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O/T Can I turn a contract Blackberry phone into PAYG?
- Thread starter Papak
- Start date
Hatterlovesbrighton
something clever
Is the contract expired?
Do you really want all your daughter's friends to point and laugh at her?
- Thread starter
- #4
Not yet, was planning to cancel it at the end of the year / early next year.
- Thread starter
- #5
They all have / want BBs.
Is it 1990 in Horsham?
They can have mine if they like. And the two broken ones in my desk drawer.
Young (well younger than me) people seem obsessed with BlackBerry Messenger for some reason, probably the anonymity it gives. That, as far as I can tell, is why they like BlackBerrys, but you can get BlackBerry Messenger on other platforms now anyway.
In answer to the original question, you'll need to get the handset unlocked if you want to use it on a different network. After that good luck finding a true PAYG option - all the ones I looked at recently were you pay say £10 for a month and if after that month you hadn't used all the credit you lost it and had to buy another £10 for the next month. Hardly PAYG as far as I'm concerned.
Spun Cuppa
Thanks Greens :(
As above, with the rejoinder that once it is out of contract, and unlocked, most companies do SIM only tariffs for around a tenner a month, with the added bonus of offering rolling one month contracts, so you are not tied in for a year or longer. The bundles are about 250 mins/5000texts/500mb data per month, which is enough for an old fogey like me, but a teenager will probably need to go up a few notches on the bundle limits, with commensurate increase in subscription fee 
We got a 3 payg sim from the co-op for 99p for our youngest. Minimum £10 initial credit but then true PAYG - no stupid expiring credits or anything. Obviously the charges are not the most competitive (it's 3pm per text and I think, 5p per min) but we just wanted him to be able to text us if he was staying late at school, etc.
Spun Cuppa
Thanks Greens :(
I don't know the age of the person the phone is going to, but if young, true, top-up type PAYG would probably work out very expensive if they are interacting with their friends. Also, credit always runs out at the wrong time, so for peace of mind, SIM only might be a better deal...
Shop around, as the BBM is an 'extra', and puts the price up a bit
Shop around, as the BBM is an 'extra', and puts the price up a bit