A UK phone or tablet deal is decided by one sum, and it is not the monthly price

Updated September 2026 · Verified against the Play Store listings on 17 September 2026

The shops in those old posts are mostly gone: The Register reported Phones 4u into administration on 14 September 2014, and on 17 March 2020 that all 531 standalone Carphone Warehouse stores would close, the name surviving online. What has not changed is the sum. Add the upfront payment, multiply the monthly figure by the months you are tied for, then add the yearly rise in pounds Vodafone and EE each print, read 11 September 2026. A 256GB Pixel 11 bought outright with 24 rolling SIM months comes to £1,119; the same handset on Vodafone commits you to £1,601, £482 more, of which only £43 is the phone. The blunt part: no refurbished price by grade and no trade-in quote could be read, because those engines run in the browser.

The table routes to the six money questions; when prices move, who has to take it back and tablets sit between and after them. Our answer and the table ↓

Read this before the price

Start with the exit. Citizens Advice, read 11 September 2026, says you can cancel free within 14 days of signing up online or by phone, but that You don't have the legal right to a 14-day cooling-off period if you signed up in person. A price rise opens a 30-day window to leave without a fee, and the same page shuts it again where you were told at the start of the contract that the price would be going up, which is how the 1 April rises below are sold to you. Before you price any of it, text INFO free to 85075 and read what comes back, because whether you are still tied in, and at what cost, decides which of the routes below is open to you.

The handset is the half that never lets go: a Vodafone Pixel 11 puts a Phone Plan 36 months behind a 24-month airtime plan, read 11 September 2026. When O2 exceeded its own terms and raised prices, customers could leave penalty-free within 30 days but still had to pay the handset off in full, as The Register reported on 31 October 2025. If you are reading this on a contract signed years ago, the newer rules do not reach it: MoneySuperMarket's guide to mobile price rises, dated 13 November 2025, notes that contracts signed before the change keep inflation-linked terms such as CPI plus 3.9 percent. That date is the guide's own publication date, not a read made for this page: moneysupermarket.com returned HTTP 403 to a full desktop browser request on 11 September 2026.

The arithmetic, with the working shown

Match the horizons or the comparison is worthless. A 256GB Pixel 11 owned outright plus 24 months of service is £879 at the Google Store UK and 24 SMARTY months at £10, so £1,119, both read 11 September 2026. On Vodafone that day the device is £922 and the 30GB airtime £26, rising to £28.50 on 1 April 2027 and £31 on 1 April 2028: seven months at £26, twelve at £28.50 and five at £31, or £679. Add £40 upfront and 24 of the 36 device payments at £24.50 and at two years you have paid £1,307 with twelve payments still owed, a committed £1,601. That 24 is a minimum, not an ending: the same Vodafone page asks What happens to my Airtime Plan after 24 months? and answers This will continue on a 30-day rolling contract after 24 months, unless you cancel it or upgrade to a new Airtime Plan, read 11 September 2026, so the £679 is the airtime cost only if you cancel or switch at month 24, and you do that while twelve device payments of £24.50 are still running. Run the same sum at the cheap end and the gap decides more: the Google Store UK showed the Pixel 9a at From £349 £399 Save £50 on 11 September 2026, so £349 plus 24 SMARTY months is £493 at £6 for 5GB or £589 at £10 for 40GB, against the £1,119 and the £1,601 above, on a handset whose guaranteed patches the refurbished section below dates to April 2032. Both Pixel 11 figures are the seller's own list prices, so this is a gap between two direct channels, not a survey of the market: a retailer, an MVNO or a member post may beat either. The £879 is the price read on 11 September 2026, and what travels with it is dated: the same Google Store page carried Buy the Google Pixel 11 and get the Google Pixelsnap Case for Pixel 11, the Pixel Flex Dual Port 67 W USB-C Fast Charger and the Pixelsnap Charger with Stand on us. Offer ends 24/09. The page does not say whether 24 September 2026 is the last day the accessories are included or the first day without them, so treat 23 September 2026 as the last safe day and read the page again before you order. What travels with the £922 sits in the same box as that figure on the Vodafone page, read 11 September 2026: Claim a starter bundle worth £144, which the page prices and does not itemise, and, under Vodafone Xchange, Free battery checks and replacements, plus Lifetime Warranty included. So the £482 is the gap between two list prices before either side's inducements, and that battery line answers, on the contract route alone, the cost the refurbished section below leaves with the buyer.

