Remember, son, many a good story has been ruined by over verification - James Gordon Bennett
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Apple's Ipad is available for pre-order now
GADGET MAKER Apple is taking pre-orders for its Ipad tablet from today, and UK mobile operators have already come forward with their monthly pricing options ranging from an insane sounding £7.50 per week to a dip in and out £2 a day.
Apple has already announced sales of one million units in the US and said that units will be made available in the UK and EU on the 28th May. Hoping to get their shares of its expected user-base, mobile firms have apparently chosen to differ on contract terms rather than actual pricing.
Any user who wants to almost replicate the Internet experience on their Igewgaw is faced with a beguiling array of options.
O2 said today that all of its tariff options are available without long contracts and include unlimited access to wireless networks from BT Openzone and The Cloud. O2 offers a few pricing options, a £2 a day pay as you go service and two monthly tariffs, a 1GB plus unlimited WiFi £10 a month service and the bigger 3GB plus unlimited WiFi £15 a month option. In order to help befuddled potential purchasers, O2 explained that the 3GB option would let users view roughly 30,000 webpages and download around 600 albums or six hours of video.
O2 said that Ipad owners will be able to visit its stores - high street and online - and pick up a free micro-SIM for their Ipad. However, it has not said when this will be available. We recommend you go and stare blankly through its windows until this happens, or keep an eye on its website.
Vodafone's pricing is also out, and is detailed in a pop up on the Apple web site, along with that of Orange. Like O2, Orange is offering a £2 a day deal, but differs slightly on its other tariffs. Orange customers can expect to pay £7.50 a week for a 1GB connection, or £15 a month for 3GB and £25 for 10GB. The Orange monthly contracts also include the unlimited wireless options offered by O2.
Vodafone is only offering two tariffs, and these start at £10 per month for a 250MB option and finish abruptly at £25 for 5GB a month. µ
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In answer to your questions :-
1) Possibly, but no deals announced yet. The iPad isn't SIM locked, so it's quite hard for them to enforce such a deal though.
2) No. The phone functionality is firmly disabled. You can use Skype on it though.
3) Yes, using Skype as mentioned above.
Will the networks be selling this like a phone, eg £30/month for 2 years with insurance/data?
Can you make normal mobile phone calls with it? I know it's massive, but with a bluetooth earpiece and this in your bag/case it's feasible.
Can you make phone calls at home over your wifi connection with it?
Not sure how you make out that UK data plans are a rip-off, they're actually cheaper than in the US of A for lower volume use. The AT&T plan costs £10 for 250MB or £20 for "unlimited" (which turns out to mean 30GB in AT&T speak). In the UK £10 gets you 1GB (4 times as much) and £15 gets you 3GB.
If you use 3 as your provider (and I can't see any reason why their SIMs won't work) you can get 1GB for £5 and 15GB for £20 (with unlimited Skype for both).
So, providing you're not shifting stupid amounts of data, you should be able to get your data for the same or less than in the US of A, AND that includes VAT.
Its called VAT and currency exchange rate you idiot, how can you expect things to be priced the same as the US?
Stop winging troll
and the brits get a special bonus - an 18% higher price tag than america!
more than enough reason to boycott the damned doorstop