N900 free on a £25/month contract – £240 effective price. Unlocked, Unbranded, unlimited internet, plus free case. Best deals for the Nokia N900?
Note: Delivery is £3.99 with this retailer and I'm not sure if the free case is with all their tarriffs/monthly plans. update: Yes, the free case does come with all tarriffs. Do ask customer service (I think they have a chat service) to confirm any details/questions before purchasing.
If you’re just after a N900, your cheapest bet might be going for the unlocked option. In the UK that would mean setting adrift £440-£499. Great if you’ve got that sort of cash lying around. Plus you’ve got to fork over extra for data/calls/text.
I prefer the whole contract route. Yes you’re somewhat slightly tied up for a period of time, but if you get yourself a good deal you can effectively get more for your money, whilst paying at a more manageable bitesize monthly debits (as a student, that’s perfect for me).
It’s unlocked/unbranded!
Now I’ve not been paid by these guys (although I’ve mentioned them a few times already and I am a customer) but the best deal I can find at the moment on line is through mobilephonesdirect.The great thing is, the handset is straight from Nokia (they’re a Nokia Retailer) This means, unlocked, unbranded; NOTHING to affect any future firmware updates and swapping network sims. If you buy from Vodafone directly, most likely you will have Vodafone lock and branding (though enquire as they might not), meaning not only can you not use any other sim except Vodafone (awful for travelling/roaming) but it might delay any firmware upgrades.
If you are just after the cheapest way to get the N900 unlocked and unbranded with the added benefit of subsidized handset cost (it’s free!), monthly payments and some talk/text/unlimited web allowance, this might just be the plan for you.
Deal 1: MobilePhonesDirect – Vodafone, £25/month.
At £25/month over 24 months that’s £600. Much more than the £440-£499 range of the unlocked.
But let’s take into account inclusive allowances.
- For unlimited web: £5 x 25=£120 (This is really the most important thing with the N900.)
- For calls and text: £10 x 24=£240 (on a monthly plan – over vanilla pay&go, 20p call/10p text, this could be as much as £936, though not advised to be on pay and go if your usage is that high)
- In total that’s £360 of allowances.
- £600 – 360 = £240. Provided you stick to your tariff allowances:
The effective cost of your N900 will then be about £240.
If you have higher call/text consumption, there maybe other plans, not just from this retailer that will work better for you. But this is the cheapest option for low/minimal usage + unlimited internet.
If 8-14 months down the line, you ever did want to sell on your handset whilst on a contract, you can sell it for £300-£350 (provided it’s unlocked – usually is with MPD but please check with other retailers-, mint condition with all accessories) and then use that to pay off the rest of the contract. At 12 months, there’s £300 [12*£25] left. Selling at a bottom price of £300 and you’ll even break even, ready to jump on a new contract. Sell for £350 and you’ve got an additional £50 for a new contract (or whatever)
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How much did you get your N900 for?
Can you find a better deal than this (make sure it’s from a reputable retailer)?
Jay Montano
chaslam
nokiacreative
llaadd
Sergejs Cuhrajs
Andy Harsent
John Wiegand-forson
Andre
Marc Lamarie
Beware: N900s bought from Vodafone come with a customized firmware which got very bad reviews. You will probably have to reflash the device with the original Nokia firmware go get all its features.
Thanks Giacomo.
Updated post with new information that with this retailer, the N900 comes unlocked and unbranded, despite being on Vodafone as they’re a Nokia UK retailer.
If you purchase from other retailers, or vodafone directly, most likely people will encounter problems you have mentioned.
I’m not from the UK but knowing Vodafone for theit brandings an othe fun stuff and thus avoiding it like hell, doesn’t unlimited mobile web in vodafone terms mean using their mobile portal and nothing else? I don’t see a data plan in that contract.
Hi Mario.
This is not from Vodafone directly or any other phone shop that sells Vodafone contracts, but from a Nokia retailer [direct from Nokia] that happens to subsidize handsets with contracts.
