Mobile Network Comparison

Everyone knows about the latest and greatest superpowered smartphones such as the Samsung Galaxy S5, the Apple iPhone 5S and the HTC One M8. They pack in the latest technology and the most features and are really at the cutting edge of modern industrial design. However, despite the high performance, they have a price tag to match.

Not everyone can afford £1000+ on a new mobile phone and commitment to a contract of two years or more. Furthermore, anyone following technology knows that early adopters pay over the odds and sometimes even subsidise other consumers for the right to boast that they a device at the bleeding edge of tech.

Smarter customers often look for bargains instead of obsessing over the very best. By going for a phone that’s a generation or two behind the curve, you not only get a product with amazing performance but you also save a lot of money. Simply, it’s the best way to maximise the bang for your buck. And it’s pretty clear that nowadays, even a phone that came out two years ago offers a blisteringly fast user experience, the same solid build quality and more features than you’d probably ever use. If you want better value for money, you can still get amazing performance – after all, most phones today offer better tech specs than laptops and digital cameras from just a few years ago.

We now have bargain smartphones available that refuse to compromise on performance. Today we’re rounding up the top five phones that offer the best value. These handsets are all less than half the price of a new Galaxy S5 or iPhone 5S but still keep up with the latest games and apps. In our opinion, they are easily the best value for money smartphones you can currently get. Have a look for yourself!

Nokia Lumia 520

Only £79.84

Smooth, stylish and smart, the new Lumia 520 is packed with great features it’s hard to live without. Windows Mobile has massively improved recently and on top of that, there’s no denying that Nokia, with all their experience, make stunning-looking devices.

At an incredible pricepoint of under £80, it’s hard to argue with the Lumia 520. Anything else this cheap without a contract will be sluggish and unresponsive in comparison.

It also boasts a super-sharp 4″ screen, crystal call quality and many other perks such as a physical shutter button and digital lenses.

If you don’t mind a Windows Phone device, there is absolutely nothing that comes close to the price/quality ratio of the Nokia Lumia 520.

 

Lenovo A820

Only £109.22

When looking at Chinese phones like the Lenovo A820, the main selling points is just how much phone you’re getting for your money. It has 1 GB of RAM and a quad core processor but still costs just over 100 quid. If you don’t have hundreds and hundreds of pounds to spend on your mobile phone but still want all the bells and whistles of a smartphone, this is a great choice to go for.

We’ve already written a full in-depth review of the Lenovo A820 but to summarise, the highlights of this handset are the power saving features, the long-lasting removable 2000 mAh power cell, the amazing dual-SIM ports and the fact it comes with a quad core processor.

This handset is incredibly cheap for the hardware you’re getting and it offers incomparable value compared to almost any phone available on British high streets.

 

Moto G

Was £159.99 Now only £149.99

Yes, you read it right. The Moto G is a Android KitKat 4G smartphone that only costs £150! It boasts a Qualcomm Snapdragon 400 quad-core processor, boatloads of RAM and much more besides.

The battery is great and the two cameras produce snaps of amazingly good quality. Perhaps best of all in the impressive curved 4.5″ screen coated with Gorilla Glass. The casing is even water-resistant!

LTE 4G, HD display, Quad-Core Speed Android 4.4 KitKat and all for less than £150. A bargain!

 

Nexus 5

Only £260.00

The Nexus 5 surely needs no introduction. Built by LG, the Google-branded Android handset comes with an 8 MP OIS camera featuring HDR+ and Photo Sphere‚ a 4.95″ Full HD IPS Display, fast 4G LTE and a 2‚300 mAh battery.

The phone has a nice matt rubberised back and feels great to hold. Compared to high end competitors like the iPhone 5S, you get a bigger, better quality screen and the Nexus is just as blisteringly fast.

The Nexus 5 is outstanding and comes at an incredible price for a well-specced product that just exudes quality.

 

LG G2

Was £489.00 Now only £275.79

If you’re willing to spend a little more, you can still get great value for your cash. The LG G2 blows away most of its competition with a 2.26Ghz quad-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 800 CPU, 2GB RAM, 13 megapixel OIS camera and a 5.2″ full HD display.

On top of that it boasts a massive battery to keep it going all day and genuinely useful software features such as tracking zoom, Knockon and Capture PLus.

The phone is gorgeous to look at with the bezel-less screen and amazing build quality throughout. The display density is 424 ppi and the colour reproduction is clear and vivid. Overall, the LG G2 is a great handset and an utter bargain at this price.

tello is the latest newcomer to the MVNO party in the UK having launched at the end of October last year. It’s formed through a partnership between KeepCalling and x‑Mobility.

