Best Sim for Ipad

Samphire

Samphire

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Wendy
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I am buying an Ipad 2 at the end of this month.

I am looking for some advice.

I can either buy one outright and need to look for a sim to go into it

or

go onto a contract and pay monthy with the likes of Orange etc ...

Those of you that use the 3g what in your experiance works best and which provider have you gone with?
 
Wendy

Will you be using the 3G function a lot or will it be mainly at home on WiFi then occasional 3G use when out and about?
 
I'd be tempted to buy the iPad (if you can) and then buy a Pay As You Go SIM

You can get 30 day monthly contracts with "3" or Vodaphone for £7-£10 for 1GB of data or you can get an Orange SIM which from memory is something like 5p per MB upto a max of £40per month or they have day/week months i.e. £2 for a day's use upto 200MB.
 
I can buy the Ipad outright, that is not a problem.
The data confuses me to be honest, how much net use I get ect.

Neil, iPhone 3Gs at the moment with Orange.
 
a quick google suggests the 3Gs can tether to the iPad. you may want to research this though. also what data your Orange contract allows.

otherwise i looked at 3 sims and they seemed pretty good value, ive never ever used over 500mb usage on my HTC with a fair bit of usage. plus if youre using wi-fi when available.
 
neil_g said:
a quick google suggests the 3Gs can tether to the iPad. you may want to research this though. also what data your Orange contract allows.

otherwise i looked at 3 sims and they seemed pretty good value, ive never ever used over 500mb usage on my HTC with a fair bit of usage. plus if youre using wi-fi when available.
Click to expand...

Does this mean that I could use my iPhone as a "modem" for my none 3G iPad?
 
I have a t-mobile PAYG SIM in my laptop. It gives "unlimited" 3G for £20 for 6 months. When I say "unlimited" this is the T&C from their website:

T-mobile said:
Is there an allowance?
You can browse and email as much as you want.

There is a 500MB allowance for streaming videos and uploading and downloading files. If you hit this limit during the month, you won't be able to do this stuff again until the next month.
Click to expand...

Not really used it yet tho - I always seem to be near a wifi spot....
 
mrgubby said:
I've been using that since the iPad was launched, it's the cheapest I've found so far :thumbs:
Click to expand...
It may even have been you that pointed me in the right direction (if so, thanks!!). I picked it up off a thread a couple of months ago here...
 
3 does seem to have a good deal on both PAYG and contract, will look at t-mobile now. Just wonder if that differs as they have teamed with Orange.
 
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neil_g said:
possibly. youll need to research that, i only did about 30s worth of googling.

like i say i know there is an app on android that lets you use it as a hot spot so dont see why there isnt an iphone method.
Click to expand...

Cheers, Neil
 
Wendy, get the non 3G version (£100ish cheaper) and then go for one of these options:

Orange will let you tether to your iPhone for £5pcm

Or better yet get a Three MiFi, which is effectively a 3G wireless router.
Costs:
£70 then £5 per 500Mb payg
Free with various contracts, but most are less than the standard iPad plans:
http://www.three.co.uk/Devices/Huawei/E585/Black?s_search=prodsearch

You can connect 5 devices to it, so it'll work for laptops on the trot as well.
 
arad85 said:
It may even have been you that pointed me in the right direction (if so, thanks!!). I picked it up off a thread a couple of months ago here...
Click to expand...

can't really beat £40 for a year of internet + coverage on T-mobile & Orange
:cool:
 
Mark will that work with iPhone 3 (you have the 4)?

Will look at the Three MiFi tomorrow, just off out now.

Have decided to buy one outright rather than tie into a contract, that way I can sell and upgrade as and when.
 
You can't beat the tmomobile one - though they did me one better, she did it for a fiver for 6 months, plus the fiver stayed in the account...:thinking: god knows how the girl did that, but a damn good deal!
 
Samphire said:
Mark will that work with iPhone 3 (you have the 4)?

