You could always try your luck on the TPG $19.99 cap.

$300 worth of credit, which can be spent on data/calls/sms etc

As long as you’re not porting your number over from Optus you should be fine (all the people complaining on whirlpool seem to be Optus>TPG people.

Ported my mum over from AAPT and it was all working within 3 days of placing an online order.

Thanks. Awesome. Didn’t realise that 2GB data is included in the price. Is that GSM or 3G/HSPA? Maybe I’ll check out Whirlpool instead.

Not sure if you know, but the 2GB is only included in the most expensive plan, according to the following page.

http://www.tpg.com.au/mobile/callrates.html

Yeah the 2GB is with the $79.99 plan, but you can spend your call credit on data on the $19.99 plan.

Ops. I miised that. That means for $300 credit, and data is calculated at 5c / 10kb, you only get around 60MB if you use it for data exclusively. Not that a good deal then.

I was thinking of Exetel’s HSPA plans:

http://www.exetel.com.au/residential-hspa-pricing.php

$25 activation + $5/month fee + 1.5c/MB + no minimum charge on mobile calls — probably more inline with my usage pattern.

1.5c is incredibly cheap. Wonder if they’re any good.

They are reselling Optus, which would put them in exactly the same boat as TPG/Soul.

Just because they use Optus’ network doesn’t guarantee the same service for every reseller.

Apart from the obvious customer service which varies between resellers, isn’t each reseller paying for X amount of bandwidth on the Optus network? ie just because the Exetel (hypothetically) part of the network is oversold and slow doesn’t mean that the TPG part will have the same slow speeds, or vice versa? Or do all the resellers have equals dibs at the network?

mobileciti is selling the Vodafone-branded one.

if they beat it by 10% wouldn’t it of be $449.10?

they beat the DIFFERENCE….its all in the wording to fool ppl ;)

Have you saw it b4???? Doubt it
Truth is it’s not that big as you thought.

That’s not worthy of a negative, and it IS smaller than an iPhone…

It’d have thought the e71’s size was a positive considering the qwerty keyboard, but that’s just me (I don’t hobbit fingers).

oops, I was in [mr asstight] mode

[/mr asstight]

Should comment on the deal not on the phone.

good work! i was wondering how long it would take for someone to -ive it just for that!

haha alright man

Lets just say this is the best phone you’re going to get for $499.

i couldn’t neg it because someone else was pretending to be in asstight mode, hehe

i thought i’d just make a totally off the topic comment…

Come on you know you want too :)

do it!

Oh dear, here’s someone else who’s been taken in by Apple’s great marketing department!
The iPhone is good for some tasks, but poor in other tasks.
The E71 is good for some tasks, but poor in other tasks.

Both phones excel in their own markets. The iPhone cannot multitask, lacks a keyboard, does not have strong enterprise security, cannot be used as a modem for your laptop, is larger, has a fixed battery, and has 3G reception problems. But it is an excellent multimedia device. Get the phone that suits your needs. The iPhone isn’t a magical phone that does everything perfectly, as much as Steve Jobs would like you to believe. :)

The deal is pretty good, I’ve been looking for one for a friend the past week. At that price, you’d only get the Vodafone ones elsewhere.

Agreed [an iphone owner]

there was an in-joke in there somewhere in my comment that only some of the regulars would have gotten, which I made a comment to again if you look above these posts.

I’m sure each of the phones have their own positives and negatives.

Oh.. my apologies then!
My friend’s gonna try get Harvey to price match them today. I wonder if they’ll do it.

I’ve already bought the special tinfoil hat against the reality distortion field, so Stevie Jobs’ dark side of the force does not work on me…

Besides I absolutely NEED a phone with qwerty keyboard. E71 also looks much more durable than an iPhone. Moreover I have no desire to run iTunes on my computer. E71 looks like a winner, for me anyway.

The iPhone is built like a brick sh!t house, can’t say the same about most Nokias now, although I still want the E71!

The E71’s build quality is excellent. Have you held one, or read the reviews? Top marks!

Plus, you can change the battery. On several occassions I’ve forgotten to charge the E71, only discovering it in the morning when I’m about to go out. I just swapped the battery with a fully-charged spare and off I go. :)

I haven’t held the e71, and I hope it is of good build quality, but many n series (cough N95!) I’ve used have had very poor build quality, lcd light leaking of the side of the handset, very crappy feel to it etc.

hey… don’t bag brick sht houses like that… that’s not fair for sht houses…

haha

hey hey .. neg- is one thing but no personal attack pls

Did they pull the deal? You can still see E71 listed on the outright deal page here but when you click through any of the product you are getting a 404.

I guess they don’t mind sending all their potential customers to MobileCiti who are offering the same product for the same price?

It’s the Vodafone version though. There’s meant to be a vodafone logo on it somewhere.

edit: they’ve redesigned the site. The page is here:

http://www.allphones.com.au/Top_Ten/02.asp

Mmm, you have two examples of problems, I have tens and tens of examples of absolutely no problems with Nokia phones.

You shouldn’t let two cases make you assume every single phone that they produce is bad - sspecially when there are millions of people who don’t have problems with theirs.

My wife is still using a 5-6 year old Nokia 3210. Completely tortured by every family member in the household. Still makes great phone calls :)

The early days of Nokia 3210, 8210 are fantastic phones, don’t get me wrong, but new ones are not great is all i can say, ask your friends which branded phones crash most frequent.

Should you also ask - how many people have Nokias compared to other brands?

It is quite possible that the more widespread a product is, the more problems you will see, because there’s simply more of them around.

Nokias definitely aren’t perfect - but I’ve seen more perfectly good ones than malfunctioning ones.

Can you name one modern phone brand that has no problems?

My examples are to aid consumer decisions so people don’t have to learn it the hard way. My known personal experiences are simply faults of Nokia’s, period. I can’t name the perfect brand as I have not used enough. Think of it, 40% of the population is helping Nokia to QA their products and you’d think they would have bullet proofed it.

Allphones in Brisbane ran out of the grey ones. They have one white one left. Harvey Norman Indooroopilly had one grey one left, which I picked up this afternoon. They price matched (didn’t beat) the $499 offer.

what do you mean? it says $709 on the website

Oooh that’s nice, a phone manufacturer who actually acknowledges problems and takes action. That certainly doesn’t happen often.

edit: threading problem!