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jema
Downsizer Moderator

Joined: 28 Oct 2004
Posts: 28118
Location: escaped from Swindon

Posted: Sat Jun 13, 09 6:15 pm Post subject: Mobile browsing

I feel hopelessly out of depth here.

I want to ramp up my mobile access to the web/email. Currently I lug my 15.4" notebook around with its vodafone dongle at £15 a month.

Barring really crap connections, this is able to keep me working to keep downsizer etc up and running anywhere I do.

The downside is that anywhere I go, the first thing I'm doing is looking for somewhere to hook up

Now I could get an iphone for £30 a month, nice as these are I'd still need the notebook in the car, but that's no big deal. It does mean though I'd be spending £45 on access a month and have to pay for the iphone. That's a lot of dosh

Seems to be that there must be phones out there that offer vaguely useful web access and are that much cheaper that I could probably buy a little netbook out of the savings and have three bites at the cherry on net access. The phone to see if things are working, the netbook for trivial support postings, and the notebook for the heavy stuff.

Any suggestions?

sean
Downsizer Moderator

Joined: 28 Oct 2004
Posts: 42207
Location: North Devon

Posted: Sat Jun 13, 09 6:16 pm Post subject:
Stay at home all the time?

vegplot

Joined: 19 Apr 2007
Posts: 21301
Location: Bethesda, Gwynedd

Posted: Sat Jun 13, 09 7:36 pm Post subject:
I recently got a blackberry bold, two in fact one for me and one for ev. I got them under Orange's Business Sense Plan. Cost around £45 a month for both. The Bold is an excellent phone with a fantastic screen.

Jonnyboy

Joined: 29 Oct 2004
Posts: 23956
Location: under some rain.

Posted: Sat Jun 13, 09 7:41 pm Post subject:

sean wrote:

Stay at home all the time?

Or have a work/life balance and downgrade our support expectations.

(yeah, like that'll work)

Nick

Joined: 02 Nov 2004
Posts: 34535
Location: Hereford

Posted: Sat Jun 13, 09 9:15 pm Post subject:
Ours, yes, but I think the support applies to people who pay for the service, as well as us free loaders.

Jonnyboy

Joined: 29 Oct 2004
Posts: 23956
Location: under some rain.

Posted: Sat Jun 13, 09 9:26 pm Post subject:
I could be wrong , but hosting wise I though it would be us and the my free frorum crowd. Support wise dunno, but if someone needs 24/7 from a one man band then it's a triumph of sales over capacity (no offence jema)

Nick

Joined: 02 Nov 2004
Posts: 34535
Location: Hereford

Posted: Sat Jun 13, 09 9:28 pm Post subject:
Oh, if you're right, then yeah, get a work/life balance. Soon!

OP

Joined: 28 Jul 2006
Posts: 4661
Location: Yorkshire

Posted: Sun Jun 14, 09 6:34 am Post subject: Re: Mobile browsing

jema wrote:

I am in a similar situation. Here is what I do:

I use the TMobile Web n Walk Pro, which costs about £8 per month for "unlimited fair use" access. I have a very cheap mobile, but it does have 3G etc. I my main laptop connects to it via a USB cable. The laptop has all my stuff so I can work from anywhere, but is too heavy to carry far.

I use a fairly old Ipaq PDA for the truely mobile situations - this connects via bluetooth to my phone. OK not quite as neat as an Iphone or Blackberry, but on the other hand the screen is bigger and it is perfect for checking emails and surfing - and I prefer the stylus.

For the intermediate situations I borrow my daughter's Dell Mini 9 netbook, which I have upgraded to 2Gb RAM and XP Pro and installed my development tools on. It has a 16Gb SSD disk, so no moving parts to worry about. The screen is very small - but still miles better than an IPhone, and if I find myself in an office it is easy to plug in a proper keyboard and screen.

Louisdog

Joined: 22 Mar 2005
Posts: 716
Location: South Wales

Posted: Sun Jun 14, 09 8:55 am Post subject:

I recently got a Nokia 5800 free on a £30pm/18mth contract with unlimited web access (subject to fair usage policy), this has 3G and a decent size screen, I have used it quite a bit to surf full size websites as well as mobile versions and it seems pretty good. It also has a gmail app and this works well for me.

The phone itself seems to be marketed as a leisure/music phone and seemed better value than some of the snazzier options such as iphones.

I can also hook it up to my netbook thingy via bluetooth and it will act as a mobile broadband modem, which is handy when I want to do quite a bit of browsing and wants a larger screen and better keyboard.

We found that a lot of vodafone shops had a few web phones set up so that you could have a play with them on real sites, which was handy for getting a feel for what web browsing would really be like on them.

Cheers
Alex

Hairyloon

Joined: 20 Nov 2008
Posts: 15425
Location: Today I are mostly being in Yorkshire.

Posted: Sun Jun 14, 09 12:16 pm Post subject:

Most 3G phones are capable of being used as a modem with your PC, they're probably not as fast as a dedicated dongle, but this one does 1/2MB/s easy enough. Trouble is, so far I have not been able to find anyone that does a sensible deal that combines voice and data.
All of them have "unlimited" access of about 500MB/month with charges of around £2/MB if you go over it.
Quite how they can consider this to be "fair" I can't imagine.
And somehow, even though I've got the browser set to text only, and haven't done very much this month, I seem to have already used my allowance (and last week I was using a friends WIFI).
And that is the other thing that really ticks me off: you cannot easily (if at all) find out how much of your allowance you have used, which since you can run up your bill at £30/minute if not more is a bit unreasonable.
I will be writing to OFTEL sometime shortly.

jema
Downsizer Moderator

Joined: 28 Oct 2004
Posts: 28118
Location: escaped from Swindon

Posted: Sun Jun 14, 09 1:14 pm Post subject:
From what I have seen so far, it seems to be that the Iphone would be the best bet, but the whole field is technically well behind on what could and should be on offer. I can put off this move, and I think I will or I'll regret it in 6 months.

Louisdog

Joined: 22 Mar 2005
Posts: 716
Location: South Wales

Posted: Sun Jun 14, 09 2:26 pm Post subject:
Hairyloon I think it depends on provider; vodafone reckon that I can look on their site to see how much I have used (but I haven't set it up yet). The surplus fees can be huge though I know. Re iphones, I thought one disadvantage with those, and also with HTC magic google phone, is that you can never use them as a modem as they do not allow it?

jema
Downsizer Moderator

Joined: 28 Oct 2004
Posts: 28118
Location: escaped from Swindon

Posted: Sun Jun 14, 09 3:29 pm Post subject:
the new iphone software due out 17th june allows modem use.

Louisdog

Joined: 22 Mar 2005
Posts: 716
Location: South Wales

Posted: Sun Jun 14, 09 3:32 pm Post subject:
ah that's cool then. I still reckon they are overpriced and a bit big for a phone

vegplot

Joined: 19 Apr 2007
Posts: 21301
Location: Bethesda, Gwynedd

Posted: Sun Jun 14, 09 7:30 pm Post subject:

jema wrote:

the new iphone software due out 17th june allows modem use.

copy and paste as well?

The march of technology, will nothing ever stop it.

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