NoFakie

48! He's older than me. Is she going to knit him a cardigan?

Sounds like you've found a rogue au shop there. Go for it! I was in last week and the woman there said the only way to limit data to something cheaper than the regular 5000yen/7GB was to go kakehodai which is 3000 off the bat. My missus calls a lot, so it'll be good for her, but not for me because I'm grumpy and never call anyone. Once I get a smartphone, I just want a regular mobile number for incoming calls and will use a VoIP thing like Skype out or Line Phone to call out. Line is 390 yen a month for 60 minutes to other keitais. Sticking with au, but a couple of weeks ago, it sounds lik

If there are four of you, renting a car will be cheaper than anything involving the Shinkansen at regular prices. Probably more of an adventure too.

There are so many options and different ways of using them (x amount of calls to different groups people, y data a month) that no one can explain them all. For paybacks and stuff, it will depend when the individual contracts are up and how "invested" you are in one company's stuff. Your iphones are "invested" in Softbank because they won't work as well on another carrier and you are "invested" in Softbank itself because you'll have to pay to leave outside the one chance you get every two years. Free calls are becoming a less important bonus though, especially with family members on smartphones

The reviews are out on the big tech sites now. I'll order one for my missus when I get the time. 25,000 back for the 5 means au are paying my missus 10,000 yen to upgrade to the 6 (and stay with them, of course). For myself, I've come to a decision and it is to wait I'm going to see what the new Nexus is like next month. If its too expensive I'll get the current one, which should be cheaper then anyway.

Apparently big Shinzo is on their case and next year could see the end of sim locking. No faffing about etc. etc.

Let's telling farty breath au what we think of their prices!

Some of them may get a quick refurb and go to Applecare. In addition to having a sim lock you have to remove, it sounds like the au iphone 5 has a very limited antenna that won't work well with many providers. It won't even work with a 3rd party sim that uses au's own signal (there aren't many but the main one is mineo). As a phone to keep for the future, the au iphone 5c or 5c sound much better. Hopefully the 6 will be the same and the sim lock will be crackable so my missus can drop au in a couple of years' time. I'm going mnvo sim for sure, probably with a Nexus 5. A simfree Iphone

There's a campaign on from 9/19 so the trade in for an au Iphone 5 16GB is 25000 yen in points for a 16GB. Oh well, more to think about.

Rob Green was very poor and should have stopped the first one and probably the third too. I didn't see the second half. Apparently the free one month campaign for the Jsports online thing was the first month of the season up to 9/15, not one month from when you apply. You can still get the first week free though as a trial. I doubt Moyes is mad enough to go to Newcastle, but I'd take him! We're the closest team to bonnie Scotland!

Pardew one game off the sack! C'mon on Brucie, finish him off next week!

If you've been on au (etc.) a while, your contract with them will probably not be in synch with you changing your phone. Most of them sell smartphones with the cost split over 24 months and give you a discount that will take 24 months to collect in full. Your contract also runs for 24 months, but unless you joined after smartphones started and have always changed phones bang on 24 months, your contract and your paying off of the phone won't be at the same time. Changing phones does not extend your contract with that company. Having them separate acts as another bind keeping you to that company

Whatever happens, Cameron has majorly effed up by allowing the referendum and had no idea that it would unleash the mayhem that it has. By not putting devo max on the paper as lots of yes people wanted, they've also created more support for the yes camp.

I went yesterday and they had a chart up saying you get 18,000 points for trading in a 16GB Iphone 5. Indeed no hassle, and good if your phone has a few dings. My plan is have a go at making my wife's old phone sim-free and getting a U mobile sim to stick in it for me to use, so no trade in. If it doesn't work, I'll sell the phone and buy a fully sim-free one that the U mobile sim will work in. If anyone does a trade in, I reckon you're best off using the au points straight away on your new phone. Otherwise they'll just be another reason to stay with au in the future and not look into

fwiw, I think its the same with Internet providers. Use them disposably and keep changing to get the new customer deal. You'll get a free ipad or playstation or something every two years (or whatever it is). As for the value of any existing Iphone you may have, some folks will be happy with the screen as is, and will actually prefer a 5 or smaller older ones. So the value may not fall as rapidly as you may think. A new OS they are not compatible with would do more damage.

