Just in case you were unaware: I hate Apple. I've only ever owned one of their products, an iphone 3GS. For the past six months I've been counting down the days to the end of the contract on that phone. Why? Well I hate Apple's pretentious advertising. I hate itunes - it knows too much about me; what I like and dislike, where I live, my credit card details, and who knows what else!! itunes also has a very long and complicated user agreement that seems to change every 2-3 weeks. I don't trust contracts that change all the time, without my input. Oh and my piece of crap iphone has a tendency to crap out three minutes into most phone calls.
So quite a while ago I decided that my next phone would definitely not be an Apple: it would be either a Samsung or an HTC. HTC lost my vote when they put the Desire HD exclusively on the Vodaphone "network". Thus I have spent the past week or two looking at what sort of deals would be available for the Samsung Galaxy S2 which is their latest and greatest offering.
On the back of this comparative work I have further bad news for those of you with Telstra shares in your bottom drawer. Telstra indisputably has the best mobile network in Australia, but it is not worth a $15 a month premium over the Optus offer. For a base of $59 a month the call and message rates are the same on both networks. Optus offers more data per month, but Telstra has better coverage and the Next G network has data transfer rates that in places far exceed anything Optus even plans to offer.
When you think about what you use the data on your phone for mostly - footy scores, stick a photo on facebook or solve an argument using wikipedia - you just don't need the super network. Certainly not at such a high cost per month. Optus wins this round. Telstra had better find some features to make the next G network worth the extra money or their fixed line business won't be only one receding at a great rate of knots.
Telstra deal:
http://www.telstra.com.au/shop/Consumer/NGTSOMobilePhonesView?catalogId=10101&storeId=10001&productId=109229&langId=-1&categoryId=16103&parent_category_rn=16103&top_category=&ti=TR:TR:July11:samgalaxys2:mobileselect:buynow
Optus deal:
http://www.optus.com.au/store/phone/galaxysii?sid=MobAFeat1:galaxysii:OSC:MPOST:OCA:MPOST:22062011#a_selectaplan
the 15 bucks a month premium is absolutely worthwhile here in Tasmania, and i would guess it is worth it in Melbourne if you plan to do anything more than the menial data tasks you have listed.
ReplyDeleteAre you aware that you can turn your phone into a wifi hotspot? that way, if you are out and about with your laptop you can hook it up and use your phone to access the internet. try using full blown google maps on a slow connection. You're probably right, for you, doing what you plan to do, its not worth it. but once you have the bandwidth, you find new and interesting ways to use it.
Nah.. Optus does alright in Melbourne for data. It's not the 22Mbps of Telstra, but it's perfectly serviceable for browsing. Even though I'm with crappy Vodafone I'm able to stream video - I'm not sure you can ask a lot more of a mobile connection.
ReplyDeleteTelstra have been gouging Australians for decades. I'm all for giving them the boot and exploring the alternatives. But you might need to take my advice with a grain of salt... Telstra is a competitor to my work :).