autumn
The Phone
Touch screen phone (stylus) with LED flash camera and video, + 2nd mini camera on front for video calls.
Phone includes GPS aerial, supports some wireless internet (I forget if it's b, g &/or n) and allows more than 1 bluetooth connection at a time (I've used a keyboard and headset simultaneously). MicroSD slot (8GB MicroSD card included??). Output to tv is possible. Accelerometers in phone as well. 3.5 mm jack for audio and/or tv output. You can use handwriting, a virtual mobile phone keypad, or a mini virtual keyboard for input. (I also use a Bluetooth keyboard with it for writing documents etc)
Many free apps and free GPS with turn by turn navigation are available from the Nokia ovi site. Note: I do think the navigation software could do with some improvements on course plotting and to make it much more user friendly. But I haven't used dedicated GPS systems much so I don't know how much better they are.
Oh, and last time, they said all their phones apart from iPhones, are unlocked. If you are interested, you could call them to confirm if the phone is unlocked again.
Update
Members report that marking they are existing customers, means that they are inelligible to have the first 3 months access for $0. They can still have the plan on $19 compared with the usual $29.
It's somewhere in the fine print that only new custodmers get the first 3 months $19 fee waived. :(
The Plan
$19 min a month (though using the code drops that to $0 min a month for the first 3 months only).
Free voice calls, video calls and text to Virgin mobile phones.
$50 a month to use towards other calls and text.
Included value expires after 2 months. So … you can have up to $100 value to use in a month ($50 from last month and $50 from this month, if you didn't use any of the value in the previous month)
Calls to other mobiles are expensive though. $0.90/min + $0.40 connection for voice and video with $0.25 per text.
This plan is good for me as most of my family and many of my friends are on Virgin and I'm probably a low call user (so that included $50 a month more than covers me).
1GB of data per month for the first 3 months only. Update here. You have to add an option to get the free 1GB per month for 3 months and then have to remember to remove it in time, otherwise you will end up on a data plan that might cost you $15 extra per month.
If you remove the 1GB per month data plan it drops to 5MB a month, according to Virgin's page.
Excess data is expensive. 0.2c per kB. So a 1MB page will cost you $2 on excess.
Though you can stay on the data plan and pay $15 extra per month, for 1GB of data.
As I only use internet at home (using my wireless broadband router :) ) I haven't had a need to work out if the data plans are competitive.
Network's traditionally been Optus, since Optus own Virgin Mobile.
Bargain?
The phone went back up to $29 a month, after the previous offer, last Nov/Dec. I thought it was worth mentioning as it's being offered again on a $19 a month plan.
If you're like me, low call user apart from calls to Virgin mobile users, this deal looks nice.
Also the phone might be unlocked … we were told that last time and if that interests you, you can check on that.
If you have an existing phone you are happy with but want that Virgin $19 a month plan, you may be able to improve your deal by selling the phone and keeping the sim.
Other thoughts
When I got the phone on the other deal it had limited accessories, unlike earlier packages. A slip case. A wrist strap with plectrum stylus. A stylus that slides into the case. A regular charger. A wired remote control into which a separate wired headset plugs (and it is also included) I haven't tested it, but it might be possible to plug the remote into the phone (without the extra wired headset), to allow radio play back, then use a bluetooth headset. Other phones I've seen don't allow radio playback via a bluetooth headset.
Nokia has it's own tv cable that you'll need to get if you want to output video and pictures straight to the tv. (Though video doesn't look that great on a tv)
You can get MS Office compatible software for this phone, but you'll have to pay for it and it's not from Microsoft. Works okay though it does not have all the power and shortcut keys from the desktop versions. I use mine just for writing and a bit of spreadsheet work. It can do more but I haven't tried that out.
The phone says it has document viewers for Microsoft documents, but on my phone, I'd have to go find and download them. Since I also want to edit documents, I just bought the editing version instead. It was around $20 Australian, give or take $10.
I don't know if the viewers will be already installed on the models sold under this deal.
I needed to upgrade my phone, from the previous deal, in order to get the new free navigation version of the GPS software. I'm not sure if you need a computer for this to work properly. I used Nokia's maps loader software on my notebook, with the phone connected, to upload data for Australia. You can see the size of data for different areas and different voices. I think Australia's data might've been something like 0.5 GB.
My phone seems to have a limit of about 40 applications. If you go over 40 applications, the phone can hang. I'm hoping Nokia release a patch to address this, even if it only warns me when the number of applications I have is getting close to that number. (The fix seems to be powering down, possibly by removing the battery even, removing the microSD card in my case, starting up again, then putting the card back into the phone … followed by removing a few apps)
Since the upgrade my phone has crashed a few times, in the 4 or 5 months I've had it. This tended to happen when I was using applications but I'm not sure if it's related to how many days the phone's been running since it last shut down.
That said, despite the few crashes, I still like this phone a lot :)
Well presented bargain & looks like a good deal.