Will look at the Three MiFi tomorrow, just off out now.

Have decided to buy one outright rather than tie into a contract, that way I can sell and upgrade as and when.
Click to expand...

Go into Settings->General->Network

If you've got an option for 'Set Up Personal Hotspot', then yes you can. NB this used to be called 'Tethering' on earlier software versions; I'm on 4.3.5.

If you click on it, it'll tell you to contact Orange to arrange set up.

Buying outright I'd definitely the way forward if you've got the dosh. I did exactly the same and for the same reasons.
 
using a mifi with an iPad is a pain in the ****, you either have to switch it on everytime you want to use it or find its gone flat . Apple are ripping us of charging £100 extra for 3G but it worth it for the hassle
 
DemiLion said:
Go into Settings->General->Network

If you've got an option for 'Set Up Personal Hotspot', then yes you can. NB this used to be called 'Tethering' on earlier software versions; I'm on 4.3.5.

If you click on it, it'll tell you to contact Orange to arrange set up.

Buying outright I'd definitely the way forward if you've got the dosh. I did exactly the same and for the same reasons.
Click to expand...

I have the money (been slightly underpaid for a year so get the backpay in Sept paypack hopefully).

I have that personal hotspot thing and it says contact Orange.

So does this mean I do can buy the wifi version and just use my unlimited data that some with my phone?
 
I've got a Three Mifi that I use with my Wifi Motorola Xoom, which works fine for any time I'm not where I can use wifi, I'd probably rather have had the 3G version but I already pay for my Mifi so might as well use it!

As to tethering, I used to use tethering on my iPhone 3G when I was on O2, you probably will need to pay a little extra to Orange to be able to do it but its probably cheaper than a separate contract
 
On an iPhone 3GS you can tether (assuming your contract allows it), but you have to connect by Bluetooth (or cable but that only works for a laptop/pc based device). On an iPhone 4 you can also set up the personal hotspot to work over WiFi, it effectively becomes a MiFi box, which is more flexible.

If you think you will use 3g a lot I'd spend the extra and save the hassle of switching the personal hotspot feature on/off and the save the extra drain on battery on the iPhone that comes with Bluetooth use.
 
I'd still go for the 3G version.

At the moment I'm in Malta on my hols. I brought my iPad with me and without too much fuss I got a vodafone Malta microsimm and 500mb of usage for €16 which works out about £14. Whilst it may not be that you will ever use it abroad it is something to factor in.
I got my ipad2 from an apple store in Manchester so it's SIMM free. I'm not 100% sure and may stand to be corrected but if you buy with a contract are they not then locked to that provider.
Just a few more factors to think about.
 
Chris, I think I will get the 3G as the price of the MiFi ect is not that far off the difference in price.
 
Before you do that have a look at the MiFi E586 on Three. I've just picked one up (they only came out last week) and the contract/PAYG rates are the same as I mentioned above. The huge difference is that it works on the HSPA+ network; so at a speed of 21Mbps instead of 7.2 on 3G. The difference is astounding!
 
I have a contract iPhone 4 through Three and set up a personal hotspot and connect my iPad to that. If you get a 3G signal you get it on the iPad fine.
 
My phone contract is with Orange and I got a data SIM from them for £4 something for 500Mb a month, just cut it down and works fine in the iPad.
 
Thank you all for taking time to reply and help me here, appreciated. Now roll on payday :)
 
I got my iPad :D soooo chuffed. Went with the three sim deal in the end purchased iPad outright :)
 
Going over all the postings in this thread let me add my tuppence to it.

Checkout eBay where you can get a Data micro Sim for a fiver for 1 GB data valid for 30 days. Once used chuck it in bin and get another one. shipping is free too.

Linky
 
Hi

I recently got a T-Mobile iPhone Micro PAYG SIM by visiting one of their stores. You need to top it once for £10 and the internet of 500 MB allowance is available for the next 12 months without topping any more. :D
 
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