The £879 need not leave your account on day one: the same page offers it at £24.42/month with 36-month financing and a 36-month 0% effective interest rate on devices over £180, read 11 September 2026, so the total does not move but the credit outlasts the service by a year. That is credit, whatever the monthly line calls it, and MoneySavingExpert's Section 75 guide, read 11 September 2026, rules on hire purchase, on retailer buy-now-pay-later and on marketplaces, and nowhere on a network device plan, so whether yours is a regulated agreement, reaches your credit file or carries Section 75 is unanswered. Ask the provider for the agreement before you sign.

Only £43 of the £482 is the handset; the rest is airtime, and Vodafone says its rise hits airtime and that This doesn't affect Device Plans, read 11 September 2026. The regulator reaches the same conclusion in general terms: Ofcom's guide to choosing a mobile package, read 5 September 2026, warns that pay-monthly deals that include a phone can be more expensive in the long term than buying a phone separately and choosing a SIM-only deal and tells you to compare the total rather than the monthly figure.

The shape is not a Vodafone quirk. Three's student page, read 11 September 2026, publishes the same split: a Pixel 10 Pro 128GB on a 36-month phone plan of £23 a month, £858 of total device cost and £30 one off, behind a 24-month airtime plan, open only to students with an ac.uk address. The same page prices a Samsung the same way, read the same day: a Galaxy S25 Ultra 256GB at £45 a month in total, reduced from £49, with £50 one off, and behind that a 36-month phone plan of £35 a month, £1,310 of total device cost, against a Student 30GB airtime plan of 24 months from £16. Vodafone and Three, now presented as one group by VodafoneThree, read 11 September 2026, therefore both run a device plan a year longer than the service it is sold with, which is the mismatch the sum above is built to expose.

Back to the comparison table

The SIM price that makes it work

An equivalent monthly figure blends a cheap opening spell with the price that follows. MoneySavingExpert, read 11 September 2026, prices a Lebara 10GB plan it labels uses Vodafone's network and marks Ends 22 Sep at £2.03 for nine months then £5.90, equivalent to £3/month; over 24 months that costs £106.77, not £72. The arithmetic outlives the offer.

The rolling ladder is the honest comparator. SMARTY, read 11 September 2026, sells one-month plans with calls and texts from £6 for 5GB to £20 unlimited, 40GB at £10, alongside a data-only ladder that starts at £5, and states both SMARTY is a trading name of Hutchison 3G UK Limited and, on its home page, We don't do annual price rises with our rolling one month plans. That price buys Three's signal, so run your postcode through the coverage checker on the same page before you port. Know whose signal that is. VodafoneThree, read 11 September 2026, presents Vodafone UK, Three UK, SMARTY, Talkmobile and VOXI as one group and says that within a few months around 28.6 million Vodafone and Three mobile customers will begin to benefit from automatically using each other's networks, so the rolling plan priced here and the contract it is set against now share an owner, and the coverage behind both is being merged. One of the networks named in those older posts went the same way a decade earlier. Orange UK's mobile business became Everything Everywhere and then EE, and EE's own launch release of 10 September 2012, read 11 September 2026, records the step: the new brand will stand alongside Orange and T-Mobile, together serving 27 million people. So an Orange line ended up inside EE, which is the brand whose annual rise and staff discount this page prices.

Move the number before you move the phone. MoneySavingExpert's Cheap Mobile Finder, read 11 September 2026, says to text INFO free to 85075 first, which tells you whether you are one of the 14m who are out-of-contract and, if you are not, how much you'd be charged to leave early, then PAC free to 65075 for a porting authorisation code, which you must give the new provider within 30 days; STAC to 75075 moves you without the number. Ofcom's switching rules, read 5 September 2026, put timings around that: the old provider must reply within one minute, the code lasts 30 days, the new provider must complete the switch within one working day, and the old provider cannot charge for a notice period running past the switch date. For an eSIM, our guide to moving an eSIM to a new Android phone covers the transfer.

An airtime discount moves this sum further than any cashback rate on the page, and three employer schemes publish theirs. Vodafone Advantage, read 11 September 2026, offers Up to 25% off Vodafone plans and 20% off SIM only or tablet plans to employees of businesses with an existing partnership with Vodafone, and adds that the discounts only apply to phones, tablets and SIM only plans that aren't already on offer and that Refurbished devices are also eligible. Vodafone's NHS page, read the same day, gives National Health Service and ambulance service employees 25% on selected Vodafone Pay monthly airtime plans, and 20% on tablets and SIM only plans. EE Perk, read the same day, gives employees of EE's corporate customers a 20% discount off the monthly airtime price on a Flex Pay or SIM-only plan with a minimum term of twelve months or more, extendable to up to four friends and family.

