T-Mobile is currently offering £10 free extra credit when you buy a new pay as you go / PAYG mobile phone from its UK online shop.

Timed to coincide with the half term holidays, this free extra credit offer applies to all T-Mobile pay as you go mobile phones costing over £10.

In addition to the cost of the handset, you’ll also need to buy a £10 top up, which will be added to your basket automatically when you choose a phone. This compulsory initial top up is a standard part of T-Mobile’s PAYG deals and enables you to start using your new mobile phone straight away.

If you buy during this special offer period, however, you’ll also receive an EXTRA £10 of pay as you go credit absolutely free – giving you a total of £20 in top up credit, but for a cost of only £10.

» Buy T-Mobile Pay As You Go phones (opens in a new window or tab)

T-Mobile’s half term offer is live now and runs until 26 February 2012.

T-Mobile Pay As You Go phones

T-Mobile’s UK online shop presently features a choice of 50 pay as you go mobile phones, which range in price from £8.99 to £229.99 (before the £10 top up) and include:

- T-Mobile Unity, Rapport, Groove, Affinity, Accord, Zest, Energy and Vairy Touch II
- BlackBerry Curve 9300, 8520 and 9360
- HTC Explorer, Wildfire S
- Samsung Galaxy Mini, Chat 335, E1170, E1190, Tocco Icon and Monte Slider (E2250)
- Alcatel OT-355 and OT-813F
- Nokia C1-01, C2-01, 1616 and 2220 Slide
- LG A100, A225 and Viewty Snap

T-Mobile Pay As You Go price plans

T-Mobile offers a choice of three pay as you go price plans, each featuring free extras when you top up by at least £10 each month. Choose from:

- Talk plan: 100 free UK minutes
- Text plan: unlimited free texts
- International plan: 60 free international minutes

You can also get further inclusive credits by adding boosters. Choices include Internet, Text, Talk, BlackBerry, Euro Travel and Euro Internet boosters. See T-Mobile’s UK online shop for more details.

In true oddball style, giffgaff is offering to rehome a battery hen for every new SIM card that’s activated.

» Order a free giffgaff SIM card now (opens in a new window or tab)

Offering an alternative to pay monthly deals, giffgaff’s SIM only deals have no minimum contract (as emphasised in the video). Having activated your free SIM card, you can buy goodybags. Each goodbybag lasts for one month and gives you:

- Inclusive calling and texts (most text allowances are unlimited)
- Unlimited mobile internet browsing and email
- Free calls and texts to other giffgaff customers.

A virtual network (like Tesco Mobile), giffgaff is powered by O2′s UK mobile phone network and offers better value than many similarly priced pay monthly contracts – especially for customers who’ve owned their phones for longer than their minimum contract terms with other networks.

Having had its wrist slapped last year for promoting a price plan that didn’t live up to its promise of being “truly” unlimited, T-Mobile has bounced back to launch two brand new unlimited price plans. And this time, it seems to have done the job properly.

The cheapest of T-Mobile’s The Full Monty price plans features unlimited inclusive allowances for text messages and calls to other T-Mobile numbers. All versions of the plan also offer unlimited web browsing and email – this includes tethering* and VOIP calls, which are often excluded from mobile phone tariffs.

» Buy T-Mobile The Full Monty now (opens in a new window or tab)

Other monthly allowances are similarly generous and vary according to the price plan version (which have varying associated monthly costs):

T-Mobile The Full Monty 36

- Unlimited texts
- Unlimited web browsing
- Unlimited calling minutes to other T-Mobile numbers
- 2,000 minutes to other UK mobiles
- Costs £36 per month on a 24 month contract

T-Mobile The Full Monty 41, 46 and 61

- Unlimited texts
- Unlimited web browsing
- Unlimited UK mobile calls
- Unlimited UK landline calls (starting with 01, 02 & 03 and excluding Jersey, Guernsey and Isle of Man)
- Unlimited voicemail.
- Cost £41, £46 and £61 per month respectively over 24 month contracts

With so many inclusions, chargeable calls are limited to such things as:

- Calling 08 and 09 numbers
- International calls
- Picture messaging (so just email your pictures instead)

The Full Monty – free smartphones

A number of popular smartphones are available FREE (ie with no upfront charge for the handset) on these new plans when you buy direct from T-Mobile’s UK online shop. Delivery is also FREE for all orders that are placed online.

No fair use policy

When you view the new price plans on T-Mobile’s website, you’ll still see a “data fair use policy” link at the bottom of the page. However, we’ve checked and this does not apply to The Full Monty price plans. The link remains there to cover other price plans, for which the data policy does cap usage for video streaming and file uploads and downloads.

