On the Road Again!

The end of an era. I have been on the Three UK network for around five years but today had a letter to say that my contract is going up. It is currently £17 and they want to put it up to £22. A bit steep. I only keep Three for our annual trip to the US, as data and call usage is free unlike all the other UK providers. But Covid put paid to a trip this year and I doubt 2021 will be much better. Three is also useless at home. I rely on my phone being connected to my home WiFi for calls and data.  Whilst companies rush to get 5G working they seem to ignore areas where 4G is shite. Hythe is one of them. Checking on "My Three" shows that over the last three months I have used an average of 0.27gb mobile data per month. I use the internet a lot from my phone but it's home WiFi that provides the connection. I always look for free WiFi when out as mobile data often poor. When Claire's O2 contract ran out last year she switched to Tesco Mobile. She cut her monthly payment by 5...

Today we had a drive up to the White Cliffs of Dover for a walk with Reggie. We parked on the first level above the visitor centre and then went along the cliff top above the ferry port and then up the path towards Langdon Cliff. My phone buzzed a few times and I ignored it. But. It was simply texts from Three UK informing me about being in France... Except we were in England. France is about 24 miles away... So lucky my SIM-only contract allows me to make calls and use data in places all over the globe using my £17 a month!! A message from April after we got back from Florida shows a remarkable saving. WOW!! I have no idea how accurate that is but although I have been outside the UK a few times since I've not had another text like it.

The phone arrived on Friday about 4pm.  Reggie as usual greeted the postman with his usual furore and loud barking.  Once in the house he managed to grab the box and puncture two holes in it. Luckily the Honor box with phone and accessories was undamaged.    Once home I opened the box and the phone looks good. From looking at it you would never place it in the budget category. it is blue but not a vivid as it looked on the computer screen. It came with 56% charge and so I hooked it up and began to set it up. The nano SIM and Micro SD card from the S5 fitted in very easily and we were off.  All the screens are Huewei labelled. It took about 15 minutes to set up and then it asked me to install some software on the old phone to copy apps and data across.  That took about 20 minutes. The S5 was turned off and joined my collection of worthless old phones in a drawer. I have an iPhone 3S in there too....Perfect condition. As f...

Whilst I have gone back to using the Galaxy S5 for a week or so I have also been looking at reviews for budget smartphones.  All I use the phone for is internet browsing (news. football scores etc), info on places to visit and what's there, the usual stuff, plus Google maps, Social Media and of course Blogger!   With the S6 being sealed and playing up again with charging and the sudden loss of battery - how many phones with no apps running go from 85% to 0% in a few hours - and the battery inaccessible, I went back to the old (worthless!) S5.   It is a revelation after the S6.  Much slower to charge, quite slow to open apps but a positive side is that it has a memory enhancing micro SD card slot.  Standing in Starbuck's waiting for the app to open is embarrassing when everyone is held up behind or you are blocking one till waiting for the payment page to open!!!   Yes, I know. First world problems! I googled for the top rated...