One route a reader arriving from an older post may remember has shut. O2 Open, read 11 September 2026, is headed O2 Open is now closed and states From 1 September 2026, O2 Open is no longer available for new customers or existing customers who are upgrading, while anyone already holding the discount keeps it for the rest of your Device Plan Credit Agreement. Two student routes are open instead, and one of them states this page's argument in a network's own words. Three, read 11 September 2026, gives 20% off selected phone airtime plans with the code STUDY20 to anyone entering an active ac.uk address, takes the same 20 percent off SIM only plans except for our 25GB and 120GB SIMs on a 24-month plan, and adds that Device repayment costs aren't included, which is the split the sum at the top of this page is built to expose, written here by the network selling it. Vodafone's student rates are not on vodafone.co.uk at all: its UNiDAYS partner page, read 11 September 2026, lists 21GB at £7 a month, 60GB at £8, 70GB at £9, 80GB at £9, 100GB at £10 and 200GB at £12, plus 20% Off SIM only or tablet plans. Five of those six carry a rise of £1.50 on 1 April 2027; the 70GB tier shows no rise line at all.

Put that against the £679 of Vodafone airtime priced above and 25 percent is about £170, if the plan qualifies and is not already discounted, which is more than twice the £73 the cashback route pays on the handset. The blunt part: Advantage, the NHS scheme and Perk each need an employer or an NHS address you either have or do not, and the Vodafone NHS page, read 11 September 2026, states that the discount holds only until The account is upgraded, your minimum term expires, the agreement changes or the number changes, after which you re-apply. The student routes need an ac.uk address, and the membership schemes that list mobile offers of their own need a card or a verified account. Blue Light Card, read 11 September 2026, states that A Blue Light Card costs just £4.99 for 2 years' access and carries a Mobile Phones category; UNiDAYS and Student Beans cost nothing to join. All three publish an Android app, and on the United Kingdom Play storefront, read 17 September 2026, Blue Light Card reads 4.6 from 230,898 reviews, UNiDAYS 4.8 from 24,232 and Student Beans 4.7 from 31,855, none of the three carrying an ads label or a declared in-app purchase.

When prices actually move

The cut to the previous generation follows a launch within weeks. The Pixel 11 went on sale on 20 August 2026, per Tech Advisor read 11 September 2026, and on 11 September 2026 the Google Store UK showed the Pixel 10 at From £549 £699 Save £150 and the Pixel 9a at From £349 £399 Save £50. The next fixed date after that is Black Friday, which Which? gives as Friday 27 November 2026, read 11 September 2026.

So test the was-price rather than the saving. CAP rule 3.39, read 11 September 2026, says comparisons with recommended retail prices are likely to mislead if the RRP differs significantly from the price at which the product or service is generally sold, and the ASA upheld a Which?-brought complaint on that ground against Frasers Group on 2 September 2026, read 11 September 2026. Run the test on the two prices above. The Pixel 9a shows £349 against a struck-through £399, while Which?'s September sales round-up, read 11 September 2026, records £399 as the six-month average and £286 as the six-month cheapest, on its own partner data, which by its own note does not cover every retailer: the strike-through is the average, and £63 cheaper has already been available. The Pixel 10 fails the same test the other way. Its struck-through £699 is itself below the £799 the Pixel 10 series started at, per Tech Advisor read 11 September 2026, so the fall from launch is £250 and not the £150 on the label.

That is why a sale date is a weaker signal than a price history. Which?'s investigation of 175 deals from the 2024 Black Friday sales, dated 6 November 2025 and read 11 September 2026, checked each one six months before and six months after the day and found that 100% of products were cheaper or the same price in the six months either side of the sale day. The blunt part: that is a finding about deals generally, not about phones alone, and it does not tell you which week your handset falls.

Grades are words, warranties are terms

A grade is each seller's own vocabulary, not a standard. Which?'s buying guide, read 11 September 2026, puts the realistic saving at between 20% and 50% and warns that a battery replacement is unlikely to be covered by your second-hand warranty. Independent scoring ranks neither Back Market nor CeX at the top: Which?'s survey of second-hand tech retailers, published 10 October 2025 from 2,495 people, named Samsung Certified Re-Newed, The iOutlet, Dell and Envirofone its Recommended Providers, put Samsung Certified Re-Newed and The iOutlet joint top on 83 percent, Back Market eleventh on 79 percent and CeX last of the eighteen shops ranked on 73 percent, read 11 September 2026. Eight shops sit between the top and Back Market: Amazon Renewed, Dell, Music Magpie and eBay Certified Refurbished at 81 percent, and Apple Refurbished, Envirofone, Giffgaff and Laptops Direct at 80 percent. Four of those eight are sellers described below.

