Orange dishes out Eee PC on £25 monthly plan
By Donald Melanson 
posted Aug 15th 2008 2:49PM
posted Aug 15th 2008 2:49PM
It's not exactly the first company to try to entice customers with the promise of a free or cheap Eee PC (or other netbook), but Orange apparently isn't about to let a bandwagon pass it by, with it now offering an Eee PC 900 16G as part of its "Internet Everywhere" bundle. That includes the Eee PC, a mobile broadband dongle and, of course, mobile broadband service, which apparently tops out at just 3GB of data per month. At £25 (or $46) a month on a two-year contract, it's also far from a free ride. If it sounds alright to you though, you can sign up in the UK starting tomorrow.
OMG NEW commenting system!
Yes, new commenting system that needs improvements as it totally sucks at the moment with lack of and non-working features. But nevertheless...
New commenting system, which STILL doesn't auto-ban all the "FIRST" noobs et al.
Is it just me or does everyone have to keep on entering their e-mail and password every time they want to post, also i have received replies to my comments but i have failed to receive and e-mail notification. I have both boxes "Remember me" and "E-Mail me when someone replies to this comment" checked.
I get that too
Bring this deal to America
If AT&T offered this, and had a removable SIM (which means I can move the service to another computer), then I'd gladly get this.
Of course you can move it to another computer. You just MOVE the USB adapter to a different PC *gasp*
Yep. The MAC address of the adaptor stays the same regardless of the machine, too, so there's no problem with MAC locking.
It sounds alright to me. But then again, I'm a little behind the times in the techie world scheme of things.
No free phone? What about minutes and texts? I only ask as this works out at £600 / $1200 dollars over 2 years. Doesn't look so appealing.
I think people are missing this point, this is a contract for a mobile broadband adapter, no phone involved. No minutes. No texts. Just internet access via a USB adapter.
UK isn't US
So converting prices doesn't tell you much more
We pay almost twice as much for our fuel as the Americans for every liter of fuel (1 gallon = roughly 1/4 of a gallon, metric system FTW)
I'm pretty sure 1 gallon doesn't equal 1/4 of a gallon anywhere in the entire world.
He means a Litre = 1/4 Gallon (approx.)
And yes, when visiting the UK I noticed the prices there are very high when converted.
Here in Canada it's also pretty bad (albeit not nearly as high as europe).
We pay the equivalent of $5.30 a Gallon up here (based on $1.40 a Litre, which is the current price where I am right now)
@Agent42
By Europe you mean the UK? Since throughout Europe prices of petrol are pretty different...
Wish people would get it. The UK is not Europe, nor is Europe the UK, and nor is Europe a single country. It's a continent.
Looks like a dodgy way to shift a few Eees.
And a wireless dongle for an Eee with built-in wireless? Oh dear....
It's mobile broadband
This is like Comcast here in the US giving out a Free Nintendo Wii with a 2 year subscription commitment... in the long run, it's way cheaper to just buy the device than to sign up and get it "free." Similar to the cheaper iPhone deal as well.
That isn't that bad value, on a normal data tarriff 3GB/month costs £15/month, so the EEE winds up costing £240 over the 2 years. The 900 is approx £270 to buy retail.
Or buy an Eee 900A and then sign up for a £15 per month Vodafone mobile broadband dongle - you get 7.2 Mbps in London...
Am I the only one that thinks 3gb a month is a joke. You have to be my grandpa to not exceed that.
My broadband at home and work is unlimited, so a further 100MB per day for a netbook while out-and-about is more than enough. And, no, this isn't your grandpa replying.
Sounds nice, but I'd rather get an MSI Wind or something then an EEE and a 3GB limit? Pfft I could exhaust that in less then a day.
OMG!
It just shows how much you're getting reamed by the month.
Seriously, 3G per month? This is a friggin NETbook!!! with friggin mobile broadband!!
"Eee PC and Orange - you can look; but don't touch."
way to shift the 900 overstock mountain
lol
OHHH MY GOD. bring it to canada.
Yes, please send to Canada, not the US... They'll buy anything!
or to the US so TSA gets to keep it for an indefinite period.
RBC in Canada is giving away Eee PC...
http://www.rbcroyalbank.com/products/deposits/nolimit/index.html?ProspectID=EF6A1295402348A8B17781AB392162B4
too expensive
Carphone Warehouse have been doing the same thing for about a month now with their own WebBook. They also do it on T-Mobile who offer "Unlimited" data. Their fair use is 3GB but if you go over they only seem to slow your speed down rather than cut you off or charge you
In Finland you can get a similar deal with EEE 900, USB HSDPA dongle and unlimited data but with speed limited to 384kbps for 22.30€/month (~$32.30/~£17.30) with a 24-month contract. If the speed's not enough you can also up the limit to 1Mbps for 10€ more.
If you go with Saunalahti, you also get a second simcard for free with the unlimited data and all for your cellphone.
Weird, I get 2mb/s even though I paid for the 384k, but I'm not complaining ;)
The combination of an Eee PC and a mobile broadband connection could be seriously cool - the Eee is a perfect fit for it as it's so portable. Mobile broadband really does have the potential to be a killer app for the Eee, so I'm glad to see providers supporting it, so Orange actually bundling them together is a great idea.
That said, coverage is crap where I live in Norfolk. I tried Vodafone's mobile broadband and there's hardly any 3G coverage, so it's therefore excruciatingly slow to use.