Mobile Phones Bargain
Typically you'll see a lot of places offering a mobile phone at a bargain price. You'll usually find there is some kind of hitch, be it a high tariff, long contract time or that you have to sign your life away when you purchase it...so we were intrigued when we noticed an offer that Asda are running in the UK at present.
They're offering the Samsung E1120 mobile phone for £10. Yes, £10.
So we bought one. We can't help investigate seemingly too good to be true offers and take great delight in highlighting the unwritten disadvantages or sneaky practices often associated with such promotions - so this seemed like as good an opportunity as ever to do so.
Unfortunately, and maybe somewhat disappointingly, we can't rubbish this offer in any way whatsoever. Indeed Asda are to be applauded for pulling this one off! The first thing you should note is that the Samsung E1120 is no Apple iPhone - but then again it isn't £300+ either, doesn't tie you into a contract and it's battery lasts more than a minute.
What you get with the E1120 is an incredibly small, very light and fully functioning mobile phone that does everything you'd expect from a communications device without any frills.
The phone is offered on a Pay As You Go basis but not only do you get it for £10 - there is £5 airtime included, so in essence the phone is costing you a fiver. With no contract. No long term commitment. nothing.
As you might expect the specification is basic but we've used the phone for a good few days on trial now and it made us realise that when it comes to doing what most people buy a mobile phone for, talking, you can't really get much better for the money.
The sound quality is perfectly acceptable, you get a handful of ringtones to choose from, the display is bright (if a little low resolution) and you even get Samsungs tracking mechanism so if it's stolen you can remotely disable the phone! Or, just go spend another tenner and get another one! See, that's the joy of this - it is a disposable phone in so many respects.
It's standby battery life is outstanding, the talk time is excellent, it is incredibly lightweight and small, you get all the standard messaging features, there is even a horrible little Suduko game on it!
If you wanted a phone to be able to get someone on over a temporary period you couldn't really go too far wrong. You could top it up with £10 per month (there are lots of price options to choose from on the Monkey top-up plan that the website takes you to when you register) and if it gets lost - well you're not really going to lose much sleep, are you?
It's a no brainer. The Samsung E1120 is very possibly the best value for money mobile phone we've ever seen.
Specification
Here's a quick lowdown on the Samsung E1120 technical specification. As we say in the main article it isn't an iPhone but for the money it is an absolute bargain of a disposable mobile phone:
Price - £10
Airtime - £5 included
Network - GPRS
Bands - GSM, Dual Band
Display - 65,000 colour
Resolution - 128 x 128
Screen size - 1.52 inch
Weight - 66.4g
Size - 105 x 44 x 15mm
Standby - 580 hrs
Talk time - 8.8 hrs
Messaging - SMS only
SMS Memory - 100 msgs
Phonebook - 200 entries
Call log - 30 entries
Alarms - 5
Converter - Yes
Calculator - Yes
WAP - No
Speakerphone - Yes
Call timers - Yes
Organiser - Yes
Games - 1
So, as long as you're not expecting something off the latest Star Trek blockbuster it'll be hard to be disappointed with this little gem of a bargain.