Back Market is a marketplace of third-party refurbishers, and holds them to Premium, Excellent, Good and Fair, each with a battery floor of 80 percent or better and a 1-year warranty and 30 days to change your mind, the warranty being the seller's own, read 11 September 2026 on a page carrying its own date, Updated on 6 September 2024. Premium's 90 percent floor is worded around Genuine Apple or Samsung batteries, which does not obviously reach a Pixel. CeX states a 5 Year warranty except consumables, read 11 September 2026, which is the outer end of the spread in the table above. What those five years entitle you to is set out in the two documents that article links, both read 11 September 2026. Outside the first 30 days CeX will aim to repair/ replace the item, and failing that refunds to the original payment method at the original sales value, provided the item is returned within 6 months from the date of purchase, while after six months it refunds as per the current sales value or original sales value (whichever is the lower), per its store returns policy. That document also excludes Faults due to removable batteries beyond 30 days and states that the warranty doesn't cover physical, liquid and any damage caused by rooting/ jailbreaking, and the online order document adds that any repairs done by a third party will void any warranty with CeX. So the five years is a real length, but what it returns after six months is the lower of the two prices, and taking the phone to any other repairer ends it. Check the cell before the case, with our guide to battery health.

Five more sellers publish terms, two of them among the Recommended Providers named above, and the ladder is what to read before the price. giffgaff ties the length to the grade, read 11 September 2026 and last updated 20 July 2026: refurbished handsets come with a 12, 18, or 24 month giffgaff warranty based on their condition, 24 months on Like New, 18 on Excellent and Very Good, 12 on Good. One clause on that page decides more than the extra months: a faulty giffgaff refurbished handset can ONLY go back to giffgaff, and the warranty does NOT allow you to send it for repair with the manufacturer or any other repair centre, so the repair route you are left with is fixed at purchase.

Samsung Certified Re-Newed, read 11 September 2026, is the other end: Certified Re-Newed phones are backed by the same two-year warranty as new phones with 100% genuine parts, although the battery is not new either, and Samsung says so in terms, a genuine Samsung battery that has been inspected to meet Samsung's quality standards. It is also the one refurbished seller here whose UK prices could be read: the product data Samsung publishes on its own Certified Re-Newed listing on 17 September 2026 prices a Galaxy S26 at £739, an S26+ at £929, an S25 Ultra at £1,059, an S26 Ultra at £1,079 and a Z Fold7 512GB in Jetblack at £1,419, each marked in stock. The listing publishes only what is in stock, so anything sold out is simply absent from it rather than shown at a price. The limit is plain: that is five Samsung models and nothing else, so the route is shut unless a Galaxy is what you wanted. Envirofone, read 11 September 2026, publishes a 12 month warranty included, a Full 70-point testing process, Certified PhoneCheck and CheckMEND reports and a Secure data wipe for every device, and its grading page, read the same day, puts Refurbished Fair at the bottom as Our lowest grade, where battery health will be over 70%. musicMagpie grades in three, Pristine, Very Good and Good, with a free 12-month warranty, a 90-point check and 14 days to change your mind, read 5 September 2026 because musicmagpie.co.uk returned HTTP 403 to a full desktop browser request on 11 September 2026. Amazon Renewed sells in four conditions, Premium, Excellent, Good, and Acceptable, read 11 September 2026, and its Renewed Guarantee promises a replacement or refund if the product is faulty, defective or does not work as expected for a period of one (1) year from delivery of the product, read 5 September 2026 because amazon.co.uk returned a robot shell to the same request on 11 September 2026.

Two things fall out of that ladder. The warranty spread is twelve months to five years, and twelve months is much the commoner half: Back Market, Envirofone, musicMagpie and Amazon Renewed all stop at one year, giffgaff runs 12 to 24 by grade, Samsung gives two years and CeX states five. The battery is where the sellers actually diverge, and most of them say nothing: Back Market publishes 90 percent on Premium and 80 percent on the three grades below it, Envirofone publishes 70 percent on its lowest grade and a minimum only for iPhones above that, and CeX, musicMagpie and Amazon Renewed publish no battery floor at all on the pages read here. A cell at 80 percent behind a one-year warranty is the common case, and by the Which? warning quoted at the top of this section, replacing that cell is your cost and not the seller's.

An older phone is a shorter clock. Google's support page, read 11 September 2026, says Pixel 8 and later phones will get updates for seven years from the device's first availability on the Google Store in the US, and gives the Pixel 6 and 7 families five. The Pixel 9a sits in the seven-year band, and Google's availability table, read the same day, dates its first United States availability to April 2025, so its patches are guaranteed to April 2032: about five and a half years still to run, whether you pay the Google Store's £349 on 11 September 2026 or the £286 Which? records as its cheapest price in six months. Our guide to what to do when the updates stop shows how to read a patch date.

