Checked 14 September 2026
Six channels sell Android phones in the United Kingdom, and they are not selling the same thing. The maker sells at its list price; a network sells airtime with a handset folded into it; a marketplace sells stock owned once already. This page prices each channel on 14 September 2026 and names the add-on to refuse at the checkout. The blunt part: three large UK retail sites refused this page’s own request on 13 September 2026 and that reading has not been restamped, so their prices are absent here rather than guessed.
Followed a 2011 or 2012 link about half price pay as you go phones with a free tastecard, a free tablet with a contract, or the Nexus 4 going SIM free at Carphone Warehouse? All three are treated below: the tastecard offer, the free tablet offer, the Nexus 4 price. Our answer and the table ↓
Google Store UK is our answer for a Pixel because it listed the Pixel 10a from £429, reduced from £499, with free delivery and returns, read on 14 September 2026.
Samsung UK is our answer for a Galaxy because its own buy page put the Galaxy A57 5G 128GB from £404.00 with the code A575 on 14 September 2026, with the 256GB at £474.00 on the same code and out of stock, a price its own page prints in full beside the starter kit and the trade in range.
An unlocked handset plus a 30 day SIM is our answer for pay as you go because 1pMobile listed 5GB with unlimited calls and texts at £5 per 30 days on 14 September 2026, with no term to leave.
Data checked: 14 September 2026.
Each page was requested with a full desktop browser user agent, following redirects. Where a site answered with an error or a robot check, this page prints the HTTP code and no price: a refusal is a result of our own request, not a company declining to publish. Claims about the 2011 to 2013 news posts are dated to the original post. Nothing here rests on handling any phone.
The map of who sells what
The shop most of the old links point at is no longer a shop. Currys plc dates Carphone Warehouse to 1989 on its own corporate history page, then records the change on the same timeline: 2021 Dixons Carphone PLC becomes Currys PLC, with all previous consumer brands becoming one UK brand, Currys.
The group’s Our Brands page names three: Currys, Elkjøp and iD Mobile. Both pages, read on 14 September 2026, describe a group trading as Currys in the United Kingdom and Ireland and running its own mobile virtual network, iD Mobile. The carphonewarehouse.com domain still resolves, but answered HTTP 403 to this page’s own request on 13 September 2026, so what that address sells on 13 September 2026 is not described here.
Six channels are left, in the order of the table above: Google direct; Samsung direct; the big retailers, from Currys, Argos and John Lewis to Amazon and the supermarkets that sell prepaid handsets beside the groceries; a network contract; an unlocked handset with a pay as you go SIM; and the marketplaces and refurbishers, on stock owned once already. The phone is the same phone. The choice is about what is attached to it. For which handset to pick, this site has a separate UK buying guide built around support end dates.
Buying direct from the maker
The Google Store UK Pixel 11 page listed from £879, or £24.42 a month over 36 months, read on 14 September 2026. The same page states a 0 percent effective interest rate over 36 months on devices above £180, next day delivery at no extra cost, free returns, a trade in saving of between £50 and £675, and a bundled case, 67 W charger and charging stand on an offer the page dates only as ending 24/09. Its Pixel 10a page listed from £429 the same day, reduced from £499, with trade in worth between £50 and £390.
Samsung sells the same way. Its Galaxy A57 5G buy page put the phone from £404.00 with the code A575 on 14 September 2026, plus a starter kit stated to be worth £125 and between £30 and £264 off with a trade in. A code is not a price. It is a price with an expiry.
The retail comparison this page intended to run did not happen. On 13 September 2026, requested with a full desktop browser user agent and redirects followed, the Currys mobile phones listing answered HTTP 403, the Argos SIM free listing answered HTTP 403, and carphonewarehouse.com answered HTTP 403. The John Lewis mobile phones listing closed the connection before any HTTP status arrived. An Amazon UK search answered HTTP 202 and returned a robot check page of about two kilobytes instead of results. No price from any of those five is printed here, because none was read.
That is the modern form of an old story. A UK news post of 22 November 2012 reported that Carphone Warehouse, which had been selling the Nexus 4 on O2, Vodafone and Three contracts, had begun selling it SIM free at £389: just over £100 more than Google Play, but cheaper than the eBay resellers charging a premium while Google was sold out, and guaranteed unlocked. A follow up post of 16 January 2013 reported that price rising to £449. A retailer’s SIM free premium is a stock premium, and it moves in whichever direction the shortage does.
