Vodafone Smart Ultra 6

[badoit]

I am wanting an upgrade to my ZTE Blade 3. Budget smart phones have come a long way since late 2012, it seems. I was looking at the Wileyfox Swift but they have put off the release date and anyway quite a few reviews have said the Vodafone Smart Ultra 6 was as good as or  better value for £129. Now the Vodafone product is down to £99 I am leaning towards it even more.

I am on a Virgin Mobile SIM only 30 day contract (£8, 500 MB, 1000 mins, unlimited texts) but I am willing to switch carriers if it would make better sense. My usage is very light - from 29 Aug to 28 Sep I used 85 MB data and 4 mins voice calls.

My questions...

1. Some reviews say the Vodafone Smart Ultra 6 is not locked to any UK network, I find that hard to believe - is it true?

2. If I went into a Vodafone shop and bought a Smart Ultra 6 for £99 I expect they would make me pay £10 PAYG topup?

3, Assuming the answers to 1 and 2 are "yes", I could shove a Virgin nanoSIM in the phone but would lose the £10 airtime payment effectively unless I used it up first?

4. That makes me think it would be more sensible to come over to Vodafone, port my number, and take out a £9.50 12 month SIM only contract? If I did that could I use the £10 towards the monthly payments?

I realise it might seem a bit cheeky to ask about whether to choose a rival company's product, but if I was chatting to a Vodafone shop staff member I would be asking these things.

Of course Virgin don't do 4G so that is another consideration.

[BandOfBrothers]

Hi,

The phone will be locked to Vodafone Uk. 

To unlock it you'd need to become a Payg account holder and use it on the network for 30 days and then make sure £19.99 is on the account to pay for the unlock. 

It is of course up to you if you wish to port to Vodafone and would suggest you first check out signal and data speeds by trying out a Vodafone Payg SIM card. 

Edit : 

Use the Vodafone Network Checker to see what is expected to be received in the areas where you live,work and commute. 

[hrym]

Just to add: the answer to the second question in point 4 is "no".

I came up with all sorts of ways of making use of the top-up, but they're all mind-numbingly complicated and the truth is that you'll be paying someone for a contract alongside it however you do it.  Everything ends up with a minimum cost of £20-odd, so there's really no difference.

[badoit]

Thanks for the replies so far! Regarding losing the top up expenditure, when I got my Virgin smartphone on PAYG they had a scheme a bit like Vodaphone have now, i.e. top up £10 in a calendar month and get unlimited data the following month, then it reduced to 500 MB and then they dropped it altogether. By that time I had built up over £30 PAYG credit but they let me use that towards the SIM-only monthly payments so I had 4 months before they took anything from the direct debit. Ho hum maybe I'll do a bit more thinking about my options.

[Blackwatch]

One thing to note is you can buy the device for £109 inc the top up, the jump on eBay and unlock it for £2.99 saving £17 on vodaphones price :). It is what I am doing for my gift gaff sim card. On gg I can get 300 mins, ynlited texts and 500mb data for £7.50

[hrym]

Be careful with unofficial unlocks.   They may work initially, but some don't survive an OS update or a factory reset.

[umbrokhan]

i thought Ebay had the real unlock codes ?

[grolschuk]

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@umbrokhan wrote:

i thought Ebay had the real unlock codes ?

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Ebay also have real Rolex watches for £50... go figure

[umbrokhan]

but the unlock codes work from Ebay.

i know they work becuase i tried it. they not fake codes

[grolschuk]

Yep they work, but no way to tell if they are official... and that is the risk you take.

If the phone manufacturer provides a firmware update that nukes all 'codes that seem to work' apart from the ones they know have been issued by them, then you could find it locked again