The clause before the estimate

Read the clause that reverses the deal before you accept an estimate. The Google Store UK trade-in page, read 11 September 2026, answers What devices are eligible for Google Store trade-in? with You can trade in your Google Pixel phones and watches; the same page carries a second statement that does not agree with it, a carousel headed Explore devices eligible for a trade-in. with eight entries running from the Pixel 11 family to Pixel Tablet, read the same day. Every entry in it is a Pixel, so what the two lines disagree about is the Pixel Tablet and not a device of another make. Where the value comes in at less than 75% of the original estimate, it says, the old device comes back and the estimate is deducted from your original form of payment. Two deadlines sit on the same page, read 11 September 2026: Devices sent for trade-in must be received within 30 days of receiving your new device and Your trade-in transaction expires 75 days after your new device ships from Google, which together cap how long an accepted estimate stays alive. Two more limits sit beside them, read the same day: If the trade-in credit exceeds the cost of your new Pixel device (excluding VAT), the excess amount will be provided as Google Store credit, so a valuable old handset cannot turn back into money, and the estimated trade-in value is valid for 30 days, which is a third clock running before either of those two starts. The same page splits the money two ways as well: an instant trade-in credit at checkout, which it limits to a limited subset of customers, or a final value emailed typically within five working days after inspection and paid to the payment method used for the order, with the whole process taking, it says, 3-4 weeks after you send your device.

If the phone in the drawer is not a Pixel, Google's programme is closed to it. Samsung's UK trade-in page, read 11 September 2026, answers What devices can I trade in? with You can trade in smartphones, tablets, and wearables from various brands, if you're purchasing a new Galaxy device, adds that only Galaxy devices are accepted at this time where you want Samsung Credit rather than a discount, and warns that a device not matching your description may mean your discount may need to be repaid, and your device may be remotely disabled. That page publishes two different send-back windows, read 11 September 2026: its panel and its step 2 both say to send the device within 14 days, and one FAQ is headed I'm unable to send my old device within the required 14 days, while a second FAQ, When do I need to send my device?, answers you'll have 7 days to return your old device to us. Samsung publishes both, so work to the seven days. Two more clauses on the same page cut in opposite directions: a cracked screen is still accepted, You can still get value back for your damaged devices, and if the inspection revises the offer downwards, This offer will be automatically accepted after 7 days unless you reject it first.

Neither will quote for a named handset without a browser. What the sellers do publish is a range: the Google Store UK offered £50 to £675 off its Pixel 11 with an eligible trade-in, read 11 September 2026, which is the figure in the table above and a ceiling, not an offer. Timing sets how far that ceiling moves. Vodafone, in its release of 25 February 2026, advertised Save up to £886 on the Samsung Galaxy S26 or up to £914 on the Samsung Galaxy S26 Ultra when trading in an eligible phone, and split only the larger of the two: under the heading Save up to £914 it writes Customers can save £424 on Airtime and Device, plus up to £490 when they trade in an eligible phone, which is the Ultra, and £424 plus £490 is £914 exactly. The notes at the foot of the same release put the S26 and S26+ saving at up to £869 rather than £886 and state This includes up to £490 on Airtime and Device when they Trade-in an eligible phone, so the £886 headline is nowhere broken down, read 11 September 2026. The release put no closing date on the trade-in offer and set 10 March 2026 as the deadline for a separate double-storage offer instead. So a launch window is when the stacked offers are richest, not when the trade-in alone is.

Before any of it, record the serial, back the phone up and reset it, as our guide to backing up an Android phone sets out.

One tracker, and the cashback exclusions

Which?, read 11 September 2026, names three price-history tools, Pricerunner, PriceSpy and CamelCamelCamel (Amazon only). Follow that chain and it narrows to one: a Google Play search on the United Kingdom storefront on 17 September 2026 returned no PriceRunner Android app, CamelCamelCamel is a website, and PriceSpy is the only tool Which? names with a working Android app. Keepa is the Android stand-in for CamelCamelCamel and the narrowest tool here: its Play listing, read 17 September 2026, says it supports Amazon locales in the US, Germany, UK, France, Italy, Spain, Canada, Japan, India, Mexico, and Brazil, so it covers amazon.co.uk and no other UK retailer, which is worth having only if Amazon is where you were going to buy. hotukdeals is not on Which?'s list, and is the only app here shown to have surfaced a tracked price range on a UK handset.

hotukdeals · 4.5 from 48,277 reviews · UK Play storefront, read 17 September 2026 · 1,000,000+ installs · Free to install · No in-app purchases listed · Developer Atolls · Listing updated 9 September 2026 · Contains ads: Yes · Google Play listing

