Pda

[Cyfr]

I'm thinking of buying the Ipaq h4150 from scan and will prolly get a 512mb/1gig card with it.

I plan to use a mobile to connect to the internet when i'm not at home, I was looking at orange.co.uk and they have some 3G Data Terrif plans, The one at £23.50 a month that includes 67MB of data and £1.18 a MB thereafter seems ideal for me..

(I'm going to be browsing the internet, using irc and msn mostly, so I don't think 7MB a month will be enough, so I can't get the £12 a month priceplan)

Anyway.. when I select the data terif plans it makes me get a £200 3G card for a laptop.. can I not get a dataplan for a normal mobile?

 

[Tom]

Have you looked at Vodafones 3G datacard?

Doesn't that ipaq also have wifi? You might not need the datacard if you're in a reasonable city centre. You could also set up a wifi hotspot in your house, so you could browse etc from your garden.

 

[Cyfr]

I don't want a datacard.. they are for laptops anyway aint they?
I was under the impression that you could connect to the net via a mobile phone with bluetooth while using the pda..

but I was wondering where to get data packages for a mobile..

I live in Blackburn, don't think theres many wi-fi points, and I want to use it on the bus and stuff anyway

 

[Tom]

Sorry, but to access 3G data services in this country atm you need either an Orange or Voda datacard.

And don't count on good coverage, because they are very new networks, and atm you'll get major towns and cities, motorways, and some populated area coverage. When out of 3G coverage it will drop to GPRS speeds.

If you want to connect normally, be warned, on GPRS the connection is pretty slow. You can connect very easily with orange, they give you software that configures your PDA for it.

voda

orange

 

[Cyfr]

Their site is all confusing
How much does GPRS cost on orange?

edit: sorry for confusion.. I'm after GPRS, as I don't want a datacard and 3UK don't offer internet access yet (typical UK, 3Sweden have it )

Edit2: I will be using MSN messenger & irc (prolly just #freddyshouse), how many MB will that rack up in say, 30mins?

I think i'll leave browsing the web a lot for wi-fi areas I think, with all those fluffy websites I will rack up the MB's too quick

 

[Tom]

GPRS is quite cheap on Orange, I think I paid about a fiver for 1 meg per month or something like that. I could be wrong though. IIRC you can pay a flat fee, and pay extra if you go over your allowance. You won't be browsing too many websites tbh, they take ages to load, and don't fit at all well onto a PDA screen. Best to stick to email and other stuff.

 

[Cyfr]

Right hmm.. I had a look but can't seem to find any bluetooth & gprs phones for the £15 contract

I want the£15 one because I couldn't really give a monkeys about how many free texts or donkeys come with it, just need it for pda internet

edit: the Motorola V500 is £30.00 with the £15 a month plan which is fine (free is better tho if anyone finds one )

Oh and.. why does it not tell me how much it costs per MB after I go over the limit?

 

[Cyfr]

Okay..

I ordered the h4150 with a 512mb card from scan.co.uk.
I got a USB bluetooth adapter on top of that to try out, some people say it's quite crap and won't work say from my bedroom to living room, some say it will so i'll soon find out (it's my only option really, not buying a wireless access point when I just got this normal router).

Found out my mums phone is bluetooth and she finds it too complicated so i'll swap with her, get them both unlocked and all should be fine by Wednesday yay \/

Thanks for the help Tom

 

[D33]

Out of interest, why did you go for the h4150 rather than say, the h5550 or something ?

 

[Xavier]

If you just want MSN, IRC and teh intarweb you could consider an SPV, I use mine for all of the above, plus Yahoo and email and only get through 7-10Mb a month - Orange have a funky little transparent proxy which sits on their gateway and optimises all images etc for handheld devices, really saving on teh bandwidth0r!


Xav

 

[Cyfr]

Out of interest, why did you go for the h4150 rather than say, the h5550 or something ?

because the only main difference I could spot was the onboard memory, but I was buying extra memory anyway

 

[D33]

Not to sound too vain but what about external visual appearence ?

 

[Cyfr]

Don't have it yet but they both looked same to me on the pictures

 

[Cyfr]

thanks for the help guys, the pda makes me cream my pants
I will prolly be back begging for help soon tho.. having trouble with bluetooth and GPRS right now, but might be because its not enabled so i'll see tomorrow.

 

[Shovel]

Bluetooth (having just bought a brand new MSI dongle).

If you have Windows XP Service Pack 2, look for special drivers. It includes some native Bluetooth type 'stuff' which while less obviously featureful as the old Widcomm stuff, is certainly functional and let me get my new K700i hooked up to Floats Mobile Agent no problems.

If you're not on SP2, then grab the latest Widcomm software from whoever manufactured your dongle, and hope to buggery that you didn't buy a crap one (like Bluetake... who took 3 months to update their drivers page, MSI updated last week though, they are in my good books).

 

[Cyfr]

Oh my bluetooth dongle works fine
It's an MSI one
I ment I was having problems using GPRS (bluetooth to phone then dialup) but I think thats because GPRS aint been enabled yet

 

[Cyfr]

Arrrrrrg! Bloody mobile companys, been ringing o2 for a few days to get them to enable mobile web, each time they said it would be done within 24hours...

Today they decide to tell me they only offer WAP over GPRS.. so do any mobile companys offer just normal GPRS on pay as you go? Or do I have to buy a bloody contract to do it?
(I hardly ever call people so a contract is such a waste of money, but I guess i'll have to get it if the stupid companys only do GPRS on that )

 

[Tom]

Have you tried making a normal data call to an ISP? Using a normal phone number? I used to do that before GPRS, although its slow.

BTW Orange is probably the best bet.

 

[Cyfr]

Orange contract?
Oh and.. how much does a normal data call to ISP cost? local rate? Don't fancy that really.. but could give it a go..

Do I just get a pay per min isp like virgin and enter the number on pda to phone?

edit: the smily should be a cute little smily, not 'snore'