| Product: |
Philips in general |
| Date: |
14/01/01 (211 review reads) |
| Rating: |
 |
Advantages: Cheap & rugged
Disadvantages: Gets 'slagged' by youngsters
Over the past 3 years', my family have bought 5 mobile phones, been given two, broken one, and lost one. Sounds like a league table, doesn't it, and I wonder where that would that place us in the league ?
Anyway, we bought a coupla Ericsons for the daughters when they were at University which we ran by paying for a year 'up-front', then getting new sim-cards each year so that we could reduce costs (my opinion to follow on this type of scheme). There is, in my mind, no debate as to the desirability of such items for students, and they got our daughters out of a number of 'scrapes' and difficulties during their university lives.
The wife, Heather, and myself also found it useful to borrow a phone whenever there was one available not being used and we were going out somewhere. Even such mundane problems as "What size collar is your Dad ?" (when I was 'Sale Shopping' and spied a particularly garish shirt that would appeal to my father-in-law) could be answered in seconds (at minimal cost), without having to struggle to a phone booth and find the coins or phone card necessary to make contact.
The Philips Diga on CellNet "U" (pay-as-you-go vouchers) was bought by me in August 1999, because it was so cheap and because our son moaned that he should have a mobile phone now he was starting at university. It cost £29.99, including £10 voucher, the deal being that you could have free calls to one landline as long as you bought a £15 top-up voucher every 60 days. I calculated that with our daughters probably wanting to update 'their' telephones when they started working, I would be able to transfer one of them to our son's use in June/July 2000. Thus a cheap pre-pay phone should answer the short-term problem. In any case, our son always has been a terror for losing things and we decided that we couldn't have the worry of a contract mobile phone being 'lost' and then
used by some toerag for telephoning the speaking clock in Vladivostok.
Oh how simple it seemed !!
Needless to say, our son was not impressed with my purchase. It was not the 'latest' model and, compared with the new generation mobiles, it was a 'brick'. However, he did (begrudgingly) take it on, knowing that I meant it when I said that he 'wouldn't get another unless he took on full responsibility for its costs himself'. I agreed to provide a £15 voucher every 2 months, the calls generally costing 35p a minute (more to other mobile networks, I think).
Well, this arrangement lasted until August 2000. By amazingly effective budgeting on his part £15 voucher was just sufficient (at 35p a minute) to last him 60 days. For 120 days, the landline number selected for 'free calls' was changed from home to the latest girlfriend's. Then his eldest sister was given a 'more compact phone' and a very special offer on 12 month inclusive sim cards was marketed by mobileshop.co.uk at the same time. Therefore, I agreed to buy another sim-card, and my son was duly provided with a network phone that did not rely on vouchers. I then took possession of 'the brick'. I paid in a £15 voucher and altered the free number back to home.
My wife and I have used it ever since. I bought another £15 voucher in October but when December came, I still had £28 credit remaining, so I decided to do nothing until this credit reduced.
Thus, from the beginning of December, I expected to be charged for calls to home, but this did not happen and even now (14 January), I have £23 credit remaining and still get home calls free of charge ! I suspect that this is because of an alteration in policy by CellNet, so that vouchers no longer have an expiry date. According to the 'Terms and Conditions for U' leaflet, I should have been cut off by now (it being well in excess of 90 days since I e
ntered any credit on this phone). I will wait and see !!!
So, to sum up :
Since I needed another mobile phone, this has been a great buy. The total costs come to:
Purchase price : £29.95
8 vouchers @ £15 (less 10% discount on two):
£117.00
Total £146.95
This is for approaching 18 months' use, and I still have £23 credit.
A bargain, I think, for a relatively low volume user (and the free calls to the home number has saved me £££'s when staying away at hotel on business).
Oh, and I now have another Diga phone, in effect for 'spares'.
On the first day of John Lewis, Edinburgh sale, I bought a GSM Diga phone set for £10 !!. This gives me a phone that can be connected via a 12 month sim card, but also gives me a spare battery/battery charger/ and aerial (if necessary) for the Diga U.
Obviously, I hope that I can continue to get access to the network (and free calls to home) without paying any more credit until my £23 is exhausted. If so, the at the current rate of use, that will be well into 2002 !!
And we don't mind being 'slagged' by our techno-alert off-spring either !!
Update.
Over the past week have received 2 text messages from cellnet, telling me to put some more credit on my phone, so a £15 voucher (£13.50 from Safeway) has had to go on to keep me on line. I'll see how long it is before they chase me again !
Summary:
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Last comments:
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- 30/01/01 I’ll tell you what we did before mobile phones kenjohn, and before computers/word-processors and fax machines – one helluva lot less than we can doo now. I had my first mobile phone (a Nokia) provided by my employer in about 1992. They were suppplied to all Chief Officials so that Councillors could always contact us. There was talk of us having them ‘surgically attached’ so we’d always be available, but fortunately, teh idea nevre caught on (oooh painful!). It wasn’t quite as stone age as the one you describe, but I seem to recall that we were cahrged even for calls that did not connect. I renmber the first time I used it, going to a meeting in London. One of my very gfood colleagues (quite an exciteable type, now sadly no longer of this world) immediately exclaimed “WoWza ! WoWza !” when I plonked it on the table (no lewd comments, please) and everyone thought it great and why wouldn’t their mingy local authority employers give them one. I was also amused on teh train back, when i received a call from a Councillor (my committee chairman). A couple on the next table tried to pursuade me to loan it to them, so that they could telephone their children to let them know what time theyr would arrive home ! I had to decline, since this would show up on the bill,a nd I couldn’t justiofy it as ‘business’. The only way that i could avoid the £200 inland revenue charge was to use it 100% for making business calls. The ‘thought police’ (sorry, I mean the Adminstration Department) at the Council Offices did check all bills to ensure that it was. On two occasuions they queried calls that had been made from that phone (amounting to less than a pound) and I had to check my diary and address book to correctly identify where I was, who I had called and for what purpose !!). Oh Happy days !! Perhaps I should write the account of when my Department was auditted ? That would have made a good sitcom episode !! |
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- 30/01/01 What did we ever do before mobiles?
Like you, I am totally practical when it comes to this area, functionality (is that a word?) coming before style.
I well remember my first "mobile" though back in, Lord, it's so long ago I can't even recall.
It was basically a black handset (home phone) which sat on the top of an enormous car-like battery, which I kept on the floor of the car and constantly on charge.
My first "real" mobile (a Mitsibushi, I think) cost me over £900 in about 1989 or so. (Oh, how times have changed) |
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- 30/01/01 Just to say, THANKS so much for your comment on one of my ops. I'm touched. (well, that's what most people say anway LOL) Thankyou. |
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