PriceSpy: Compare & save money · 4.5 from 26,047 reviews · UK Play storefront, read 17 September 2026 · 5,000,000+ installs · Free to install · No in-app purchases listed · Developer Prisjakt / Pricespy · Listing updated 31 August 2026 · Contains ads: Yes · Google Play listing

Keepa · 3.8 from 5,634 reviews · UK Play storefront, read 17 September 2026 · 1,000,000+ installs · Free to install · No in-app purchases listed · Developer Keepa.com · Listing updated 15 September 2026 · Contains ads: No · Google Play listing

hotukdeals is the one this page leans on, because its UK listings carry network and MVNO airtime postings as well as handset prices. Its search and product pages put price history beside the live deals, read 11 September 2026, and a Pixel 10a page showed a from price of £300 across 44 tracked prices on 5 September 2026. The blunt part: members post the deals, so open the retailer before you act on one. How many UK retailers PriceSpy returns on a named handset could not be measured here: on 11 September 2026 pricespy.co.uk served its home page and its individual product pages to a full desktop browser request, and the home page carries the link to the Android app, but the search path returned HTTP 403 and a Cloudflare challenge to that same request, so no Pixel 11 lookup could be run. Checking the coverage inside the app on the handset you want takes about a minute and is the route left open.

The comparison sites this page leans on are Android apps as well. The Cheap Mobile Finder behind the blended average above, the switching codes and the SIM ladder sits inside the MoneySavingExpert app, and MoneySuperMarket's price-rise guide sits inside its own. Neither tracks a named handset's price history, so they answer the other half of the question: what the plan costs, not what the handset cost in August 2026.

MoneySavingExpert · 4.8 from 43,903 reviews · UK Play storefront, read 17 September 2026 · 1,000,000+ installs · Free to install · No in-app purchases listed · Developer MoneySavingExpert.com · Listing updated 11 September 2026 · Contains ads: No · Google Play listing

MoneySuperMarket · 4.5 from 18,982 reviews · UK Play storefront, read 17 September 2026 · 1,000,000+ installs · Free to install · No in-app purchases listed · Developer MoneySupermarket · Listing updated 15 September 2026 · Contains ads: No · Google Play listing

Those two are the clearest case for the rule this page follows on every rating it prints. Both publish no star average at all on the United States storefront and do publish one in the United Kingdom, which is what happens when Play weights the average by country while the review count stays global. Read the wrong storefront and a well-rated British app looks unrated.

Cashback stacks with almost everything, until an exclusion cancels it

TopCashback's Currys page, read 11 September 2026, pays 10 percent on Google Pixel 11 handsets against 1 percent elsewhere, but cashback is calculated for the item(s) price only, not including VAT, so 10 percent of an £879 handset is about £73, not £88, and two exclusions are printed beside each other, Purchase of items that have been price matched and Use of a promotional/voucher code not posted and approved by TopCashback, so Currys' own price match voids the cashback and so does a code the cashback site has not approved. That rate is Currys' alone, and no Currys price for the Pixel 11 could be read on 11 September 2026, so the £73 shows what excluding VAT does to a headline rate and cannot be taken off the £1,119 Google route. Two more terms on the same page decide whether a reader who does everything right is paid, read 11 September 2026: Purchases deemed to made with the intention of resale are ineligible for cashback and will be declined, and, where the tracking fails, Should your cashback fail to track automatically, please submit a 'Missing Cashback' claim within 90 days of your order. That deadline belongs to the merchant page and not to the site: the same site's Argos page, read the same day, sets the same claim at within 100 days of your order.

Quidco's Currys page, read 10 September 2026 because quidco.com returned HTTP 403 to a full desktop browser request on 11 September 2026, published the same 10 percent on new Pixel 11 handsets and 1 percent on other online purchases, so the choice between the two sites is not the rate. Rates elsewhere are nothing like it: TopCashback's Argos page, read 11 September 2026, publishes a rate table of 1.1 percent for a new customer and 0.5 percent for an existing one on an online purchase, with no separate phone or technology rate, which on the same VAT-excluded basis is about £8 on an £879 purchase rather than £73. Read the merchant page, not the app's headline rate.

