How much data does your smartphone need in a month?

[louisvd]

I am looking into a new contract on a Galaxy S III. Trying to find the RIGHT contract is quite tough. For one thing, I know I don't make that many calls in a month, but expect more data use. Until now I have been on Blackberry, so all my email and browsing has been free on BIS ... slow, but free. At home I would use WiFi via my ADSL line. But how much data would I need in a month?

Hence this thread: How much data does your smartphone need in a month?

[Mike Hoxbig]

I set mine to GSM/EDGE (approx the same speed as BIS) and use about 100MB per month. I'm pretty sure that would grow if I enabled 3G. At home I use WiFi though.

[4cer]

depends on what you use it for, i clock 2-4 gigs a month, but that is 95% on wifi.

[roskii]

Had the same discussion with my mates a couple of weeks ago.. All have 4S's or SIII's. General consensus is that 300mb should do you fine, but all depends on your needs/habits.

[louisvd]

I basically have two email accounts I sync - but only need the headers and can get them as I need them thereafter. One is GMAIL the other IMAP. Then there is a the occasional browsing, and whatever data the apps will need. I don't know how much the little advert-packaged apps chew. Of course I know that once I start using it, I will use more bandwidth .... decisions decisions decisions

And then there is the which network decision!!

[Mike Hoxbig]

As mentioned before, 300MB is a safe bet, especially if you plan on using WiFi at home.

As for networks, CellC offers the best value without a doubt.

[Vulk]

When I got my first Android phone, I was managing fine on 100mb per month. Then I had to push my bundle size up to 200mb, then 500mb. These days I find that I'm often breaking that limit and having top up with more data at the end of the month.

The problem (at least for me) is that the longer you have a smartphone, the more you tend to use it and integrate it into your workflow. And since pretty much everything you do on a smartphone uses data, that increases your data usage. Another problem is that, to be honest, the browsing experience on ICS (especially with Chrome installed) is much nicer than it used to be, so I'm using a lot more data just from browsing the internet.

Fortunately, Cell C's new packages are pretty reasonable - as I noted in this thread, you can now get a full gigabyte per month on Straight Up 30 for like R185 a month.

[curbs2012]

Depends completely on your consumption and what you will be using it for. Mine varies. Some months 300MB is enough, where 250MB already comes with the deal that came with the phone but other months I might need 750MB.

[SykomantiS]

I average just over 500mb per month, excluding wifi at home. Galaxy Nexus.

[eehellfire]

300 - 500 MB should suffice, provided your main downloads are done via wifi and not 3G.

[koeksGHT]

On my S3 at least 500mb excluding WiFi

[Tsepz_011]

3GB a month with my Galaxy S2.
I do a ton of web browsing, streaming video/audio, downloading music, downloading uni assignments, Instagram-ing, use Flipboard quite a bit, tethering my tablet to my S2 and ive got both GMail and Hotmail accounts synced, so my S2 eats through a lot of data.

These smartphones are more like computers now, you'll find yourself using it more and more and so using more data

[Edduck]

I connect on WiFi at work and HSDPA at home and I average 2gigs on WiFi and 300mb on HSDPA. At work I do all my software updates, radio streaming, work and personal email sync, social sync and light browsing, and IM. At home light browsing, social sync and IM. I think most of the 3G data goes into Motorolas useless blur social crap. I need to root my phone to freeze the stupid services...

[bluejhb]

1.5GB on the DHD
iPad about 2 + 1GB x 2 from 8ta

[marine1]

I have wifi at home and still manage to hit almost 1.250 gigs a month - galaxy s3