Other inclusive price plans

T-Mobile’s The Full Monty price plans are pitched against competitors’ offerings including – perhaps most notably – The One Plan from 3, the rival mobile network. Given the great success of The One Plan with its “all-you-can-eat data”, we expect T-Mobile’s new additions to do similarly well.

A final point of note is that T-Mobile’s UK customers also benefit from automatic roaming – if needed – onto Orange’s UK network, thanks to both brands belonging to the same owner, Everything Everywhere^.

* Tethering is where a mobile phone is used as a modem to provide an internet connection for another device, usually a laptop PC.

^ Seriously, whichever branding agency came up with that name must still be laughing up its sleeve…

Shuffling in a little awkwardly and looking slightly embarrassed at its later-than-billed arrival, the Samsung Galaxy Nexus is finally available on Vodafone in the UK.

To Vodafone’s credit, it’s certainly better to postpone the launch of a new handset until known gremlins have been sorted out. In the case of the Galaxy Nexus, there was an issue that caused the volume to drop all by itself, without warning. With the software bug now resolved, Vodafone has finally released this next generation Android mobile phone to the waiting masses.

» Buy the Samsung Galaxy Nexus on Vodafone (opens in new window / tab)

As previously reported, the Samsung Galaxy Nexus is the first Android phone to feature Android’s version 4.0 software, which is intriguingly named as ICS / Ice Cream Sandwich.

The handset’s features include a pin sharp HD screen, 1080p HD video, dual core processor, 8.5mm slim body with textured grip on the back and a 5 megapixel camera with LED flash.

Vodafone’s exclusive online savings

Currently available exclusively to customers who buy the Galaxy Nexus online direct from Vodafone, selected price plans include one or both of:

- Save £5 a month + get 2GB BT Openzone Wi-Fi access included
- Get 25MB/day of inclusive mobile data allowance for use in selected European countries

When bought direct from Vodafone’s UK online shop, the Samsung Galaxy Nexus is available from FREE on price plans costing from £41 per month or from as little as £26 per month in return for paying an upfront charge for the handset.

Orange has just launched a great new offer for pay as you go (PAYG) mobile phones that’s almost too good to be true. Put simply, by spending as little as £30, you can get a free Christmas gift box containing goodies worth over £60 – including a set of Angle & Curve headphones. That may sound like a barmy deal, but it is actually true.

To qualify, simply buy a new pay as you go / PAYG mobile phone costing at least £30 from Orange’s official UK online shop:

» Get an Orange Christmas Gift Box now (opens in a new window or tab)

The offer is subject to availability and ends on 24 December 2011, better known as Christmas Eve. See below for more information about the offer.

What’s inside the Orange Christmas Gift Box?

Customers who buy a qualifying new pay as you go / PAYG phone from Orange during the course of the promotion will receive their free Christmas Gift Box within 28 days of taking delivery of their mobile phone. Orange’s free gift box includes:

- Free pair of Angle & Curve headphones, with a recommended retail price of £60
- An adapter jack for the headphones
- A code that can be used to download six free games apps
- Three more small gifts (unspecified)

The games apps need to be downloaded by 31 January 2012 from Orange’s app store, which isn’t compatible with iPhones or Windows-based mobile phones.

However, the terms and conditions of the offer do confirm that customers who buy a PAYG iPhone or Windows phone from Orange will still qualify to receive free Angle & Curve headphones, adapter and three small free gifts.

Are any mobile phones excluded from the Orange Christmas Gift Box offer?

Whilst the short version of the terms and conditions for Orange’s free Christmas gift box offer simply states that Doro, iPhone and Windows mobiles are excluded, the longer version clarifies that:

“Window mobiles and iPhones have their own unique operating systems that are not compatible with our application store. However if you do choose one of these phones you’ll still get the headphones and 3 small gifts.”

Otherwise, the only condition is that the PAYG handset must cost at least £30.

Qualifying Orange PAYG mobile phones

As of today, Orange’s UK online shop features a choice of 42 pay as you go / PAYG mobile phones that qualify for the free Christmas Gift box. Prices range from £30 to £659.99.

Lower priced examples include:

- Orange Miami for £30
- Orange Atlanta for £30
- Orange Rio for £34.99
- Orange Sydney for £39.99
- Samsung Monte Slider E2550 for £39.99
- Sony Ericsson Spiro for £39.99

Upper priced examples include:

- BlackBerry® Curve 9360 black or white for £249.99
- iPhone 3GS 8GB black for £299.99
- iPhone 4 8GB white for £409.99
- iPhone 4S 16GB black for £489.99
- iPhone 4S 64GB white for £659.99

» Get an Orange Christmas Gift Box now (opens in a new window or tab)

For all PAYG phones, a £10 top up must be bought at the same time as the handset.