Orange animal tarriffs

I'm sure these used to be very bad value -- have they made them better
recently? I'm currently considering an upgrade from my K750i (in month
10 of my contract, currently with Orange on Select 500 [the three
tarriff -- 25UKP, 500 anytime minutes per month]) and initially
discounted the animal tarriffs out of hand. But looking at the Orange
site, I could get:

Racoon 35 quid, (Orange's spelling, not mine -- doesn't Raccoon have
two
'c's?) -> 550 anytime minutes, plus unlimited landline calls, plus 200
texts. Am I missing a trick or is that really good value? Only downside
I see is the 18 month contract, which isn't great. And if I got off OVP
and onto a mainstream tarriff, I could take advantage of TalkShare down
the road, probably going onto a Panther tariff which seem to offer
ooodles of minutes.

Incidentally, they've quoted me £150 to upgrade to the SVP M3100,
which
I think is a bargain given that I'm not even out of contract yet. I'm
keen to replace my Tungsten T3 and phone with one device, so I'm
seriously thinking about the offer.

Richard Gaywood wrote:
> SNIP

Incidentally, I do know how to spell tariff but I haven't had any
coffee since lunch. Apologies to all!

richardgaywood@gmail.com declared for all the world to hear...
> I'm sure these used to be very bad value -- have they made them better
> recently?

Yes, they've been refreshed this month.

> I'm currently considering an upgrade from my K750i (in month
> 10 of my contract, currently with Orange on Select 500 [the three
> tarriff -- 25UKP, 500 anytime minutes per month]) and initially
> discounted the animal tarriffs out of hand. But looking at the Orange
> site, I could get:
>
> Racoon 35 quid, (Orange's spelling, not mine -- doesn't Raccoon have
> two
> 'c's?) -> 550 anytime minutes, plus unlimited landline calls, plus 200
> texts. Am I missing a trick

You would also qualify for free Orange broadband for 18 months as well,
should you wish. Or you could go to an orange shop and trade in your
phone for £50 instead. You would sacrifice 50 of your anytime any
network minutes.

> And if I got off OVP
> and onto a mainstream tarriff, I could take advantage of TalkShare down
> the road

Talkshare is no longer available to consumer (I.e. not business)
customers.

You can do a "your group" account where users can call each other for
free, but each user has a standalone tariff, no shared pools of minutes
or anything.

> Incidentally, they've quoted me =A3150 to upgrade to the SVP M3100,
> which
> I think is a bargain given that I'm not even out of contract yet. I'm
> keen to replace my Tungsten T3 and phone with one device, so I'm
> seriously thinking about the offer.

The 3100 is easily the best windows smartphone ever made. It even has
the P900-style jog-wheel which makes navigation and one-handed operation
even easier than previous PPC phones. Plenty of registry tweaks and
mods available at www.modaco.com, including unlocking the extended ROM
which gives loads of extra storage space.
--
Regards
Jon

Jon wrote:
> > Racoon 35 quid, (Orange's spelling, not mine -- doesn't Raccoon have
> > two
> > 'c's?) -> 550 anytime minutes, plus unlimited landline calls, plus 200
> > texts. Am I missing a trick
>
> You would also qualify for free Orange broadband for 18 months as well,
> should you wish.

I'm not sure how I feel about these free broadband offers.... I've been
around long enough to have been on ntl's free dialup not long after it
launched, and it was a full year before they settled the service down.
Like you, I'm on plus.net at home and I think I'll stay there for now.

(Although, at least Orange's broadband is an established UK operation
and not a startup like talktalk's.... But I like plus.net's very clear
terms and conditions regarding download limits and suchlike. All the
free ISPs seem to be very vague on that front.)

> Or you could go to an orange shop and trade in your
> phone for £50 instead. You would sacrifice 50 of your anytime any
> network minutes.

That's probably a good idea, that's a massive trade-in value! And I'm
sure I have not one, but two T68s kicking around somewhere that still
power up.

> > And if I got off OVP
> > and onto a mainstream tarriff, I could take advantage of TalkShare down
> > the road
>
> Talkshare is no longer available to consumer (I.e. not business)
> customers.

Well, that explains why I couldn't find it on the Orange site then. How
annoying.

> You can do a "your group" account where users can call each other for
> free, but each user has a standalone tariff, no shared pools of minutes
> or anything.

OK, cheers for the info.

> > Incidentally, they've quoted me =A3150 to upgrade to the SVP M3100,
> > which
> > I think is a bargain given that I'm not even out of contract yet. I'm
> > keen to replace my Tungsten T3 and phone with one device, so I'm
> > seriously thinking about the offer.
>
> The 3100 is easily the best windows smartphone ever made.

Good enough that I'm going to get one -- I'm a die-hard Linux/Mac user,
although they do make me use Windows in work. I'm replacing my current
Palm Tungsten. I'm planning on getting Styletap (www.styletap.com) to
bring a few Palm apps along with me -- this is why I'm not considering
Symbian. Ideally I'd like a Treo but even when this new GSM PalmOS
model comes out, it's unlikely to have 3G or WiFi.

> It even has
> the P900-style jog-wheel which makes navigation and one-handed operation
> even easier than previous PPC phones. Plenty of registry tweaks and
> mods available at www.modaco.com,

Yes, I've already discovered modaco -- I'm looking forward to messing
about with the device. Lots of intriguing things to do!

> including unlocking the extended ROM which gives loads of extra storage space.

Sounds interesting -- what's this?

richardgaywood@gmail.com declared for all the world to hear...
> I'm not sure how I feel about these free broadband offers.... I've been
> around long enough to have been on ntl's free dialup not long after it
> launched, and it was a full year before they settled the service down.
> Like you, I'm on plus.net at home and I think I'll stay there for now.

I set it (Orange broadband) up for my brother last night, it's actually
a bit zippier than plusnet for web browsing. The only reason I'm not on
Orange broadband is that it's a 2Gb "limit" and I'm currently doing
about 100Gb a month!

> > including unlocking the extended ROM which gives loads of extra storage =
> space.
>
> Sounds interesting -- what's this?

It's basically an area of memory which is locked away. There's a .cab
file on modaco which unlocks this area and allows you then to install
applications into it, saving the "main" memory for running the device.
--
Regards
Jon

Jon wrote:
> richardgaywood@gmail.com declared for all the world to hear...
> > I'm not sure how I feel about these free broadband offers.... I've been
> > around long enough to have been on ntl's free dialup not long after it
> > launched, and it was a full year before they settled the service down.
> > Like you, I'm on plus.net at home and I think I'll stay there for now.
>
> I set it (Orange broadband) up for my brother last night, it's actually
> a bit zippier than plusnet for web browsing. The only reason I'm not on
> Orange broadband is that it's a 2Gb "limit" and I'm currently doing
> about 100Gb a month!

Yeah, after I sent the message yesterday I dug a little deeper into the
Orange site. Disappointing there is no option to get a decent cap at
some reduced fee, but I guess those are not the customers Orange wants
on their network. I shift fair chunks of stuff up and down at times
(mostly when 24 and Lost are showing in the states )) so I'm not
going to touch a 2gig capped ISP with a bargepole.

> > > including unlocking the extended ROM which gives loads of extra storage =
> > space.
> >
> > Sounds interesting -- what's this?
>
> It's basically an area of memory which is locked away. There's a .cab
> file on modaco which unlocks this area and allows you then to install
> applications into it, saving the "main" memory for running the device.

That's an odd design decision on the part of HTC. Is the space reserved
for future ROM upgrades, perhaps? Googling is required!