TopCashback: Cashback Deals · 4.4 from 30,332 reviews · UK Play storefront, read 17 September 2026 · 1,000,000+ installs · Free to install · No in-app purchases listed · Developer TopCashBack · Listing updated 15 September 2026 · Contains ads: No · Google Play listing

Quidco: Cashback and Vouchers · 4.8 from 36,544 reviews · UK Play storefront, read 17 September 2026 · 1,000,000+ installs · Free to install · No in-app purchases listed · Developer Quidco · Listing updated 11 September 2026 · Contains ads: No · Google Play listing

The contract route pays too, but as a fee rather than a rate. TopCashback's Samsung page, read 11 September 2026, states If you purchase a phone and a pay monthly SIM, you will get a fixed £ amount of cashback, and its rate table sets that fee at £65 on Galaxy S26 Ultra, S26+, S26 FE, Z Fold8 and Z Flip8 data contracts, £45 on the S25 Ultra, £40 across the rest of the S25 family and on the Flip7 and Fold7, and £35 on the A series, against 10 percent on the S26 Ultra, S26+ and S26 FE bought outright. Those figures belong to Samsung's own store and do not reach the Pixel sum above, but they set the scale: on the contract side cashback is tens of pounds against a £482 gap, not a percentage of the handset. The same page excludes Purchasing from Samsung Enhanced Partnership Store or Samsung Student & Youth Store, so a student buying a Galaxy through the student store collects no cashback on it.

Back to the comparison table

Who must take it back

The 14-day right binds traders only. Regulation 30 of the Consumer Contracts Regulations 2013 ends the cancellation period 14 days after the day the goods come into the physical possession of the buyer, and regulation 35 then gives you 14 days from the day you tell the trader to send them off, and says you must bear the direct cost of returning goods unless the trader agreed to pay or failed to tell you that you would, both read 11 September 2026.

Regulation 4 defines a trader as a person acting for purposes relating to that person's trade, business, craft or profession, so a private seller on Vinted sits outside it: no cancellation right, none of the 30 days to reject faulty goods that section 22 of the Consumer Rights Act 2015 allows, and none of the six-month reversed burden of proof in section 19(14) of that Act, all read 11 September 2026. One more thing follows a phone sold privately: Ofcom banned the sale of network-locked handsets from December 2021, as The Register reported on 27 October 2020, so a handset first sold before that month may still be locked to a network, and a private seller owes you nothing if it is. One check costs nothing and is worth making before the money moves: ask for the IMEI and look up its status yourself. A trader such as Envirofone publishes Certified PhoneCheck and CheckMEND reports with its own stock, read 11 September 2026, which is how a blocked or stolen handset is meant to surface before it is sold; a private seller publishes nothing of the kind and is under no duty to.

On payment, section 75 of the Consumer Credit Act 1974 makes the card issuer and the supplier jointly and severally liable on a single item priced above £100 and not above £30,000, read 11 September 2026. MoneySavingExpert's Section 75 guide, read the same day, sets out what falls outside it: a hire purchase agreement, a personal loan, buy-now-pay-later offered directly by the retailer and buying Through an online marketplace or other third party that takes your payment before passing it to the seller. Third-party buy-now-pay-later is inside it for agreements taken out on or after 15 July 2026. That marketplace line is the open question over a seller such as Back Market, which describes itself as a marketplace rather than the merchant, so pay the trader directly where you can. The guide says nothing at all about a network device plan, so treat that as unanswered rather than covered.

Where Section 75 does not reach, chargeback sometimes does, and it is weaker. Visa UK, read 11 September 2026, gives up to 120 days after the purchase to make a chargeback claim, tells you to contact the seller first, and states plainly that Chargeback is not legal right, and a refund is not guaranteed.

Tablets, on most of the same rules

Most of the rules above apply to a tablet unchanged. Two do not. Back Market's grades page, read 11 September 2026, writes its four grades for phones, and no Back Market page stating grades for a tablet could be opened that day, so the grades quoted above are quoted for phones only. The trade-in routes split as well. The Google Store UK trade-in page, read 11 September 2026, answers What devices are eligible for Google Store trade-in? with You can trade in your Google Pixel phones and watches, while the carousel higher up that page, headed Explore devices eligible for a trade-in, ends with Pixel Tablet, both read 11 September 2026. Google publishes both, so a Pixel Tablet owner should start the trade-in flow and read the quote it returns rather than take either line as the answer; no line on that page reaches a tablet of another make. Samsung takes tablets from various brands against a new Galaxy, and O2 Recycle lists Tablets among the device types it buys and names Apple, Samsung, Google, Sony, Motorola, Xiaomi and more among the brands, all read 11 September 2026.

