Sim Cards for Android Tablets

[Heinz57]

Hi all,

For Christmas I received a Nexus 7 with WiFi and 3G.

It's great, and the WiFi (tough wood) is great too.

I just need a sim card now to activate the 3G. I'm not sure what I'm looking for though, what would one usualy want for a tablet sim card? Do I go Pay & Go or contract? Do the network providers have special plans for tablets? I realy have no clue so any help is very much appreciated.

If it helps, for my phone I'm on contract with Vodafone.

I have heard of a way to tap into the 3G on your smart phone, but it completley drains the battery so I'm not too keen on that.

Cheers,

Heinz

 

[pdq]

Do I go Pay & Go or contract? Do the network providers have special plans for tablets?

I'm with Giffgaff (runs on the O2 network) and they are pretty good value. They do data-only plans - see http://giffgaff.com/goodybags#data

For phones, 3 are pretty competitive as well - but I don't know if they do data-only.

 

[Heinz57]

Cheers, they look pretty good.

Would 500MB be considered a decent amount of data, or would I be better with 1GB?

 

[radamfi]

You can buy 3GB SIM cards on Three for £21 on Amazon and eBay, that last 90 days from first use.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Mobile-Broadband-Preloaded-Standard-SIM-Tablets/dp/B003Z0T3X2

You may find it worthwhile to throw it away and get another SIM card instead of topping up.

Another option is Ovivo, which give 1GB of data free per month for a one off cost of £20, in return for adverts when browsing. There are no adverts when using non-browsing apps.

http://www.ovivomobile.com/offer/ovivo-for-data/

 

[pdq]

Would 500MB be considered a decent amount of data, or would I be better with 1GB?

I don't think it's possible to say what's enough - it depends on what you use it for.

Why not try one or other package for a month and see how much you use. There are plenty of apps which track 3G usage (I use 3G watchdog). Giffgaff don't stop your usage at 500MB, they just charge extra after that.

 

[alex17595]

On my Nexus 7 between 9/12/13-6/1/14 is used 8.3GB but I'm a heavy internet user.
I use my laptop as well on top of that though.
This is on wifi, so will be higher than using 3G.

I would recommend 1GB depending on how you use it away from a wifi connection. (If you have BT internet you can use BT hotspots for free.) Videos will use up a lot of internet connection where browsing forums uses very little.

I can also recommend 3G watchdog.

 

[Heinz57]

Thanks,

Its hard to say how much I will be using the internet. When I have the sim card, I will most likley take the tablet to work with me to play games or steam from iPlayer whilst I'm on my break. My two favorite games both require internet connection to play.

Cheers,

Heinz

 

[tony_mac]

Streaming is pretty intensive, you could use 1gb in a few hours.

 

[michael769]

If you are looking to stream video on the move then you will probably need to look at a 10Gb+ per month plan to be honest.

To put it in perspective you can expect an hour of video to be close to 200Mb for low quality. Good quality can be anything up to 1Gb/h (2.5Gb/hour for top notch HD).

Gaming usage is really unpredictable, some games use minuscule amounts of data while others can rival video.

Try this calculator at http://www.verizonwireless.com/b2c/splash/datacalculatorPopup.jsp

500Mb is really only any use for occasional browsing/email. 1Gb for regular use, with little to no streaming.

IPlayer now allows offline viewing so with pre-planning you could download programs on Wi-Fi for viewing later, which might make a lower data plan move viable.