Pays to shop around!!

CK.1

Bought a Sony Ericsson W810i yesterday on Meteor Pay Monthly (Talk 200), here's the wide range of prices I came across:

Carphone Warehouse Rathmines: €149
Meteor Store: €99
3G, Ashleaf Centre, Crumlin: €69

So if you're buying a new mobile make sure you check all the shops before buying.

Doodlebug

Wow-thats some difference. I will def shop around now - always thought they were the same price everywhere (give or take a tenner or so). I'm hopefully buying 2 Meteor pay as you go phones this week. Free texts - the business!

Thanks for the reminder!

kensutz

Must look into that. I'm sick of getting stung by Vodafone so I need to look for an alternative provider now and that one might suit

Clover

wow that is something else , it pays to shop around alright.

Saruman

But how does this make a difference? Its pay monthly not sim free. So no matter what phone you decide on the service is different with different price etc.... . unless of course you mean that All 3 stores were on the meteor service (same plan) and thats where the price difference was... on the phone itself only. If you mean however one shop was o2 and another vodafone then its not the same.

If its all meteor, same plan same phone just different retailer then yes its a very big difference.

wba88

Saruman wrote:

If its all meteor, same plan same phone just different retailer then yes its a very big difference.

i think thats what he meant coz he didnt mention any other stores except ones that sell meteor phones, just assuming about the tariff

CK.1

Yup, all three prices were for the Meteor Talk 200 package.

dave101

yeah for sure lads. the sister had salmost the same deal with a k750i she was after .ended up getting it for free the week it came out after making a few calls around the phone outlets.
29 e 49e and even 99e.handset price
for the talk 200 package crazy.

oneweb

The W810 is a fantastic phone I can't recommend it highly enough! Got mine sim-free from expansys 'co s I can't stand the way the networks disable tons of stuff and force their own things into it! But surely the price depends a lot on the type of contract and how long yer stuck with it?

Darthrodney

I got the W810 through Carphone warehouse ... sadly paid 129 for mine (ah well!! it was the week it came out).

Blooming excellent phone, quick fyi the carphone warehouse sell the W810 to you on Meteors behalf with a "Sim Free" phone, they just give you the Meteor sim card ... no meteor network $hite pre loaded on the phone, so buying from expanys isn't necessary.

Dundalk Daily

Yes it sure pays to shop around. I bought a small piece of glass to repair a broken window earlier in the week. One glazier wanted €75 for the supply of the glass only and I got it around the corner from them for €40. Typical rip off Ireland.

the-lad

Darthrodney wrote:

I got the W810 through Carphone warehouse ... sadly paid 129 for mine (ah well!! it was the week it came out).

Blooming excellent phone, quick fyi the carphone warehouse sell the W810 to you on Meteors behalf with a "Sim Free" phone, they just give you the Meteor sim card ... no meteor network $hite pre loaded on the phone, so buying from expanys isn't necessary.

Is it worth the extra €80 to go the"sim free" route?
What features are disabled/enhanced? by Meteor if you get one from them?

Darthrodney

Depends on how into modifying your phone you are ... Vodafone have this annoying habit of disabling functions that allow you transfer games/ringtones etc ... they want you to use MMS or 3G to transfer files so they get your money.

My girlfriend had a motorola phone last year and they disabled the phone from the data cable transferring anything else apart from images and sounds ... so i couldn't transfer her games by the USB cable.

I had a Sony Ericsson (V800) before and I couldn't make MP3's i tranfered across from my laptop to it as ringtones (again vodafone disabled that too) even though you could do it on "sim free" versions of the phone. Had to go through a big song and dance to turn the mp3 into a "DRM protected file" (data rights management) before i could use as a ringtone ...

Dunno if vodafone are still doing that $hit ... its part of the reason i left them ... and Meteor have better rates, signal strength isn't as good ... but it is a bit cheaper...

In short ... Your call!

the-lad

thanks for the info.

MOH

I never knew service providers disable phone features when you buy phone from them. Surely there's a big issue there if you buy a phone expecting certain features and then discover some of them have been disabled, if ot's not made clear beforehand?

mcgovern

Thats actually part of the Motorola software and not Vodafone, on the 2 Motorola's we have in this house anyway.
Its Motorola who want your money by buying from their store.

Thirdfox

You can often flash the firmware on your phone and "de-brand" the phone. A big reason why I don't go with Vodafone's phones is that they are so aggressive when it comes to branding their phone...

Viva la Meteor!