First Smartphone ???

[daleyd]

I bought my daughter a Samsung a51 last year, in as new condition and unlocked to any network for £50 off Facebook marketplace. It’s got a big bright screen, loads of storage (and easily expandable by micro sd card), great camera. It just works. May not be the top of the range or latest model but it’s ideal for running general apps, browsing etc

Got a £5 a month SIM card deal from lebara with loads of free minutes and data. I was wary of lower end smart phones as my missus had a Samsung cheap version years ago (but this was when smart phones first came out, probably 2004/5 ish?) and it was horrible, laggy, buggy and slow. But this was a revelation, unless you are using some very demanding apps then the a series phones are very good, and great value.

 

[tigdlo]

Got a £5 a month SIM card deal from lebara with loads of free minutes and data

I switched a few months ago to Lebara, no issues so far and it was half price for a few months on a money saving supermarket deal, plenty cheap enough when it is full price too.

 

[jsf55]

I've got a Samsung A51 as has the wife, tho a slightly newer faster model, never had an issue with either, it's over 2 years old and used in the garage everyday

 

[Parm]

If you’re not very tech savvy then iPhones are good. Expensive but they always just work

 

[BarrieJ]

Not sure which brand this was sold under?
A distant memory suggests the illustration sets it in the 1930's.

 

[Ubique]

If you're at all handy with a command line window, (if you don't know what that means, disregard this post) then have a look at https://www.lineageos.org/ its basically Android with the spyware removed and will put new life into older models.

 

[julianf]

I've got a Motorola g something or other. G62 I think.

The OS is pretty much stock. It has a couple of nice add ons (you can shake the phone to turn on the torch for example, which is really useful).

The moto g series is an excellent value mid range smartphone. Sure, Samsung are flashy, but they are 3 times the price.

I've just looked at my invoice -

I paid £129 back in February, delivered.
I got £6 back from quido.
It came with a months free calls and data (with no tie in)

It's a dual sim so I put the free sim in along side my payg and just used free data for a month.

The phone was unlocked out of the box, but purchased from vodaphone.


Edit :

I've now got a £5 sim only deal in it. Something like 600mins and 6gb (ie way more than I'll ever use) and it was a quid a month for the first 3 months, with no tie in.



"But my Samsung was on a free upgrade..."

"Yep, on your £35 / month contract with a 24 month tie in..."

 

[Morris]

I've got a Motorola G7 Power which I've had for 4 years now. It does everything I need it to and has been reliable apart from the speaker, a known issue. I repaired it myself with a new speaker and mobile phone tool kit off eBay and it's been fine since.
I can print from it to our wireless Canon printer using an app.
It cost not a lot from Tesco's.

 

[premmington]

I've got a Motorola g something or other. G62 I think.

The OS is pretty much stock. It has a couple of nice add ons (you can shake the phone to turn on the torch for example, which is really useful).

The moto g series is an excellent value mid range smartphone. Sure, Samsung are flashy, but they are 3 times the price.

I've just looked at my invoice -

I paid £129 back in February, delivered.
I got £6 back from quido.
It came with a months free calls and data (with no tie in)

It's a dual sim so I put the free sim in along side my payg and just used free data for a month.

The phone was unlocked out of the box, but purchased from vodaphone.


Edit :

I've now got a £5 sim only deal in it. Something like 600mins and 6gb (ie way more than I'll ever use) and it was a quid a month for the first 3 months, with no tie in.



"But my Samsung was on a free upgrade..."

"Yep, on your £35 / month contract with a 24 month tie in..."

I buy my phone and have a SIM only deal - I was with Virgin but they stopped now and over night I am will O2

 

[dobbslc]

You will get far better value from used. People regard them as fashion items and replace them far too soon.

After an experience with bank fraud this year on a hacked brand new Samsung phone purchased directly from Samsung I'd stay well away from anything Samsung for starters and especially a second hand phone unless you know who it's come from as you know nothing about what's been done to it!
As for buying a phone off Facebook! Forget it no way.

If you’re not very tech savvy then iPhones are good. Expensive but they always just work

I'll respectfully have to disagree with you there Parm as I find iPhones the work of the devil himself as far as logical operating systems go

To the OP that Motorola phone is probably perfectly ok for you.

