone, but they are too expensive and their customer service puts me off (I had a terrible experience with them a few years ago, and by the sounds of it they have become progressively worse). Vodafone's main UK MVNO Talkmobile was the best option, but their customer service is even worse (see my previous blog post)!

After a bit more research I've discovered that O2 has the best coverage for my area. Three's is pretty terrible and EE isn't good enough.

I don't want to pay O2's prices, though, so the best value (once again) becomes their own MVNO giffgaff.

Giffgaff do have some pretty reasonable PAYG monthly bundles, and you can easily change your bundle each month - or even buy a new one if you run out of minutes/data.
However, data speeds (and even reliability) on giffgaff have been pretty abysmal over the years, so I needed to do some of my own speed tests.
None of my speed tests would set the world alight: 0.55-1.6mbps download speeds were typical, but for my needs this should be acceptable, and I'm hoping that I'll get much better voice coverage than with EE, so I am considering moving back to giffgaff in September.

What annoys me is that all four UK network operates claim 99% of UK population coverage, yet they tend to ignore that fact that their geographical coverage is pretty rubbish.
The only network I've ever used with good voice/text coverage is Vodafone, yet EE and Three bang on about how great their coverage is at every given opportunity - It's a hard fact that they need to learn that their coverage really is not all that great.

New MVNO "1p Mobile" is supposed to launch in September. If/when this new network does get off the ground I'll consider trying them out, but this depends very much on what network they'll be piggybacking on.
I suspect that it'll be EE, because so many MVNOs use EE's network, so this might be a non-starter.

It's been a year since I last used giffgaff as my main network, so I hope that I'm not disappointed this time around.

Talkmobile Customer Service Experience

I've had a dual SIM phone for a few weeks and I'm really beginning to see the advantages of having one.
However, I have a main mobile number and don't want an alternative number, if I can help it. So, to keep things simple I've been toying with the idea of getting either a PAYG SIM for emergency use, or a data SIM card to go into my phone's second SIM slot.

For an emergency SIM, I can't fault Vodafone's network: I have never lived anywhere in the south of England where there isn't a good Vodafone signal for calls and texts. Looking at Ofcom's coverage maps, it's clear that Vodafone does have the best coverage for many miles around north Hampshire.
But Vodafone PAYG is stupidly expensive! They have hidden their new (July 2016) PAY pricing away on the Vodafone website so that you can't discover that it'll cost you 55p per minute!
Anyhoo, Vodafone are just too expensive and my thoughts were to try one of the few Vodafone MVNOs as an alternative - Talkmobile.

Talkmobile have come under a lot of fire over the past two years for really bad customer service (unexpected billing charges, crippling people's credit ratings through putting defaults on their credit files, etc.), so I am a bit wary of them.

Seeing how I won't be using this spare SIM very much I wanted to know how long my PAYG credit would last if I used Talkmobile, so I went onto their webchat.

I never got an answer to my question: All that the CS adviser wanted me to do was take out a SIM only contract with them. She refused to answer my question about PAYG and kept badgering me with their SIM only "deals".
I soon gave up and closed the chat window, as it was clear that if this is what Talkmobile's customer service is like, I (and you) would be better off giving them a very wide berth.

Talkmobile, you can't expect customers to put any faith in you if your customer service is this bad.

Is a 5 inch screen on a phone the #newnormal ?

Four years ago I got my first top of the range handset - It was the Samsung Galaxy S3 (I9300).
Prior to this I was using a curvy little Samsung Galaxy Fit (S5670), which had a diddy 3.3 inch screen.

 

Samsung Galaxy S3 vs Samsung Galaxy Fit

- Two Samsung phones that were a galaxy apart in terms of size

First impressions were astounding: My new Galaxy S3 was massive compared to my little Galaxy Fit!
The Samsung Galaxy S3 was a top of the range handset back in 2012, and could easily be considered to be the most cutting edge handset of the time. However, on looking back now, its 4.8 inch screen is actually a bit on the small size, its 1GB of RAM is actually laughable and that great 8MP camera really isn't that great anymore.

But, back in 2012, the Galaxy S3 really impressed people. I remember pulling out my new phone in the pub and people couldn't help notice how big the phone was. Certainly my jean pockets noticed the extra large phone after many years of carrying phones which were small enough to easily fit into your hand.

It's hard to think that a screen size of 4.8 inches is now pretty much the minimum I'd expect a smartphone screen to be. My current phone (Homtom HT3 Pro) has a 5 inch screen, and I wouldn't think of going any smaller than this.
I've just checked the comparative dimensions of my Homtom and the Galaxy S3, and my Homtom is around 1cm taller, yet it doesn't look or feel that big.

I have become used to smartphones which are this size, but four years ago I did think that maybe I'd made a mistake getting the Galaxy S3 - it felt too big for a very long time. I even switched to a tiny Nokia Lumia 620 halfway through my contract just so that I could put a mobile into my pocket easily!

Is 5.5 inches going to be too big for a smartphone screen? It's definitely "phablet" size, but I would certainly consider 5.5 inches to be perfectly ok: I got used to using mobiles with 5 inch screens easily enough, so and extra half a inch isn't going to make that much difference.

O2 Telephone Sales: LISTEN to your Customers!

Recently I requested a free SIM from O2 to test their services.

Shortly after I placed the order, one of their salesman called me on my phone to try to sell me something. I still can't figure out what he was trying to sell me, as the SIM I ordered was PAYG and yet he was trying to get me to take a contract with O2.

Admittedly, his sales pitch was bouncy and he was quite cheery, but he really needed to reign in his sales pitch: He was so fast paced I didn't have a clue what he was trying to sell - Was it a SIM only contract or one with a phone? (He neglected to say until right at the end of the call.)
Worse still he didn't listen to anything that I said: You've got to listen to your customers' needs before you can decide what to sell them, but this guy didn't want to know.
When I eventually managed to get a word in, my current contract stopped him dead in his tracks - there was no way that O2 could match what I am getting from Life Mobile (who he hadn't heard of).
- Note to O2 Sales Trainers; ensure that your salespeople know your competitors!

The salesman then carried on to offer me a "deal" which was roughly half of my current minutes, the same data allocation and more than double the price. Obviously, this was a pointless pitch, but he did say that O2's customer service was great and "came with love".
I'm not sure if I want "love" from O2...

His next pitch was for half of what I am getting from Life Mobile, but for £2 extra per month.
Did he seriously think that I'd take that offer?

Still, he got points for trying, and it was clear that he was enjoying trying to get customers to take up their offers.