66 Macworld • March 2021
iPHONE
prices, with SIM-only a highlight. It is
5G ready.
Network: O2 (piggyback).
Price: At time of writing Tesco has the
iPhone 12 for £49.99 per month and
£60 upfront, on a 24-month contract
with 6GB of data, 5,000 minutes and
5,000 texts. That’s a total cost of
£1,249.76.
Coverage: O2’s network was rated
worst for reliability by RootMetrics, but
did win the Best Network Coverage
public choice award from Uswitch.
Speed: Tesco suffers here because of
its dependence on O2’s infrastructure.
O2 came bottom in OpenSignal’s
report for speeds across the UK.
Customer service: Very good. Tesco
consistently gets high customer
service satisfaction scores in reports
from the likes of Which?.
- PLUSNET
URL: fave.co/2KO94Jq
Plusnet doesn’t sell phones, but its
prices on SIM deals are appealing if
you bought an iPhone SIM-free. We
like the ability to set a monthly price
cap to prevent nasty surprises when
your bill arrives. We haven’t included
any other SIM-only networks here,
but Plusnet regularly scores highly in
customer service reports so we chose
to feature it. No 5G available yet.
Network: EE (piggyback).
Price: The cheapest you can currently
go is £6 per month (which gets you
2GB data, unlimited minutes and
unlimited texts).
Coverage: EE’s network came
top for 4G coverage in the latest
RootMetrics report (fave.co/2Jet9rU).
That said, Ofcom’s 2020 report
did find that customers were more
66 Macworld • March 2021
iPHONE
prices, with SIM-only a highlight. It is
5G ready.
Network: O2 (piggyback).
Price: At time of writing Tesco has the
iPhone 12 for £49.99 per month and
£60 upfront, on a 24-month contract
with 6GB of data, 5,000 minutes and
5,000 texts. That’s a total cost of
£1,249.76.
Coverage: O2’s network was rated
worst for reliability by RootMetrics, but
did win the Best Network Coverage
public choice award from Uswitch.
Speed: Tesco suffers here because of
its dependence on O2’s infrastructure.
O2 came bottom in OpenSignal’s
report for speeds across the UK.
Customer service: Very good. Tesco
consistently gets high customer
service satisfaction scores in reports
from the likes of Which?.
- PLUSNET
URL: fave.co/2KO94Jq
Plusnet doesn’t sell phones, but its
prices on SIM deals are appealing if
you bought an iPhone SIM-free. We
like the ability to set a monthly price
cap to prevent nasty surprises when
your bill arrives. We haven’t included
any other SIM-only networks here,
but Plusnet regularly scores highly in
customer service reports so we chose
to feature it. No 5G available yet.
Network: EE (piggyback).
Price: The cheapest you can currently
go is £6 per month (which gets you
2GB data, unlimited minutes and
unlimited texts).
Coverage: EE’s network came
top for 4G coverage in the latest
RootMetrics report (fave.co/2Jet9rU).
That said, Ofcom’s 2020 report
did find that customers were more