|
Post by Firefox on Dec 2, 2012 17:11:26 GMT
I've got:
Asus EEE PC notebook (£220)
Sony Erikson Text (Mobile WIFI phone with Button Keyboard) (£45)
Sony Xperia Mira Smartphone (£95) (Just got this)
Airtime packages:
BT/Fon openzone unlimited wifi £14 a month (works on them all)
Three PAYG 3G Dongle Modem (£10-15) a month, PC only
Orange/Virgin PAYG on the Text (£10 a month)
Tesco PAYG on the Xperia (I haven't topped up yet but can use it for Wifi on my Fon/BT. May change to Tesco to something else eg 3 unlimited and use it to create a mobile hotspot)
EEE PC notebook is great. It is just as good as a PC. I upgraded it with extra RAM so it works fine for web usage. Also long battery life - 6 hours which means all day computing away from base.
Sony Text is just a phone really. The wifi is not too good but it does work. Like all other phones it has a camera, video, radio, etc.
The Sony Xperia I am just getting to grips with. But it looks fantastic and could almost replace all the other devices apart from the screen size is maybe too small to do everything.
|
|
|
Post by Etienne Le Croq on Dec 2, 2012 17:49:30 GMT
I use : iPhone 3GS on orange( contract) iPad 2 wifi only ( tether to phone when Wildcamping. £479. I've also bought a mifi modem unlocked second hand off eBay.This will be used with a sim when we go to France to work the iPad when no free wifi is available .£25
I don't know what the mifi works like yet and was thinking to buy a prepaid sim and try it over here.Does anyone have any feedback on these?
My only airtime package is the phone contract £35, until I sort out a sim for the mifi.
|
|
|
Post by whitevanwoman on Dec 3, 2012 9:37:42 GMT
I have a Sony Xperia Miro (2 weeks old) on Vodafone, paying monthly contract £15 which gives 300 free mins, unlimited texts and 500mb data - its more than enough for my regular usage, I didn't even use my full data allowance whilst away for a month and using data constantly. I'm planning to do some haggling with Voda to get a better deal - I rang them a couple of months ago to see what they would offer me if I threatened to cancel my contract and go PAYG and they offered me £11 monthly for same deal plus a new phone but I didn't follow up on it, so now I don't need a new phone I'm going to try to get a monthly deal of same package for under a tenner a month.
I have an ASUS laptop, about 2 or 3 years old now, I've doubled the RAM to 2gb and its as good as a desktop PC. I got rid of my PC after I got my laptop, no need for it any more, it does everything - I connect it to my TV for watching IPlayer / DVDs etc, I play my music through it although it does need external speakers to boost the maximum volume.
I bought a small Hewlett Packard netbook (£179) from Argos a couple of months ago (back to school bargain) so that I don't have to take my laptop away with me, and to replace a netbook which I got about 5 years ago as part of a mobile phone contract deal which for a couple of years was my only way of getting online as my PC was too ancient to be useful - I used the netbook for everything, even used it to set up websites etc, the poor thing has now died from overuse but it's been worth every penny. I doubled the RAM in the old netbook so it had 1GB RAM which was plenty at the time. My new netbook has 1GB RAM but it's a little slow for running Facebook + emails + Kapersky + other background programmes so am planning to increase the RAM in it.
Earlier in the year I bought a cheap Android tablet (before I bought the netbook) and I've been very disappointed with it, and wish I hadn't bothered as in all honesty, it's been a waste of money. It crashes frequently, I've struggled to find an in car charger for it, it was only Android 2.3 so nowhere near as good and user friendly as the current Android versions. The concept is good but it was a case of you get what you pay for. After downloading an update, I had a problem with the wifi, it wouldn't work so i can only use it online now with a dongle. I have emailed the manufacturers in china requesting some information about it's exact product number and specs as the information which came with it was minimal and I never got a reply. So it's sitting in a box marked Ebay and I'm hoping to maybe get a few quid back for it.
At home my phone and broadband is with Post Office and I pay £24 monthly for unlimited broadband, and free evening and weekend calls which is fine as I use the free minutes on my mobile for daytime calls. I've never gone over my allowance.
For mobile data I use a 3 dongle with my laptop and netbook (and it worked with the Android tablet) - I buy a new 3 PAYG data sim off ebay every now and again, usually about £12 for sim with 3GB data which lasts 3 months.
So my annual communication costs are : 12 x £24 (home broadband) 12 x £15 (mobile - Voda) 3 x £12 (data sims with 3, I don't replace the SIMs straight after the preloaded allowance expires, depends if I'm going away for a while and need it, otherwise I just use my mobile to get online).
If I've got my maths right, that means an annual cost of £756.
Wow! I had never thought about the annual cost but that's a fair bit just to talk to people!
Hopefully I can reduce that by at least £60 by doing some haggling with Voda over my Pay Monthly contract.
PS. I've also got a spare PAYG orange sim to use in my old mobile phone, an Android which I bought a couple of years ago when Android first came out, it only has Android 2.1 but it does the basic job - I use it with the Orange SIM in areas where I can't get a Voda signal - unless it's dead ground (ie remote areas where there is no signal at all due to terrain and contours) I can usually get a signal with either Voda or Orange.
Interestingly when I've met up with Firefox and we have both used a 3 dongle and SIM to get online using laptops, Firefox often has a better signal than me, sometimes I've not had any signal but he has had a reasonable signal. I think this is due to 2 things : 1. My dongle is several years old and Firefox's dongle is much newer (no lewd comments please) 2. Firefox has his dongle set up beneath his roof light on an extender USB cable whereas mine was usually inside the van and I believe that the metal shell of the van was blocking the signal. So I now have a 10 m extender cable and have put my dongle inside a plastic ketchup bottle and I fix it to my roof rack - that does seem to have helped.)
|
|
|
Post by Firefox on Dec 3, 2012 13:18:30 GMT
I doubled the RAM in the old netbook so it had 1GB RAM which was plenty at the time. My new netbook has 1GB RAM but it's a little slow for running Facebook + emails + Kapersky + other background programmes so am planning to increase the RAM in it. As soon as I bought my ASUS EEEPC I upgraded the RAM from 1GB to 2GB. This is relatively easy to do on the ASUS as there is a trap door on the bottom and as long as one has jeweller's screwdrivers the card does not take too long to install. I find it runs very well on the net and can do things like facebook and flash games no problem. It can even do 3D graphics games like Second life although you have to put it on lower graphics settings to get the speed. With 400GB HDD, 3 USB ports, web cam, video output, and SD slot to all intents and purposes it is as good as a normal PC apart from the 10" screen. The only thing it needed was a CD ROM/Rewrite drive but WVW just happened to have a spare external one... thanks WVW! Now I have this CD drive installed in the van and can use it to play music, and plug into any mobile machine not just mine. For example I used it to set up Billies TV software for him as I could plug it straight into his netbook. I managed to cut my data costs by getting rid of my virgin home broadband subscription. Everything I do now is mobile wireless computing. This I think is the future. The land lines will be largely things of the past in a few years.
|
|
|
Post by kangooroo on Dec 3, 2012 19:27:34 GMT
I'm quite simple...
Nokia C3-01 mobile phone Orange/T-Mobile/EE : £6.50 per month with 100 mins, 500 SMS and unlimited internet
Acer netbook - old and slow but adequate, small for camping and 6 hour battery.
Unofficial BT WiFi/Openzone access via a relative's login.
Annual cost £78
|
|