Deals

Car Chargers – Reader Recommendations

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This morning I asked people on Twitter to recommend me a car charger for my Desire and within minutes I received plenty of responses.  Here’s a summary of those recommendations from the MiHTCDesire Twitter followers (tried to include postage wherever possible):

  1. Official HTC Desire Car Charger (Jen Catter and 3 others)
    Price:  £11
    Link: Amazon UK
  2. Tesco USB Car Charger (SuperRon08)
    Price: Unknown
  3. Staples 4-in-1 USB Charger plus Cigarette Lighter (FarHanSolo)
    Price: £9.99
    Link: In-store only
  4. Cigarette Lighter to USB Adapter/Charger (salleq)
    Price: £1.80 (can take a few weeks for delivery)
    Link: Deal Extreme
  5. MicroUSB Car Charger (adewilt)
    Price: £4
    Link: eBay
  6. Monkey Motor Kit (ratcatchervw)
    Price: £15.49
    Link: Memory Card Zoo

For Netherland readers, I was recommended the website pdashop.nl by reinerzijl although he didn’t specify a certain product.

Quite a few people suggested the Official HTC charger and so I was pretty tempted to go for one but the one on eBay for £4 sounded like a steal so I went for that instead.  I’ll switch to the official one if there’s any problems with it.

I’ll try to get more details from superron08 for the Tesco charger and update this post when I do.

Thanks to everyone for the replies :)

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DEAL: HTC Desire £285 On O2

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This deal is for anyone already on an O2 contract, even if it’s O2 Simplicity 30 days.

Info

  • You buy this phone for a one-off cost of £285.
  • It doesn’t affect your existing contract, if you’re 9 months in, that’s where it’ll carry on.
  • At the end of your minimum term of contract, you upgrade as normal.  The Desire isn’t taken into account at all.  It’s almost as if you received a discount on a Pay As You Go phone as reward for being an existing customer

How To Get It

  1. Ring 202 from your O2 phone
  2. Press 2 to say you’re an existing customer
  3. Press 2 to select Order/Upgrade options
  4. Press 2 to select Upgrades
  5. Ask the person you get put through to that you want to buy a HTC Desire
  6. If they say that they can’t offer it to you say you know other people that were able to buy it for this price
  7. If they ask if you want to be put through to upgrades, say yes, then repeat steps 5 and 6

FAQ

  1. Can I get it on PAYG?
    No, this deal is for contract customers only, even if you’re on a 1 month Simplicity deal
  2. I’m being told that I need to be put on a 24 month deal, is that right?
    No, tell them you want to keep your contract but just want to buy the phone
  3. I’m being told I need a smartphone simcard and my current “web bolt-on” isn’t enough
    Some people are being told that but just tell them that you’re going to use WiFi mostly and won’t need the smartphone sim.  If they persist just end the call and try again.

Final Tip

Make sure you confirm that this is a one-off purchase, that your contract is unaffected and that the price you’re paying is £285

Discussion

This deal was posted by spottydog on HUKD here.  There you can find discussion of the deal, and other peoples experience of what they had to say to get it at this price.  Don’t be put off that it says ‘EXPIRED’ in the title, that was just some other persons misunderstanding of the deal.
I’ve ordered one myself so know for definite that it works. I’m on a 12 month O2 Simplicity deal, and only 6 months into my current contract.

Here’s One I Received Today

HTC Desire O2

Credits

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O2: HTC Desire In Stock

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Those who have been waiting around for the HTC Desire on O2, then you’ll be please to know that it’s now available (they’ve been taking orders all week) and some people have already received their phones.

If you’re in the middle of an existing contract, then there’s the opportunity to get an in-contract upgrade for £285.  You stay on your current price plan and it doesn’t restart your contract.  It’s just a one-off cost of £285 for the phone, which is a bargain if you ask me! (Thanks Adam Leyton for clarifying this).

The standard deals are those which were posted earlier, though bear in mind that if you order through Topcashback, there’s a potential £35 cashback:

O2 HTC Desire Contracts

Considering all the negative attention Vodafone are attracting with their “unlimited data” being limited to a measly 500MB, I’d personally suggest going for O2 if you’re stuck between the two.

