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Do I need a mobile phone?

April 4th, 2011 · Posted by Skuds in Life/Technology · 6 Comments · Life, Technology

My phone contract is coming to an end soon.  I had already decided that I would take the opportunity to dump Vodafone when the contract expires.  This partly because of Vodafone’s tax-dodging antics and partly because there is no Vodafone signal inside the building where I work, but now that the end of the contract is close I am starting to wonder whether I need one at all.

I’m pretty sure I haven’t reset the counters on the phone since I got it and they tell me that I have made about 13 hours of calls and sent 372 text messages. In 20 months.  That is about 40 minutes a month talking and slightly fewer than 19 text messages a month.   I am guessing that a lot of the phone calls happened in the couple of months leading up to the elections last year so a normal average is a lot less.

I have been thinking about getting one of those BlackBerrys from Virgin that cost a tenner a month, but now I’m having second thoughts.  I doubt it would lead to me making more calls or sending more texts but I’m sure I would end up doing Facebook and Twitter things and end up getting more dependent.

I quite like the idea of mobile web but I also quite like the idea of ditching something that I don’t really need.  What should I do?

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6 Comments so far ↓

  • Peter // Apr 5, 2011 at 7:58 am

    HTC Desire from O2 – £25 a month. I wouldn’t be without it. Mobile web, (push) email, camera, facebook etc. And supports Apps – like routefinders, GPS etc.
    Go on – you know you want to!
    Peter

    • Skuds // Apr 5, 2011 at 11:53 pm

      Or for £20 from Virgin with 1GB of mobile web.
      Not really into apps so could think about a BlackBerry – tenner a month for 1GB of mobile web + unlimited emails. Only 50 minutes of talk, but that is 10 minutes more than my average use over the last 18 months…

  • skud's sister // Apr 5, 2011 at 6:58 pm

    Nothing wrong with pay as you go – I reckon I top up about £10 every 6-8 weeks (and I use it a fair bit for FoE stuff as the younger group members are only really reachable by mobile). Nothing encourages me to use my phone more but it is always there if I need it….

    • Skuds // Apr 5, 2011 at 11:57 pm

      That is an option. I have a few PAYG SIMs knocking around. I used to pay more that way, but that was when I was commuting and had to call J every day to say how late the trains were or which wrong train I had got on.
      I have until July to decide though.

  • Peter // Apr 7, 2011 at 8:38 am

    Go for Virgin at £20. I only get 500mb of data with O2, but it’s more than enough.
    Fantastic phone, provided you charge it every day. You can have a look at mine at the GMC if you like.