Pay as you go, split in two
The 18 February 2011 post that sends readers here covered a Carphone Warehouse promotion: half price pay as you go handsets, and a free tastecard dining membership with any pay as you go phone. The post body was not recovered, and which Android models it listed is not known. The MoneySavingExpert forum thread that linked to it the same evening still carries the detail, and was read on 14 September 2026: Buy a PAYG phone and there are some for as little as £5, and get a free tastecard. You need to get a top up so for £15 and a cheap phone to have as a back up you get a tastecard worth £69. Make sure you remove the geek squad option too.
That deal has no modern equivalent, because its two halves came apart. The cheap route now is an unlocked phone bought once, plus a SIM chosen separately and changed when it stops being the best one. On 14 September 2026, 1pMobile listed pay as you go at 1p per minute, 1p per text and 1p per megabyte, an entry offer to join for £5 with a SIM carrying £10 of credit, and 30 day bundles with unlimited calls and texts at £5 for 5GB, £10 for 50GB, £15 for 100GB and £20 for 200GB. SMARTY listed rolling monthly plans the same day at £6 for 5GB, £8 for 16GB, £9 for 20GB, £15 for 150GB, £17 for 200GB and £20 for unlimited data. Neither is a discount off anything. That is the whole price.
Cheap does not have to mean short lived. Google states on its Pixel update page, read on 14 September 2026, that Pixel 8 and later phones will get updates for seven years starting from when the device first became available on the Google Store in the US
, and lists the Pixel 10a among them; that phone was listed from £429 on the Google Store UK on 14 September 2026. For a phone already past that horizon, this site sets out what to do once the patches stop. Prepaid buyers who would rather keep a card off file can load Play balance from a UK Google Play gift card instead. The honest test of any half price claim is the total leaving your account over the period you keep the phone.
Contracts, gifts and the arithmetic
A UK news post of 23 June 2011 reported The Carphone Warehouse giving a free tablet away with some phone contracts. Coolsmartphone, whose 28 June 2011 article credits that post, was read on 14 September 2026 and names what Carphone Warehouse put on the table: the HTC Flyer, Samsung Galaxy Tab, Archos 7, Hannspad and the Blackberry Playbook
. The same article sets out the Phones 4U offer it was following: this HTC Desire HD for £36 per month (24 month O2 deal) and this Wildfire S deal for £32 per month (24 month O2 deal). Both deals include not just any tablet but a brand new HTC Flyer.
A reader comment there adds that the Desire HD deal required £259 upfront. The prices and terms in the androiduknewsetc post itself were not recovered.
Twenty four months at £32 is £768 of airtime before any upfront payment, for a phone and a tablet. That arithmetic is still the whole method: multiply the monthly by the term, add the upfront, and only then look at the gift. The modern trap is that the monthly is not one number. Samsung’s own buy page advertised the Galaxy A57 5G 256GB at £17 a month with £129 upfront on an O2 50GB plan when it was read on 14 September 2026, and in the same line stated that the monthly cost becomes £19.50 from 1 April 2027 and £22.00 from 1 April 2028. That banner does not state the length of the contract, so the total cannot be worked out from it, and this page does not guess one.
Four questions settle most gift offers. Does the tablet carry its own SIM, and a second monthly bill. Is it handed over at the till or claimed by post against a deadline. How long will it keep getting security updates, usually a shorter window than the phone’s. And what does the same phone cost SIM free on the day the offer is in front of you, since that figure plus a SIM is the real competitor. For managing it afterwards, this site has checked what the UK network apps let you do.
Add-ons, blocklists and returns
The oldest tip in this set of posts is still the best one. The February 2011 forum post ended Make sure you remove the geek squad option too
, and the November 2012 post noted the same retailer offering Geek Squad cover at £14.99 against breakages, cracked screens and water damage. Cover added quietly at a checkout is the thing to look for before paying, on every channel. Google’s Pixel Care+ page, read on 14 September 2026, prices its own openly: for the Pixel 10a, £4.99 a month or £99 for two years, with front screen, back glass and battery repairs at no charge, unlimited damage claims and a £59 excess; or £6.99 a month, or £129 for two years, adding loss and theft at three claims a year with a £79 excess. A plan must be activated within 60 days of purchasing a new device from the Google Store
, and afterwards manufacturing defects will still be covered by the standard two-year manufacturer’s warranty
. Check what your home insurance covers before adding a second policy.
This page cannot quote the regulator on locking, because Ofcom’s own page on the ban on selling locked handsets answered HTTP 403 to our own request on 13 September 2026. Read the listing for the words SIM free or unlocked before paying, and if the seller is a marketplace trader rather than a shop, ask in writing.
