Hey all,
I have a phone contract with 3 for another 5 months for my samsung portal (don't laugh)
it is now not holding a charge and turning off after a 5 min call even if absolutely nothing else is turned on. it will however turn back on later during the day, saying its fully charged still.
3 are telling me that they can send the phone for investigation, that it will take up to two weeks ( what do I do during that time?) and that if the fault is due to me or the battery they will charge me £20 for the pleasure.
What should I do?
either: send phone for repair
try and find a cheap handset for the last few months
do nothing.

I'm with 3 - they're useless tbh. I told them my phone is broken - they won't do anything and I still have another 10 months on my contract.
You may aswell find a cheapy phone.
I'm cancelling my contract with 3 when it's over, but I heard that's a nightmare!

Yeah I think you need to call customer service and repeat hundreds of time that you want to cancel.

I've been reasonably happy with them so far, I am 8 months into a 24 month contract.

However, the coverage outside of the major cities is shocking. There's a good chance I'll be leaving the city later this year, but I suppose I'll just have to grin and bear the poor signal coverage until my contract comes up for renewal.

I'm probably going to be changing to T-Mobile or O2, but I'm not sure on T-Mobile ever since it merged with Orange to form Everything Everywhere.

I don't know anyone on 3 with anything good to say about them... personally, I'm with Tesco (£10 monthly DD) who use O2's network so no problems until the 11th there , but then I own my phone outright and would be considered picky in phone choice

Could you borrow a phone that's otherwise lying in a drawer?

I'll try and find one

Coverage is the kicker IMO. customer service wise they're all much of a muchness, so it devolves down to who gives you the best signal in most of the places you are likely to be. For example, when I go to the football I get next to no data throughout in O2 (cell bandwidth massively oversubscribed/under supplied) but with a 3 mifi I got pretty decent data rates sat in exactly the same seat. Obviously you can't try all the networks but it's at least worth trying 2 of the big 3.

I switched to 3 earlier this year when my expensive O2 contract ran out.

Signal strength around Northampton is pretty good and for only £10 a month I can't complain - use phone mostly for email and web browsing.

We use 3 as the network for all our works tablet devices and we do get a few problems with poor signal when our reps are out and about but you can get that with any of the network providers. At least with 3 we can talk to someone in UK.

Whilst I live in the inner city where there's excellent signal and 3G coverage, I work out in the sticks where there's bugger all. I was on O2, which had no cover (hence tesco and giffgaff were a no-go). A colleague was on T-mobile which was similar. Only i think Vodafone and Orange had coverage in that area. Orange worked out cheaper for the iPhone.

Been with 3 over 18 months and no complaints at all