Delight Mobile was launched in July 2011 as a sister network to existing cut-price virtual network Vectone. Both are owned by parent company Mundio Mobile who employ 120 permanent staff. Vectone is active all over the EU but had only been running for less than two years before Delight Mobile was launched.

Delight Mobile targets the same ethnic demographic but runs a slightly different price model to its sister company. Instead of operating a budget network with rock bottom prices, its tariffs are closer to the main network providers but it has a special triple credit deal running. It now operates a cut-price PAYG tariff like its sister network and has some of the best prices available. Like Vectone who ran a very successful advertising campaign, Delight Mobile has a large UK marketing budget and is aggressively expanding its customer base already.

Free SIM

If you are interested in trying Delight Mobile, you can order your free SIM from here.

Delight Mobile review

As Delight Mobile is run by the same company as Vectone which is lauded for being great value, some will be initially shocked by the extremely high prices posted on their website. However, you first have to understand the tariff model they are using. Delight Mobile have copied the Tesco Mobile strategy where standard prices are set relatively high for a virtual network but drop down to more reasonable rates with a permanent triple credit offer.

What this means is that you can effectively divide all the quoted charges by three when looking at their pricing. This means that Delight Mobile’s true prices are not comparable to the pricey networks such as 3, O₂ and Orange but, rather, are amongst the lowest available in the UK. Just like Vectone, they challenge even the cheapest budget networks and can save you a packet on your PAYG phone bill.

This means that UK voice calls are effectively only 8.3p per minute while texts are just 3p each in reality which is pretty much the best price available. On top of this, they have fantastic rates for voicemail at just 5p per minute and the lowest MMS charge which is just 25p when allowing for the triple credit offer. Even data is excellent value with a free allowance and only 10p/MB after adjusting the price.

Delight Mobile have since changed their tactics. They found that many customers were incapable of understanding their simple triple credit deal correctly and were receiving tons of complaints about being overcharged. So, instead, they decided to go for something a bit simpler. If we’re honest, this would have been a sensible policy from the start as the triple credit offer was rather disingenuous and was certainly somewhat misleading.

Now they have identical rock-bottom rates to Vectone. They even have the same deal for 4 weeks of free calls and texts to the same network every time you top up at least £10. The main negative point of changing pricing structure is that there’s nothing to differentiate them from Vectone any more. Now it just seems like a cynical attempt for the group to gain more customers by pretending to be two networks and giving the illusion of choice when in actual fact you’d be hard pressed to find any difference at all between the two. It’s also still slightly confusing for customers as they won’t understand why there’s any difference between the two networks and it’s unclear whether calls between Vectone and Delight count as cross-network or not.

Still, the low prices equates to massive savings compared to the big mobile networks. For example, a £10 top-up with T-Mobile would get you just 40 minutes of calls, only 28 texts and a couple of MMS picture messages. On Delight Mobile, the same £10 would provide a more than 60 minutes of voice calls (assuming a mix of landline and mobile), over 40 texts and twice as many picture messages. Not only that, but you’d also get 10MB of data free every day which is worth £30 on T-Mobile and free Delight to Delight calls and texts for four weeks. The difference in value is self-evident.

Furthermore, the international calls rates are competitive as you would expect. However, there are bad points. Especially given the large-scale advertising campaign, new customers might be put off by the poor customer service which is pretty inexcusable. Like with Vectone many people have reported being overcharged, not getting responses to emails and rude company representatives.

We also think that the triple credit deal is a bit misleading and unnecessarily complicates what should be a simple and straightforward budget tariff. Further complications arise from the various expiry dates on deals such as free Delight to Delight calls and texts and the free data allowance.

Despite all this, in summary Delight Mobile is a fantastic deal. You’re bound to save a bomb if you switch over from any of the major networks. Delight Mobile have followed in Vectone’s footsteps to produce a great value virtual network.

PAYG Pricing

At a glance

Details

Delight Mobile’s UK tariff is a little misleading at first sight. Their rates are pretty similar to the main networks with calls to UK landlines and mobiles set at 25p/minute and UK texts priced at 9p each. Actually, these prices are amongst the highest available on PAYG with only a few networks such as 3, Virgin Mobile costing more for voice calls and SMS costs only 2p less than the most expensive offerings.

However, this price plan doesn’t tell the whole story. As Delight Mobile offer a permanent Triple Credit deal, you effectively get £15 for every £5 you top up. This means that you can divide all the quoted prices by a third. As such, for a true like-for-like analysis, we will compare their prices with other networks based on their real-world cost rather than the posted prices.

So the true cost of calls is actually only 8.3p/minute and texts are really only 3p each. This means that voice calls are very competitive and texts are actually the cheapest available beating even Giffgaff, Family Mobile and TalkMobile. This also makes voicemail dirt cheap at an effective price of only 5p/minute and they have easily the cheapest MMS rate in the UK too at just 8.3p per message allowing for the free credit. However, you should always bear in mind that the bonus credit you receive when topping up is not valid whilst roaming nor for calls or SMS to premium rate numbers.

Delight’s rates are pretty damn good value especially compared to some of their competitors. You can get landline calls for only 5p a minute while mobile calls are still very cheap at just 10p a minute. Texts are pretty standard costing 10p each. Another added bonus is one of the cheapest voicemail rates available at just 5p per minute.

So if you want to save money on your mobile bill, Delight could be a great choice. Perhaps the best part of Delight’s deal is the fact that you get free calls and texts to other Delight Mobile customers as long as you have topped up recently. This is a fantastic offer that, although it’s not as good as Giffgaff’s free calls and texts deal, can save you a packet.

Mobile internet is also excellent value on Delight. As long as you’ve topped up within the last 30 days you get 10MB of data free every single day. This is easily enough for casual web browsing and email. After than, the list price is 10p/MB. This is one of the cheapest mobile data deals available.

Delight have now slashed their PAYG prices to just 3p per minute for calls, 2p per SMS text message and 1p/MB for mobile data. Can’t complain about that!

Deals

Delight Mobile don’t currently offer any special bolt-ons or special extras but they do have a fantastic deal for Delight to Delight calls and texts. Every time you top-up you qualify for a set time-period of completely free calls and texts to Delight Mobile numbers. Topping up £5 gives you a week’s allowance while £10 gives you 2 weeks of free calls and texts and £20 or more gives you a full 4 weeks of unlimited calls and unlimited texts to Delight Mobile customers. Do bear in mind that this is not valid when roaming though and that “unlimited” actually has a fair use limit of 3000 texts and 3000 minutes per month.

The deal for free Delight-to-Delight calls and texts that we mentioned above now lasts for four weeks after every top-up and is also being advertised as truly unlimited which is fantastic. They have also started offering add-ons called “Delightful Treats“. These come in two varieties – £10 and £20. The £10 bundle comes with 200 minutes/texts (the allowance is for both) which means you can get calls or texts for an effective price of just 5p per minute or 5p per SMS. The £20 treat is even better as you get a mixture of 500 minutes/texts which translates to an effective rate of just 4p. This is definitely good value. Both bundles last 30 days before expiring but please be aware that they automatically renew.

Price comparison

To compare Delight’s current pricing to all the other mobile networks, please see our price comparison page.

Coverage

Summary

Coverage map

Delight Mobile runs on the Everything Everywhere network operated by T-Mobile and Orange. Please see our Delight coverage page to learn about Delight Mobile’s network coverage in your area. For more information, compare it with other mobile phone networks’ coverage.

Rating

Please give your own rating to Delight below:

Delight Mobile, 3.0 out of 5 based on 89 ratings