Comment by Nexxxeh | Hacker News Reader

Comment by Nexxxeh | Hacker News Reader

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Handset cost is subsidized for some PAYG upgrades in CPW. Lumia 435 (unlocked) for £15 as an example. At the time, they were significantly more expensive on Amazon.

The Lumia 435 is not a fantastic handset for techies, it's unsuitable for myself as anything other than an emergency backup or satnav. Largely because the far fewer apps it does have, are not as good as the Android or iOS equivalents.

It's a hell of a bargain for £15 though. It's frankly still reasonable at £35.

However for my mum, it's a perfect "my first smartphone". Not least because the hideous safety orange colour scheme makes it harder to lose.

I purchased my own handset from P4U, SIM free, and it's on a PAYG network. It was cheaper than buying it on Amazon, and I could pick it up instantly.

Amazon deliveries are really hit and miss here at the moment. Months of free Prime because they've repeatedly fucked up time-sensitive deliveries.

I use a Lumia 640. Paid £105 for it on a deal day. Never had a problem with apps; most of what I do is built in. Only use HERE drive and adobe reader. That and giffgaff £15/month gives me 4Gb of 4G tethering, 1000 mins and free texts.

Amazon only fucked up one delivery for me in the last 10 years. They left a 512Gb SSD on my doorstep and it got nicked. They sent out a new one instantly.

TBH you can nail a Moto G for not much now. My wife uses one. I can't stand the lag on android though after using WP. And iOS just isn't very flexible. I mean I can't download an mp3 from something without buggering around with itunes.

I've got a first gen non-4G Moto G, and it's served me well (on Giffgaff). I have hammered the poor thing though.

It's suffered more abuse than any piece of hardware reasonably should, and it's starting to show it. Battery needs replacing, and I think the front speaker assembly does too. But I've more than had my money's worth.

I couldn't go to WinPho because of apps: No Tasker, no Firefox+uBlock, no FolderSync, no working Netflix. (Might take three reboots before it'll play a video on the 435. Even then there'll be a green line down the screen. Netflix know, it's an MS bug, MS don't care. Months later, still no patch.) Dropbox won't background sync. No Chromecast.

And I couldn't go back to an iPhone. You're right, the "my way or the highway" of Apple just doesn't work for me.

I vastly prefer CoPilot to HERE. Although when my dad needed a satnav, I just got him to buy a Lumia 435 instead. He loved it.

Your £15 4GB 4G bag doesn't start until next month though, does it? But yeah, the effectively free upgrade to 4G data is another reason for me to say goodnight to my faithful Moto. I'll probably be getting a Vodafone Smart Ultra 6 and unlocking it soon.

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