Hey all.

Time for a new contract, not had a new phone for a while. Only need a budget contract one and the free phones that look like they are being pushed are the HTC Wildfire S and the Samsung Galaxy Ace.

Anybody any experience, ideas, opinions on either of these? Oh, and I have no idea how long 500MB of data would last seeing as I've been on unlimited for my broadband and never used my phone for internet so far.

Comments appreciated. Well, relevant ones, save any abuse for PMs please.

I have a 2gig limit, but I rarely go over about 60MB using maps, email, games and browsing. I'm on WiFi for most of the time; mobile data is only used the few days a month I go outside.

It totally depends what you do. I do not stream audio or video, which would obviously eat the allowance in a couple of days. I do not usually tether, but when I do my usage unsurprisingly comes a lot closer to the limit - mostly because I had to download a huge file on site where there was no working internet yet.

Cheers JJ that's a handy gauge to go by.

TBH a majority of any internet would be via WiFi and so a low limit would be ok for me going by how you say it's panned out for you. I won't be streaming or downloading when out and about.

Aldi have the Samsung Galaxy Fit on offer, here in Germany at the moment.

As JJW says, data for a bit of browsing and e-mail etc. is fairly low. On my iPhone 3GS, I used about 1GB in 18 months - I have a 5GB monthly cap (after which, the data will be dropped to 64kbp/s.

With my Android, I have used a lot more, but that is mainly because it doesn't sync podcasts with the PC, like the iPhone and iTunes does, so I tend to stream a lot of them today, which adds several hundred MB a month, if I removed that, I'd probably be under 50-60MB a month.

Thanks big_D, your and JJs data info is very handy. I've only ever really done interent via a PC on an unlimited contract so I've not had any idea of data usage for years now.

I can't see me doing any more than a bit of browsing and/or email on it so the minimum data amount will sound like it will do for me (it appears to be 100Mb at the lowest level on most contracts).

Thanks for that. Just have to do some reading up on handsets on the cheap contracts now.

The two phones are very similar spec wise. For me it'd be the Wildfire S because I simply prefer HTC Sense over Samsung TouchWiz.

Thanks veato, aye, I think it's much down to preference by the sounds of things.

Now I'm limiting my data requirement I may have a hunt around to see what other freebie handsets there are if there any that shine out above those two.

Cheers.

Now, I've had another thought, I may actually buy a phone so I'll have to do some thinking.

The reason for this is you can get £50 topcashback for t-mobile sim only contracts and they have a 10.21 sim only deal for 300mins/unlimited texts and unlimited (ie fair useage 500mb and unlimited browsing) data which seems a pretty good deal to me.

Now... Which mobile?

I would advise against the Wildfire. Not because it is a bad phone but because it is very small to type on. Make sure that you try typing on it before you buy it.

Thanks Koli. Aye, I'm now looking at the SIM only option (that's cheaper and with better mins/data etc) and buying a phone.

Just having a trawl through them, trying to decide how important flash is for browsing and/or whether I should pick up an Xperia Play and sell my PSP considering how much I use it.

Does the Xperia allow the playing of all Android-available games, or what's the deal? I only ask cos I wouldn't imagine Sony are fully supporting it as much as they could, especially with PS1 games

Not sure mate, just started looking into phones at the mo.

Apparently OnLive have released an Android app for the Xperia Play (in Dec I think) so Cloud gaming should be an option, although I don't know much about them TBH.

I don't think you will find anything cheaper than this: http://phone-shop.tesco.com/tesco-mobile/sims/

I'm with Tesco, and you know how cheap I am

Tenner a month for reasonable data, texts and calls (I mostly text)... You're on the O2 network n'all.

Thanks for that. I'll consider that as well thanks, I was just factoring in topcashback money as well TBH (50 or 60 quid at t-mobile for sim only).

I won't need over 300 minutes TBH but I'll keep the tesco link in mind thanks.

That's the least of my worries at the mo, there are so many phones out there - I don't want a sh!te one but then I'm not spending £400 on one. I may go the Xperia Play route as it has flash and it means I can sell my PSP to recoup some costs but that's just an idea at the mo. I reckon I may be surfing on it more than gaming so I may consider something that has a better internet experience...