KeepCalling is a US telecoms company with offices in Romania and Bolivia. It started off small back in 2002 reselling phone cards before expanding into monthly mobile plans and international virtual numbers. It now runs over 70 websites turns over about £30 million in yearly profits.

x‑Mobility is a Mobile Virtual Network Aggregator. Basically, what this means is it acts as an intermediary between Three Mobile and the various virtual networks than run on its service.

We got together with their Managing Director, Silvana Tatu to ask a few questions about the new network.

Hi Silvana, thanks for chatting with us. First of all can you explain a little more about the genesis of the company and the ideas behind it?

tello is a brand designed by KeepCalling, a telecom company based in the US, Atlanta who’s been in the telecom business since 2002. From the beginning, KeepCalling’s mission has been to bring family and friends closer together and offer them affordable means of communication.

In 2014, KeepCalling created tello having the same goal in mind: offer a clean, high quality mobile service for UK users with a fair and simple billing mechanism. And top of that, tello was designed as a solution to cover long distance calling needs for expats in the UK, businessmen, or any other person living in the UK who needs a SIM to call abroad, make local calls and surf the web.

And can you tell us a bit about the management team and their background?

KeepCalling’s management team is represented by a group of young and ambitious specialists who gathered a wide experience in the telecom market. The knowledge acquired while doing business in the US for the past 13 years was a very useful prerequisite when deciding to expand our business to the UK.

You seem to have a good understanding of the international/expat market. How are you positioning your offerings to suit these customers best and how true is it that you’re a specialist network for international mobile use?

It’s true that we cater our services and offers to meet our customers’ needs. What’s unique about us and what differentiates us from others is that we really put our customers, their traditions, their culture and language first. Customers can read, visit and buy our products from our websites in their native language. They see familiar images from their homeland, they receive customized emails based on their culture. Basically, their entire online experience from an ad they see on Google, to ordering a product on our website is customized to match their cultural background.

As far as being “a specialist network for international mobile use”, we are honored. It’s true that we have a lot of experience and that we know our customers, so I guess we could say we’re a specialist in this field.

Could you describe the brand in three words?

Friendly, fair, responsive.

Great! But who do you see as your closest competitor?

Our services are addressed to both UK citizens & expats, therefore we have a lot of competition. The UK MVNO market especially is a very competitive one, with many operators offering great deals on international and national calls, text and data. Basically, all UK current providers can be considered our competitors.

So having said that and with our common understanding that the MVNO market is incredibly saturated and competitive, what’s your one USP?

It’s true, as I mentioned before, the UK market is a very competitive one, but competition is good. It pushes your limits and makes you better than you can ever imagined.

Our USP would be “Say hello with your new tello SIM: clean, fair, no hidden fees or overcharges”

What’s the uptake been like so far? What are your growth plans and forecasts?

Even if tello is a new MVNO on the UK market, our online presence is getting stronger and stronger with every day that passes. We are currently analyzing different possibilities to expand our marketing strategy and grow our business.

Stay tuned for the second part of our Tello interview with Silvana coming next Monday…

Happy birthday to us! Thank you everyone of you – readers, watchers, commenters, reviewers, helpers, sharers. You’ve been grand 🙂

Here’s the some of the most popular articles over the last twelve months. Please check them out if you missed them the first time round and let us know what your favourites were in the comments below.

Mobile Network Comparison table – what gave us our name. For the first time, a game-changing complete sortable chart of the pricing of all the UK’s PAYG networks.
Samsung Galaxy SIII vs S2 – Full Benchmark Test – an in-depth look at how the Samsung Galaxy SII fares against its old brother, the SIII. Just how much difference do you think the newer Exynos 4 Quad clocked at 1.4 Ghz will make in our test?
Top 5 smartphones for battery life – it’s been a bugbear of ours for a while, especially in the age of smartphones without replaceable batteries and massive power-sapping displays. We take a look at alternatives that will last a few days.
O₂ acquired by Three Mobile – one of the biggest pieces of news to break in the mobile world this year. There’s still a few Is to dot and Ts to cross but this is set to be a massive £10 billion deal creating easily the UK’s biggest mega-network.

And of course, we’re looking forward to the next near here at MNC HQ and we’re busy planning lost of exciting new articles and projects. But for right now, we’re going to celebrate a bit as we’re not really grumpy kittens 🙂