T-Mobile HTC Desire

Avoid T-Mobile Deals For Now!!!

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I know a lot of people got their HTC Desire when it was first announced on T-Mobile on the excellent plan that they were offering.  The original deal was: 100 minutes/unlimited text/unlimited internet for £10/month on a 24 month contract plus £164 for the phone (or -£124 if you rang up and asked them to discount the handset for you).

Considering that T-Mobile did exceptionally well with that, and other offerings of the Desire.  They sold far more than 10,000 Desires in just the first week of it’s launch.  It seems that they are now looking to take advantage of this superb phone (and it’s buyers) and recoup the potential profit they missed out on at launch by altering their deals significantly and ripping off newer customers.  They’ve removed all the £10 offers, with rumour saying that their lowest plan on the Desire will now be £30/month, although I suspect it’s actually £25/month based on the deal image below.

T-Mobile HTC DesireI’d seriously recommend staying clear of their deals, the cheapest of which totals to £980!!!! Compared to the original £400 – fair enough the £10 deal only had 100 minutes, but it’s not worth £25 extra a month for 500 more minutes is it?

Either look at deals on other networks, try out third party retailers or even consider buying it on PAYG/Sim Free and then buying a Sim-Only deal.  Quidco regularly offer up to £150 cashback on O2/Vodafone sim only offers so that might actually work out better for you.

Thanks to ScRiVs for the heads-up!


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O2 To Stock HTC Desire From 10th May

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Just rang O2 to find out if they’ll be getting the Desire in anytime soon, and the sales person told me they’re expecting it from 10 May.  I’m hoping the stock levels in the UK have stabilised, or at least will be stable by then (no doubt the Ash Cloud didn’t make the situation better).

I also asked for what kind of deal they could offer me, but she said that she didn’t know herself what plans they would be offering until closer to the date.  Considering that T-Mobile removed all their £10 deals, and the total cost for a Desire contract whether 18 months or 24 months is around £450, I wouldn’t expect O2′s pricing to be much different.

If you’re nearing the end of your contract you should be able to get a decent deal via retentions.  Remember, that retentions is NOT the same as upgrades.  If you ring the upgrade line you won’t be offered a good-a-deal as you’d get from retentions.  To get to retentions call O2 and ask for a PAC, within a  couple of days you should get a call from retentions asking why you’re leaving, if you’ve found a better elsewhere and so on – just state the kind of thing you’re looking for and they’ll offer you the best they can.

If you’re desperate for a Desire and considering leaving O2, well it might just be worth waiting a couple of weeks and seeing what O2 can do for you!

Update:  Turns out the salesperson didn’t have the up-to-date information.  O2 posted their Desire deals on their blog later on today which you can see below.  Very expensive compared to other networks, with the cheapest 18 month deal totalling £640 and 24 months at £700!!!

O2 HTC Desire Contracts

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HTC Desire T-Mobile PAYG Only £348.99 + £3.99 pp @ mobilephonesdirect

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HTC Desire delivers intense brilliance, sharp contrast, and true colors on the expansive 3.7-inch AMOLED display. The 1 GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon processor makes the phone incredibly responsive as you multitask from app to app without skipping a beat, while the instinctive HTC Sense experience lets you wield the power of the HTC Desire with the greatest of ease.

Pay As You Go – £353

This is probably the cheapest deal for the HTC Desire right now – it’s the one I’ve ordered and expecting it to arrive on Tuesday or Wednesday.  If you’re on another network then expect to pay £15 more to have it unlocked.

Buy it here – just switch to the T-Mobile tab and select Pay As You Go.  The HUKD deal topic for this deal can be found here. Credit to chromosome17 for this deal.

Contract – £404

You can also get this phone on a T-Mobile contract.  For £10/month and £164 for the phone you get 100 minutes/unlimited text/unlimited internet for a total of £400 over the course of 24 months i.e 24*10 = 240 + 160 = 404.   There’s the possibility of T-Mobile knocking £40 off the handset, or £20 cashback if you order via Quidco or TopCashBack.  You can view the HUKD topic for this deal here.  Credit to the porter for this deal.

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