Ipad

[DeeLicious]

Mate of mine got an iPad thru Vodafone. Her contract has come to an end, so she now owns the ipad. Vodafone have convinced her to keep paying £5 per month as the iPad still has a Vodafone SIM Card. Neither she nor I are technical folk. Does my friend need to maintain an arrangement with Vodafone in order to keep operating her iPad, or is her £5-a-month arrangement a waste of her money?

[woofgang]

If the ipad is not locked to vodafone, she can get a sim from whoever she likes. O2 currently have an offer of 12 gb for 40 quid and you get a year to use it

[Guilbert53]

Does she actually use the SIM in the iPad?

An iPad can be used on wi-fi (without the need for a Sim) so if it is mostly used in and around the house or in pubs or cafes with wi-fi she may not even need a sim at all (many iPads / Tablets are sold that don't even take a Sim and use wi fi only)

However if it used OUT of the house, in places where wi-fi is not available, then she will need the sim to get a phone signal to allow her to access the internet.

So it all depends on how the iPad is used.

1) Mostly in the house with wi-fi - she probably DOES NOT need the sim

2) OUT of the house in places without wi-fi - she DOES need the sim.

£5 is not a lot to keep a sim in her tablet so as long as she uses it outside the house (without access to wi-fi) then I suggest she keeps the sim.

p.s. She could always "test" it by taking the sim out and then carry on using the iPad. If she finds there are places were she cant use it because she cant access the internet and has to put the sim back in then she needs to keep paying for the sim.

One final thing. You can still USE an iPad without access to a sim or wi-fi, if you are just using apps already installed on the iPad (that don't use the internet).

But the minute you want to use the internet you need access to either wi-fi or access to a phone network via a SIM.

[sherrardk]

I don't have a sim in my iPad.

[chrissa1]

I don’t have a sim in my iPad either. It works from my WiFi router which in my case is, EE.
An iPad can work off any WiFi router if you have the password to join the network.
Does your friend have WiFi in her house?

[woofgang]

If she does decide she want to have a sim, she should check around to make sure that she is getting a good deal.

[Buenchico]

Your friend needs to find out how much data she'd get from a fiver a month. It can't be much!
https://www.vodafone.co.uk/shop/bundles-and-sims/sim-only-data-bundles/

Then she needs to decide whether she actually needs to get data via a mobile phone network (or whether wifi access only will suffice).

If she actually needs data from a mobile phone network she needs to work out how much she might need (using one of the many online calculators that are available) and decide whether or not her fiver's worth will be enough. If it's not, she then needs to find out whether her iPad is locked to the Vodafone network (I doubt it) and whether she can get a better deal elsewhere. (She almost certainly can. Vodafone is expensive).

If your friend is happy to connect to the internet solely via wifi though (using her home/office router or any of the countless free wifi services available in Wetherspoons, Costa, Tesco, Asda, etc,etc) then she doesn't need to have a SIM at all.