I'm on Giffgaff now as I get 20GB of data and more phone minutes than I'd ever need for £10 a month and during the phone hacking event earlier this year they were very helpful indeed!

 

[ajlelectronics]

After an experience with bank fraud this year...

Two words... Factory reset.

 

[Parm]

After an experience with bank fraud this year on a hacked brand new Samsung phone purchased directly from Samsung I'd stay well away from anything Samsung for starters and especially a second hand phone unless you know who it's come from as you know nothing about what's been done to it!
As for buying a phone off Facebook! Forget it no way.

I'll respectfully have to disagree with you there Parm as I find iPhones the work of the devil himself as far as logical operating systems go

To the OP that Motorola phone is probably perfectly ok for you.

I'm on Giffgaff now as I get 20GB of data and more phone minutes than I'd ever need for £10 a month and during the phone hacking event earlier this year they were very helpful indeed!

It’s what you get used to, I’m the least tech savvy person in the world, I find iPhones easy to use

Each to thier own

 

[dobbslc]

I'm used to them alright, I've had work iPhones for years but I just dont 'get' them

 

[dobbslc]

Two words... Factory reset.

It was a brand new phone! Something very fishy is going on at Samsung UK.
Once the unbelievably poor customer service agents finally realised what the word fraud meant (yes they didnt know!) someone senior got things sorted with full refunds and compensation....

 

[Ged93]

Maybe I would go with a used iPhone , never had one but seems a good product .

In our family we are not smartphones lovers , 80-100 euros are waaay enough .
A couple of months ago my dad got mad and decided to buy for himself a Samsung Galaxy Flip ( new ) , payed 1500 fuc**ng euros .
It gots broken screen 2 times , it's still under guarrantee and my dad got a damage policy when he purchased that , so he will get money back .

I started to use whatsapp 3 months ago , because some friends invited me for a crossfit train group so we can stay in contact .

I decided to install it on a old phone that I got home , I've done a factory reset , deleted everything so there is no data to steal .

 

[ajlelectronics]

Maybe I would go with a used iPhone , never had one but seems a good product .

Seconded. They "just work" without having to be some sort of expert. I have never paid more than £100 for any of mine and am now happily using a 8 plus. Problem is that there are two very entrenched sets of "fanbois" and neither side will concede the fact that it is "horses for courses" sadly.

 

[Morrisman]

I needed a phone, I remembered that my daughter had bought a new one and dumped her old one with broken screen in a basket that holds many things near my chair.
I took it to a repair shop, they said no problem, £75 and you get a free screen protector.
Took it back and looked up youtube and found a vid about changing the screen, bought a new screen for around £40 off eBay and did the repair myself.
Gave my daughter £30 for the phone, unhappy she said 'do you know how much them things cost'? I replied that we have to take the cost of repair into consideration.
It's an apple iphone x, I'm very happy with it apart from that iphones appear to need charged up a lot.

I 'inherit' all my daughters discarded tech. She gave me her mint iPhone 7 several years ago, when she upgraded, and I promptly broke the screen leaning on it in the car.... I planned to fix it... but after four years it's not been done.

She now has an iphone 13, and even that one is a couple years out of date. I don't know if it does anything more than my scabby old 7 though.

Phones went through a phase of getting small and smaller, my first phone was the size of a Swan Vestas match box, but recently they've done the opposite, daughters new one is maybe 7"x 3".

I have an old Samsung, that I particularly liked, as it came with a stylus that could be used to pick out the small keyboard, rather than fumbling with big fingers on letters the size of a currant... daughter wanted me on Apple though, so she could track my whereabouts, and me hers.

 

[dobbslc]

All my family have the iPhones and the tracking gets used to check what the kids are up to...

 

[Agrismith]

Seconded. They "just work" without having to be some sort of expert. I have never paid more than £100 for any of mine and am now happily using a 8 plus. Problem is that there are two very entrenched sets of "fanbois" and neither side will concede the fact that it is "horses for courses" sadly.

I always think the preference is down to how your brain is wired. How you think and how your logic works. As the difficulty different people have with different operating systems seems to be far deeper seated than what you are use to.

 

[dobbslc]

Bang on that! ^
Apple phones just make no sense to me how they work
It's probably partly down to how long I've been using android type phones I suppose.
1994 with the Nokia 2140 orange phone!
Was it even android back then?