Here I would like to talk about the Tesco mobile service rather the phone. For the phone Sony Ericsson T303 please read my other review posted yesterday.
First of all, I got the phone and Tesco (always) has an offer of buying a new PAYG phone and credit you £10! This is not a free credit which will expire after a month but 'real' credit that will never expire until you have used it. Good !
The second impressive offer is triple you top up i.e. I have topped up £15 and Tesco gave me £30 free credit (expires after one month - if you don't use it, you lose it). You do need to pre-register this prior to your first top-up. The most important thing of this offer is: your free credits automatically get used first and then your real credits. Free credits can be used for normal national calls including landlines and text/picture messages to mobiles. They can be used for mobile internet browsing too. However there are some restrictions - no international numbers, no premium rate numbers, no 08... numbers and you can't use it outside this country.
The third good thing is the flexibility of top-up: online, in Tesco, by phone and ATM cash machines with the Tesco mobile top-up logo. Furthermore, you can set up you 5 favourite phone numbers (including landline) to have half-price call charges. The high call charges are expected for PAYG phones anyway. If you want low charges, the ASDA mobile network is very cheap however its Vodafone coverage may not be as good, at least in Oxfordshire.
The fourth good thing is the coverage. O2 coverage is still second to none. Instead of buying the same phone under 'O2' network, you pay less (~£10) for it to be under 'Tesco' [O2] network. Of course, you will miss out the O2 customer perks e.g. reduced monthly charges of O2 broadband.
The fifth good things is the unlatching from the current network. Provided you have used the phone with Tesco mobile network for 3 months and have topped up at least £25, you can ask Tesco for an unlocking code to unlock your mobile from their network free of charge. If these conditions are not met, you pay them £25 to get the code anyway. Well, I need this for my Sony Ericsson phone because it is quite complicated to unlatch it from any network. Perhaps not for a Nokia phone which you can unlatch it from any network by putting in a code using one of the online code calculator from the IMEI code. My Mrs' PAYG Nokia is latched to O2 and they will unlatch it only when we pay them £25. Using the latest online Nokia calculator, it is free (tested). For readers outside Europe, it may be illegal to unlatch you mobile from your network yourself, no matter how easy it is.
Now the ugly - phone tariff is set at 20p/min (across all networks and at all time); text tariff is set at 10p/min (network and time indepent). For the favourite 5 numbers, these are reduced by half. I am a light user and use it mainly for emergency purposes and it is fine. Also, they use free credits to entice you into using the phone more. As a result you become addicted to it and spend more than you should. When this happens, think about a more economy PAYG SIM or switch to the lowest tariff monthly contract. Don't forget to check the coverage in your area.
How helpful would this review be to a person making a buying decision? Rating guidelines
Sounds good, but hate changing networks as you have to wait 5 days for your old number to transfer cross.
I didn't realise Tesco used the O2 network!
Good review.
Advantages: Good network as it uses O2's network, cheap- bonus credit, tesco clubcard points Disadvantages: Their site isn't very good- no login just a PIN
talia790 28.06.2009 ·
Read review
Ciao members have rated this review on average: helpful
Review of Tesco Mobile
May 31st, 2009
very helpful by (100%):