Au have announced their Iphone6 price. You can order one from 4pm today. http://campaign2.au.kddi.com/iphone/ryokin/price.html?bid=we-ipo-2014-00201 For the 16GB, its 605 yen a month (just under 15000 equiv total) after the discount for existing au peeps. Its free to new customers and folks switching from another carrier to au. The mega sized one is 500 yen more per month. I think my missus' 24 months are up in November, so we might get one then. Apparently the number contract for U mobile is 12 months, which means you could do a year with them and, if its a bit rubbish, then brin

That amount is what came up on kakaku. I just had a little look on aucfan, the price discovery thing for yahoo auctions, and 22,000 was the average, with some junk ones pulling it down and several going for more. That was searching for the serial number me040j, which gives you exactly the same model. If you have the box, the charger and unused headphones and put it on Yahoo Auctions with a buy it now for 25,000, I reckon someone would pay it. Someone without Applecare who's dropped theirs in the toilet. The cheapest buy it now for that model is over 35,000. The sooner you sell the bett

Far be it for me to defend Apple, but when my missus got her iPhone 5, it was almost the cheapest smartphone in the au shop. She actually wanted a phone with a bigger screen like a Galaxy or the HTC one, but they would have been 20,000 more, even though such phones are cheaper when you see them on sites like Engadget. The Japanese pricing is all screwed up. I'm just pleased au didn't have a big discount on the 4S at the time, because we would have got one of them and been stuck with a little screen. A bit more research suggests an au Iphone 5 converted to sim free will not pick up an LTE s

Footie's back with Arsenal Citeh. Could be well tasty and I guess Welbeck will play. I can see him getting 15 if you play him in the middle. 15 would be a good return for Falcao, given that he's new to the league. Man U vs Rio Ferdy, Joey Barton etc. A good chance to get going! Southampton away for Newcastle. Maybe 3-0 to them.

Dunno, it's why I've not left au and gone onto Y! Mobile which used to be Willcom. I've seen people fail to get a Softbank signal in my house, so I'm wary of any provider, esp. a minor one like Willcom, not giving me a signal. I can't remember folks having problems with Docomo round here though. On the sim companies' websites, coverage is simply given as "check the docomo website". From bloggers photos, it looks like U mobile even sells sims with the docomo logo on. It sounds like there is a special procedure to get your phone going, but presumably its the same after you're up and running

The best thing about that is that Apple has always said you don't need a big screen or proper multitasking or customization or the other things. They always said not having such things was better. Just like the PowerPC chips were better than Intel's. Just for the absurd way phones are sold in Japan, I think my missus could change phones on au from her Iphone 5 to an Iphone 5C (pointless, because it's exactly the same thing with a different colour case) for 135 yen a month for two years, about 3200 total. I guess this would cost au 20,000 yen plus. However, if we don't do it, au won't give

This device comes across as a swiss army knife with lots of crap blades. Its not a garmin because it doesn't have gps. You can't exercise standalone with it, because you can't run with headphones plugged into your wrist. You can't communicate with it without an Iphone in your pocket or in your bag. Regardless of how it looks, it seems to be quite restricted in what it can do.

Apparently you can unlock a Japanese Iphone with a card sold by a company called Gevey. Once unlocked you can change providers to a sim only company. A quick look at kakaku.com suggests 1GB a month is under 2000 yen with calls. Apparently you can keep your existing phone number, though they lock you in for a year. My missus iphone 5 is paid off soon, so I might get her to get a 6 (might as well to get the discount), swipe her 5, and go onto a biglobe sim myself. Biglobe uses Docomo's network so coverage should be good. Getting a signal is the biggest worry around here. Most of my calls are

What you want to do is change sets, kishu henkan, so you will get the waribiki. With a 5s its only slightly smaller than the discount for new customers and ones coming from another carrier. If au applies something like the prices on the Apple Japan site, the 6 is 10,000 more than the 5s, and the big 6 10,000 on again. At present, kishu henkan to a 5s, or a 5c if colour is more important than performance, is 135 yen a month for 24 months for the 16GB after the waribiki. So the big six will be that plus 20,000 total, plus a bit more for being new, so I'd guess 2500 a month. A second hand au

With au, there is a thing called the "monthly discount". Its a stupid name because you only get it while paying off a phone. So once your phone is paid off, your bill goes down by the amount you were paying for the phone and goes up due to the loss of the monthly discount. For cheaper phones, the monthly discount covers the cost of the phone, so the bill stays the same once the handset is paid off.