This is the first decision that anyone needs to make regarding their mobile phone. Pay as you go has advantages, and a phone contract has different advantages. Trying to compare phone contracts is mind-boggling.
Who Needs Pay as You Go?
Pay as you go phones tend to be older and less sophisticated models. You can get Smart Phones on Pay as You Go, but they are almost always last year’s model or less popular models. An iPhone 4S, new iPhone or Galaxy S3 are not available on a pay as you use the system.
If all you need is a basic phone for emergency or occasional use then Pay per Use makes sense.
Children
Children lose phones. This is a sad fact of parental life. You will have to bear the cost of replacing your child’s phone, so keep the cost down by supplying them with pre-paid phones until they learn more responsibility.
Financially, you will have more control if you set up your son or daughter with a prepaid phone. You can just give them £10 credit a week or month and tell them that they have to buy any extra credit for their own money. You can even knock extra jobs out of them to earn the extra credit that they “need”.
A teenager can easily run up a £200 monthly phone bill on a contract phone without even trying. Young people have no concept of paying money to talk or text someone unless they have to pay the bill. They will just look embarrassed when you present them with the bill and shrug with a “That’s life” attitude.
Other Occasional Users
I use my own phone once or twice a week. I have no mobile reception at home. If you are like me, an occasional phone user then a basic pay as you go phone is perfect. It allows you to remain in contact when you need to but without any monthly commitment at all.
Who Needs a Phone Contract
If you pay your own bill then a contract might work out cheaper if you make a lot of calls or texts. Which network and which contract are more complicated questions.
If you want a modern smartphone of the iPhone 4s/New iPhone or Samsung S3 generation then a contract can work out cheaper than buying a sim-free phone and a data/airtime package to go with it.
Conventional wisdom has it that sim-free is the way to go, but I did this comparison for myself and it worked out a lot cheaper to buy a phone on a two-year contract.
It appears to be cheaper, but when you add in the cost of even the cheapest monthly data package and buying pre-paid call credit the balance swings towards the contract option.
If most of your calls are to a few people then there are contracts that allow you to ring or text a few people without charge. If you are a business buying phone packages for your employees then a contract deal will work out cheaper, partly because businesses can get discounted rates.
Written on behalf of a company whose website will help you navigate the jungle of Mobile Phone Deals.
This article is contributed by Joseph and posted by Rizwan Ahmad Author and founder of www.cyberockk.com, He is a tech blogger from India and he loves to share his thoughts by writing articles on this site to the different topics related to technology world.