According to them it’s Unlocked AND unbranded. I’ve had N97 from them and it’s unlocked and unbranded. I get to put any sim inside and update firmware as soon as Nokia’s made them available.
You are right to be weary of Locked/Branded handsets. For the higher end smarphones they really do cripple a lot of functionality.
Not 100% certain on Voda’s uk mobile web policies. I think “Unlimited” is 500MB fair use to any site. You won’t be penalized for going over, but you will be informed that you are and recommended to moderate yourself (or however fair use implements warnings).
Well, price wise I wish I had know about (or it was available) right at the beginning of the year when the only place in the UK I could find a 900 was direct from Vodafone and the only option they had was fully subsidised on a £40 a month contract.
Saying that it’s 1200 free minutes to mobiles, unlimited landline and texts, 500MB a month data (which, seems to be the fair use limit for unlimited a lot anyway)
I’ve not seen any branding on mine and definitely unlocked because I popped my old T-Mobile sim in while waiting the day or so for the Vodafone one to be active.
PC suite seems a bit confused about my firmware version but I’ve had all the updates mentioned on the blog here via the phone with no issues other than having to uninstall some apps to make room for the biggie. Will have to look up the posts about firmware but I prefer doing it via the phone anyway.
I got it through Vodafone Spain (actually a Vodafone official retailer), and it is UNbranded and UNlocked here !!
@Juan & Rob, thanks. Updated post that Vodafone direct might also be unlocked and unbranded.
I got my unlock and unbranded on a 12 months contract. pay £50 a months.
Hey that’s a good deal, works out the same £600 total but most likely I’m guessing much better inclusive allowances.
What retailer was this with?
If I can, I prefer going with the shorter 12 month route meaning I can get a new contract quicker (though there are other ways of being on contract but updating more regularly <12 months)
unfortunately i have two contracts from two providers so i cant afford another one for sake of saving some cash. No, my only choice was to buy an unlocked one after intense shopping around for a reasonable price, then just put in my sim card.
That said, good job for finding these deals, i’m sure it will help many.
Just realise that all situations are never the same for everyone, people have their reasons for for avoiding contracts.
Thanks for the comment Dave. What other handsets did you have on the other two contracts btw?
Yup, contracts aren’t for all. This one might be best suited for the more average user who might only want one contract running at a time and whilst they’re at it, want the cheapest.
After looking around a bit it seems that the firmware is the same but that the phones from Vodafone have a slightly different model ID and the firmare comes down the PC suite route later. That certainly tallies with my experiences entering my model number into the web based tools from Nokia and getting conflicting results as to which firware was the latest available.
As I say though, updating striaght from the phone using the repositories is the route I will always choose.
On the contract fron I am stuck with my £40 a month for 2 years but starting to take advantage of all the free calls.
It seems nokiaretail/mpd now offer T-Mobile – The tarrif most comparable to the above has better data limits but is £9 extra over 2 years, with an upfront cost, but it looks a good deal. Some would say T-Mobile has better 3g coverage too.
Might depend where you are. I have noticed hugely better reception on Vodafone than T-Mobile here in Edinburgh and even get a signal in basements where T-Mobile would drop off as soon as you thought about going near one.
Saying that I changed phone from N95 too so whether the hardware makes a difference too I am not sure.
Interesing – i’m in Edinburgh too, but the wife has a Virgin 5800XM which she seems to get pretty decent reception with and afaik they use the T-Mobile network. I was mainly going by the ofcom 3g signal map and associated press reports but I guess they are too high a level to get any decent information about real usage from them.
Aye Virgin do use the T-Mobile network. If she has trouble accessing SSL sites go to advanced settings on the data connection and remove the proxy. By default they often route you through one that does not allow it.
Not sure if it is to do with the frequecy but though coverage seemed reasonably constant on T-Mobile it just didn’t like being in buildings much if they were any distance from a transmitter. The difference was huge switching from Orange.