T-Mobile intros 'Pay Once' BlackBerry deal

T-Mobile has launched a quirky pay-as-you-go (PAYG) deal to help customers searching for their first BlackBerry buy one for a one-off fee. BlackBerry_Pearl_8110_silver_01 The BlackBerry Pearl 8110, available for a 'Pay Once' fee The “Pay Once” deal only applies to the BlackBerry Pearl 8110, but essentially sees you able to …

[Arnold Lieberman]

Not new

Got pretty much the same setup a while ago by purchasing a 3 mobile "broadband" dongle thing and SIM, via Quidco for £7.50/month (5Gb). SIM was removed from dongle and inserted into fleaBay-purchased Samsung i600 where it works very nicely indeed (network conditions excepted). Calls and messages are charged at PAYG rates but billed monthly.

[Simon J. Richards]

Orange do the 8120 (with Wi-Fi) on PAYG

It's £145 a month in "Titanium" (i.e.dark silver plastic) and it's a fiver a month, so that's £205 for a year. Wi-Fi for an extra £20 - not bad.

Of course, both Orange and T-Mobile could jack up the data fees at a later date.

[Ian]

Very much like O2's iPhone deal

Which also includes 12 months bundled data.

[Danny Thompson]

O2's iPhone deal

Errr, I do believe that you'll find "the deal" includes bundled data for the life of the contract, not just for 12 months!

This from T-Mobile seems a fair offering, if you really want a Crapberry. But for the life of me I really do not understand why anyone outside of enterprise would. If you gave me one of these I'd throw it back at you! Nasty wee things, they are.

[Paul Rhodes]

@ Arnold Lieberman

Not quite the same thing.You had to take a risk on getting a phone that may not have been described, and you have a post-pay contract tor data and voice.

The pay-once model was popular a good 10 years back, and I'm surprised it has not re-appeared in a wider format. I got an Ericsson EH237 and 'pre-paid' 12 months (30 mins/month!) for £100 which was a much better deal than paying the full line-rental and getting x months back by redemption. If I'd lost my job or anything, I'd know I could still use the phone.

On the other hand, with HSUPA starting to appear on handsets, and most mid-price handsets having HSDPA for a decent mobile internet experience, this EDGE-powered 8110 is going to be pretty lousy in comparison.