On price, the pattern is the useful part. The Galaxy Tab S11 launched on 4 September 2025 from £799 for 128GB with Wi-Fi, per Tech Advisor read 11 September 2026, which put it a full year past launch when this page was checked, and that is the position the calendar section says to buy in. Samsung's own reductions arrive as stackable codes rather than a lower shelf price: SamMobile reported on 17 August 2026 that the code MATCH took up to 11% off a Tab S11, TAB11 added a Book Cover Keyboard Slim worth £139 or £199 depending on the model, TABTRADE took up to £150 extra off against a trade-in, and that you can stack multiple coupon codes to cut the price even further, read 11 September 2026. SamMobile put an expiry of 18 August 2026 on all three, but TAB11 is running on Samsung's own site: samsung.com/uk/tablets/all-tablets/, read 11 September 2026, offers a Slim Book Cover Keyboard worth up to £199 with code TAB11 against the Galaxy Tab S11 Series and sets the deadline in the footnote beneath it, Purchase from Samsung.com or Samsung Experience Stores by 22.09.26. Apply code at checkout to redeem. That date is 22 September 2026. So read the letters off Samsung's page rather than off a report of them, and treat the stacking as the pattern that lasts. Both Vodafone schemes named above reach tablet plans rather than phones alone, each at 20 percent on tablet and SIM-only plans, read 11 September 2026. One warning ties the two halves of this page together: TopCashback excludes Use of a promotional/voucher code not posted and approved by TopCashback, so stacking a Samsung code the cashback site has not approved cancels the cashback while you are busy cutting the shelf price.

The honest limit is one line long: no live UK price for an Android tablet, new or refurbished, could be read on 11 September 2026, because the sellers that stock one either refuse an automated read or price it in the browser. To a full desktop browser request that day, currys.co.uk, argos.co.uk and very.co.uk returned HTTP 403 and amazon.co.uk a robot shell, while samsung.com served its tablet page, its offer and its deadline in readable text and rendered the prices client-side, where such a request cannot reach them. Once you have chosen, our guide to setting up a new Android phone takes over.

Checked 17 September 2026: first publication. Every Play figure was read on the United Kingdom English storefront (gl=GB, hl=en_GB) on 11 September 2026, and every price from the seller's own page, or from the publication named beside it, on 5, 10 or 11 September 2026, as dated in the sentence using it. Expired Currys, Pixel 11, Samsung and iD Mobile offers, the Samsung UNiDAYS student bundle, idealo, hotukdeals contract postings and every grade-by-grade refurbished price were checked and withdrawn. eBay Certified Refurbished was checked and withdrawn as a described programme, and is named here because that is where a withdrawn candidate belongs: it scores 81 percent in the Which? survey cited above, higher than every refurbished seller recommended on this page except Samsung Certified Re-Newed, but eBay's own refurbished help pages returned an error rather than their terms on every attempt across four research passes, the last on 10 September 2026, so its grades, warranty and battery policy are described nowhere here. Vodafone's student rates are printed from its UNiDAYS partner page, read 11 September 2026, because vodafone.co.uk/student-discount returns 404 and vodafone.co.uk/students carries no student rate in its served page. To a full desktop browser request on 10 and 11 September 2026 these refused an automated read: currys.co.uk, argos.co.uk, amazon.co.uk, very.co.uk, backmarket.co.uk product and category pages, musicmagpie.co.uk, moneysupermarket.com, idealo.co.uk, uk.webuy.com and carphonewarehouse.com returned HTTP 403 or a robot shell; pricespy.co.uk served its home page and its product pages but returned a Cloudflare challenge on its search path; samsung.com renders its tablet prices in the browser; o2.co.uk and Three's shop pages redirect to waiting rooms; ee.co.uk renders its plan grid in the browser; tescomobile.com returned 404 to every pay monthly path tried. The rule on dates is the same everywhere on this page: every citation carries the date of the read that worked, and the hosts that refused a later read are named here. Five carry an earlier date for that reason and no other, each having returned HTTP 403 or a robot shell to a full desktop browser request on 11 September 2026: ofcom.org.uk, read 5 September 2026; quidco.com, read 10 September 2026; amazon.co.uk and musicmagpie.co.uk, read 5 September 2026; and moneysupermarket.com, whose guide to price rises is printed with its own publication date of 13 November 2025 because no read of it has succeeded. One further figure, the hotukdeals Pixel 10a price range, was captured on 5 September 2026 and is dated there. Everything else on this page, asa.org.uk, techadvisor.com, three.co.uk, which.co.uk was read on 11 September 2026. The twenty-nine Google Play listings were re-read separately on the United Kingdom storefront on 17 September 2026, and every rating, review count, install band, ads label, developer and listing date above comes from that re-read, not from the earlier one. Hence no live Android tablet price on this page, and no EE, O2, Sky or Tesco Mobile handset price. One question was asked and not answered: whether a network device plan or a retailer's own 0 percent handset financing is a regulated credit agreement, visible on a credit file, or covered by Section 75. MoneySavingExpert's Section 75 guide, read 11 September 2026, does not address either.