The cheapest Blackberry Z10 smartphone pay monthly tariffs

The new Blackberry smartphone is finally here but what pay monthly price plans are available?

The eagerly anticipated Blackberry Z10 is now available.

The new smartphone has a brand new operating system that allows multi-tasking, can shoot video, is 4G ready and has a bigger touchscreen than the iPhone 5.

If you want to get your hands on one you could buy one out right and get a SIM-only or pay-as-you-go deal.

Carphone Warehouse is offering the phone SIM-free for £479.95 or on pay-as-you-go for £499.95.

But if you haven’t got the cash to cough up straight away a pay monthly contract might suit you better. In some cases you can get the handset free - Carphone Warehouse has this deal on contracts worth £36 or more - but in most cases you might have to hand over a bit up-front.

We’ve rounded up the best pay monthly tariffs from each of the major networks to help you decide. Remember, you can compare tariffs on a range of different mobile phones with our friends at Recombu.

EE if you want 4G

Everything Everywhere (EE) was the first company granted a licence to launch 4G mobile internet services and is currently the only network with 4G contracts that will allow you to use the Blackberry Z10 to its full potential.

Each of its contracts has unlimited minutes and texts so you just need to choose your data allowance.

EE has one of the beefiest data allowances on the market (up to 20GB) plus a range of 24- and 12-month contracts. But no deals direct on its website offer the phone for free and you will have to pay at least £29.99.

The cheapest deal direct from EE is the £41 plan on a 12-month contract coming in at a total cost of £771.99. But you need to have £279.99 to hand over up-front.

Phones 4U and Carphone Warehouse offer EE plans where the phone comes free or at a reduced cost, compared to the price of going direct on the same contracts.

At Phones 4U the £36 a month 24-month contract with 500MB of data comes with a handset price of £79.99 - a saving of £70 compared to going direct!

Carphone Warehouse has some even better deals and you can get the phone free on most of the 24-month contracts from £46 (saving £29.99). It has a few of the 12-month contracts on offer with massive savings on the handsets too. The best I could find was a saving of £110 on a £51 pay monthly 12-month contract with 1GB data allowance. 

Be warned though, some contracts offer a reduced up front cost but a more expensive pay monthly price and some handsets are more expensive.

O2 (On&On)

O2 has a vast range of pay monthly tariffs for the new Blackberry Z10 (48 in total) available on either a 24- or 18-month contract.

The cheapest pay monthly option available costs £13.50 on a 24-month contract and comes with 50 free minutes, unlimited texts and 100MB of data. But you have to pay £379.99 for the phone up-front!

The most expensive monthly offer from O2 is a £72 a month deal on an 18-month contract that comes with unlimited minutes, unlimited texts and 1GB of data. With this tariff you get the phone free and it’s available on a six-month early upgrade.

But generally the On&On deals tend to represent the best value for money. I have listed them in the table below:

You can get the handset free direct with O2 on contracts from £36. In total there are eight O2 deals you could go for that come with a free handset. 

Be warned though, O2 plans to hike prices for pay monthly users by up to 3.2% on the 28th of February.

T-Mobile (Full Monty)

T-Mobile has an impressive 23 deals available on 18- or 24- month contract for the Blackberry Z10.

Indeed it has the cheapest pay monthly option available. For £7 a month you can get 50 minutes, 100 free texts and 250MB on a 24-month contract but you will need to pay £319.99 for the handset up-front, bringing the total cost to £487.99 over two years.

T-Mobile is also the only provider that has contracts with unlimited data with its Full Monty plans. However this is only for 3G, so you will need to upgrade to a pricier EE contract to get access to superfast mobile broadband via 4G. 

The best value deal costs £41 a month and has an unlimited allowance on all features with an upfront cost of £29.99. The contract lasts 24 months so will cost £1,013.99 in total.

Here are all the Full Monty deals available for the Z10:

*Unlimited calls to other T-Mobile users

You can’t get the handset free going direct with T-Mobile. If you want to avoid an up-front cost try Carphone Warehouse which has a £46 a month unlimited deal which is cheaper initially but is £5 more expensive monthly and £60 more expensive overall.

Orange

Orange has over 30 plans available for the Blackberry Z10 and like O2 and T-mobile, has 18- or 24-month options available.

Oddly many of these contracts don’t come with a data allowance or aren’t as generous as some other plans on the market. But you do have a greater choice on how much data you want to add. Allowances can be nothing, 100MB, 250MB, 500MB, 750MB, 1GB or 2GB and many come with free Wi-Fi access in BT Openzones.

Also you won’t be able to find a contract direct that offers the phone for free unless you sign up via Carphone Warehouse or Phones 4U.

The cheapest monthly plan (Canary 10.50) costs £10.50 each month and comes with 100 free minutes and 500 free texts but doesn’t come with a data allowance and has an upfront cost of £269.99 for the handset. This contract would set you back £521.99- but what’s the point of a smartphone without a data allowance?

Here are the Orange plans with over 1GB of data to play with:

Vodafone

Vodafone has eight tariffs available for the new Blackberry with the choice of either a 12- or 24-month contract length putting it on par with EE for contract length choice.

However, like T-Mobile, O2, Orange and Three the contracts available for the Z10 are only on 3G. To get superfast broadband, which the Z10 is set up for, you will need to go for an EE contract.

You can get the handset free on the 24-month £47 deal direct from Vodafone but this represents the most expensive deal overall. 

Other contracts where you can avoid the initial cost start from £37 at Phones 4U or £38 from Carphone Warehouse.

Three

Three has not yet announced the pay monthly price plans it has in mind for the new Blackberry Z10. But the mobile will be available from the network very soon. You can register your interest here to be the first to find out what Three has to offer.

Compare tariffs on a range of different mobile phones with our friends at Recombu.

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