For anything bought second hand, the check comes before the money. giffgaff’s help article on barred and blocklisted handsets, written 20 July 2026 and read on 14 September 2026, says the only definitive way to test a handset bought elsewhere is a CheckMEND report, for a small fee (£1.99)
, using the IMEI from dialling *#06#. CheckMEND, run by Recipero Ltd and read the same day, states that its report says whether an item is recorded as stolen, lost, subject to an insurance claim, blocked by a mobile network, or not permitted for resale. Warranty is the other half of that check, and on an imported handset it shrinks. Samsung’s UK warranty information page, read on 14 September 2026, states that From 1 February 2026, Samsung smartphone, tablet and selected wearable products placed on the market by Samsung companies outside the UK and brought into the UK by third parties will have a maximum warranty term of 1 year
, and that a claim needs the original proof of purchase
, with the serial number on the product complete and undamaged. A marketplace seller who cannot hand over that receipt cannot hand over the cover either.
The right to change your mind is a distance selling right, not a shop right, so a phone collected in store does not carry it, and a faulty phone is a separate matter. For an online order, regulation 30 of the Consumer Contracts (Information, Cancellation and Additional Charges) Regulations 2013, read on 14 September 2026, sets the cancellation period for a sales contract at 14 days after the day the goods come into your physical possession. GOV.UK guidance for distance sellers, read the same day, adds the consequence for the seller: If you do not tell the customer about their right to cancel, they can cancel at any time in the next 12 months.
Count the 14 days from delivery, not from the order.
Where this leaves the six channels
The channel that wins is the one whose catch you can check on the day. On 14 September 2026 that was the maker’s own store, twice, because its pages opened and printed their terms. That is not a claim that Currys, Argos or John Lewis is dearer, only a record of what could be read.
Not as a separate brand. Currys plc records on its own history timeline that in 2021 Dixons Carphone PLC became Currys PLC, with all previous consumer brands becoming one UK brand, Currys, and its Our Brands page lists only Currys, Elkjøp and iD Mobile. The carphonewarehouse.com domain still resolves, but answered HTTP 403 to our own request on 13 September 2026.
It costs more on the day and often less over the term. The Google Store UK listed the Pixel 10a from £429 outright on 14 September 2026. A contract spreads the same handset across the airtime bill, and Samsung's page for the 256GB on an O2 deal, read the same day, stated the monthly rising to £22.00 by April 2028. Multiply the monthly by the term and add the upfront before comparing.
Buy the handset unlocked once, then choose the SIM separately. On 14 September 2026 1pMobile listed pay as you go at one penny per minute, text and megabyte, with 30 day bundles from £5 for 5GB, and SMARTY listed rolling monthly plans from £6 for 5GB. Neither carries a term, so the SIM can be changed whenever a better one appears.
Read it first, and price it against cover you may already hold. The Google Store UK page read on 14 September 2026 prices Pixel Care+ for the Pixel 10a at £4.99 a month or £99 for two years, with a £59 excess on damage claims, and says a plan must be activated within 60 days of purchase. It adds that manufacturing defects stay covered by the standard two year manufacturer warranty.
Get the IMEI from the seller and run a history report before money changes hands. giffgaff's help article on barred and blocklisted handsets, written 20 July 2026 and read on 14 September 2026, points to a CheckMEND report for a small fee of £1.99. CheckMEND states that its report shows whether an item is recorded as stolen, lost, subject to an insurance claim, blocked by a network, or not permitted for resale.
Regulation 30 of the Consumer Contracts (Information, Cancellation and Additional Charges) Regulations 2013, read on 14 September 2026, sets the cancellation period for a sales contract at 14 days after the day the goods come into your physical possession. GOV.UK guidance adds that where a seller fails to mention that right, the customer can cancel at any time in the next 12 months. A phone collected in a shop is not a distance sale.
Checked 14 September 2026: first publication; prices re-read that day from the Google Store UK Pixel 11, Pixel 10a and Pixel Care+ pages, the Samsung UK Galaxy A57 5G buy page and the Samsung UK warranty information page, 1pMobile and SMARTY, with the Currys plc history and Our Brands pages, the Google Pixel update page, giffgaff help and CheckMEND, and regulation 30 of the Consumer Contracts Regulations 2013 with the GOV.UK distance selling guidance. Five sellers are named without a price because their pages did not open on 13 September 2026, and that reading has not been restamped: Currys, Argos and carphonewarehouse.com answered HTTP 403, John Lewis closed the connection with no HTTP status, and Amazon UK answered HTTP 202 with a robot check page of about two kilobytes. Ofcom’s own page on the ban on selling locked handsets also answered HTTP 403 on 13 September 2026, so that rule is given here only as a caution to read the listing, and is not quoted.