Good smartphone contracts in SA?

[Vulk]

Does Red Bull Mobile allow you you to pay in extra and get a better phone from the rest of Cell C's lineup?

Honestly, RBM would clearly have the best smartphone contracts in South Africa if only they offered a better selection of devices.

A quick follow-up here. Today I happened to be at the shopping mall, so I decided to pop by the Cell C store and ask them whether you can do this. Apparently, the answer is no - the only phones you're allowed to take with the RBM contracts are the RBM phones. You can't take one of the other Cell C phones, even if you're willing to pay in extra.

(I think it's a bit ridiculous that Cell C is sitting on the best smartphone contract in South Africa, but for some foolish reason they'll only allow you take one of a tiny handful of phones that are branded by an energy drink company. I mean, seriously, wtf Cell C? It's almost like they don't want this product to become too successful.)

However! - the salesman did give me an interesting piece of information. He said that as of next month, they're going to start offering the LG Optimus 3D on RBM 200 rather than the Optimus Black. This is a bid improvement, for two reasons:

1. According to many of the reviews I've read, the Optimus 3D is actually a half-decent phone in its own right.
2. It also has a much higher resale value than the Optimus Black/Defy, if you want to go the route of selling it.

Looking at the Junkmail, I see second-hand Optimus 3D's selling between R4,000 and R6,500. The upper end of this bracket strikes me as a bit unreasonable, but let's assume for the sake of argument that you can resell your still-in-the-box 3D for a more conservative figure of R4,500. In that case, if I re-run the numbers I calculated in this post, they now look like this:

Total cost of ownership over two years:
Smart 120S: R12,079
Top Up 315S: R9,629
Top Up 275S: R9,589
RBM 200: R7,522

As you can see, RBM now wins this comparison by a country mile.

Of course, having to resell your contract phone on the second-hand market is not for everyone. It's a nuisance, it's potentially a security risk, it creates uncertainty, and you really shouldn't have to do this just to get the phone you want. Even if they're not willing to offer other phones, it would be nice if RBM could just give you the value of your subsidy in cash.

However, this thought experiment does demonstrate pretty clearly to me that RBM does offer the best value for money when you compare them on a level playing field. If they just offered more devices, I honestly think they would kill every other smartphone contract in South Africa.

 

[Maverick Jester]

Looking at the Junkmail, I see second-hand Optimus 3D's selling between R4,000 and R6,500. The upper end of this bracket strikes me as a bit unreasonable, but let's assume for the sake of argument that you can resell your still-in-the-box 3D for a more conservative figure of R4,500.

Just enough to get you a second hand Galaxy S II

On a serious note- that is indeed an impressive deal. Too bad their device list is so limited...

 

[SaiyanZ]

Virgin Mobile has the best contracts but many don't like their network (CellC piggyback) and service. I have a contract with them for over a year. R300pm for a free Galaxy S and R300 airtime which can be used for calls or data (60c per mb). Also 1000 free sms's. So the package is very flexible. Some months you can use all R300 on data and other months use it mostly on calls.

I've been fine with them apart from a few days here and there where the coverage was choppy. Think they have the same deal for the Galaxy S2. R300 for the phone and R300 airtime.

 

[Vulk]

I don't really like the idea of voice calls and data drawing from the same pool though. It makes it much harder to monitor my data usage if I keep having to subtract every time I make a voice call.

I hadn't seen this contract before though:

https://www.virginmobile.co.za/Stor...00+GALAXY+SII&option=com_virtuemart&Itemid=21

-Samsung Galaxy S
-12gb data included in the contract
-Total cost of ownership over two years: R7,680

Damn, that sounds like an excellent deal! Except: for some completely inexplicable reason, instead of giving you 500mb of data per month, Virgin Mobile gives you 1gb per month for the first year, and then no data bundle at all in the second year.

Seriously, wtf is wrong with these companies? They're selling smartphones, which need data in order to function properly. What would possess them to offer a 24 month contract that effectively stops working after 12 months? They're selling a broken product, and it's even more frustrating because they could fix it so easily, just by giving you the same amount of data as before, only spaced out over a longer period of time.

Sigh... I hate cellular networks in this country.

 

[SaiyanZ]

I don't really like the idea of voice calls and data drawing from the same pool though. It makes it much harder to monitor my data usage if I keep having to subtract every time I make a voice call.

The only thing I monitor is my airtime balance. I get allocated R300 per month and it drops as I use it for calls/data. So it is not that complicated to keep track of.

 

[Vulk]

The only thing I monitor is my airtime balance. I get allocated R300 per month and it drops as I use it for calls/data. So it is not that complicated to keep track of.

Fair enough. I guess my bigger problem is that I have to be careful not to go over 500mb per month as it is. I'm not sure I would be able to manage it if voice calls were drawing from the same pool.