#technologh

[rossthe8oss]

i sometime wonder how scientists from the 60s would react if they saw modern technology. Like my iPhone is more powerful than your entire building dedicated to computers. they would be wtfing and stuff. #witchcraft

[fieldservicesoftwares-blog]

Who’s Got the Best Plans on Tablets?

As was covered in last week’s post, there is a wave of tablets hitting the market, and the usual tech-retail suspects – both online and off – have been quick to stock most of the big names. However, given that many SMEs and users of field services software are already on contracts for their mobiles there is a need for a wider range of tablets available on plans. Another attraction to buying on a plan is that you’ll generally pay less for the tablet itself on a contract than if you were to buy outright – the service providers offer this discount knowing they’ll recoup any ‘losses’ via the 12- or 24-months of service charges. So, who’s offering what?

Good?  Telstra have the 32BG, 3G Motorola Xoom for no upfront fee at $84/month on a 24-month contract that includes the tablet and 7GB of monthly data. This plan means you end up paying $696 for the tablet by the end of your contract. If you want to avoid a contract but get the same amount of data it’ll cost you $69/month, plus $840 to buy the tablet outright from Telstra. This deal isn’t dependent on you purchasing the tablet from Telstra, they just happen to offer it at $840, so it might be worth shopping around before buying outright from a telco.

Better? Optus also offer the Motorola Xoom, but you can get it without any upfront costs by going on a 24-month $59.95/month plan ($15/month of which is for the tablet) that gives you 8GB of data. The 7” Galaxy Tab is also available through Optus (as opposed to the 10.1” that still wasn’t available at time of writing) on the same plan, but there are no monthly charges for the tablet itself, which brings the monthly payments down to $44.95. On top of this, there are currently specials on both these deals that give you three free months, so that on your 4th, 5th and 6th bills you won’t be charged the $44.95 monthly fee – just the $15 monthly tablet fee. Also, if you already have a business account with Optus for your mobile, whatever data comes with your plan can be shared with your tablet, and vice versa.

Best? Vodafone have had a package offering the Blackberry Bold plus the 7” Blackberry Playbook tablet on their $49 Cap plan for just $10 extra a month (i.e. $59/month). The offer officially ended on the 1st of August, but may be worth seeing what deal they’re offering now. It is (or was?) a 24-month plan, but includes $550 a month to spend on standard voice and video calls, TXTs and PXTs. Given that this plan only comes with 1.5GB of data it’s probably more attractive to ‘low data’ users – those that are primarily just browsing the net and sending/receiving emails, as opposed to downloading a lot of online media.

Remember, tablets are relatively new on the market and, given the competition between the larger telcos, these types of deals are constantly changing.  Annoyingly for anyone who wants to get in fast – the deals inevitably get better the longer you wait.

Let us know if you’ve seen any great deals on tablets recently.

Cheers,

Bill.