Cheapest Tablet Data Plans

Everettpsycho on 26/05/2025 - 19:57

I picked up the Samsung S9+ deal a couple of months back and ended up with the 5G variant which, while great to have, isn't that useful as a feature without a SIM card and data plan. Similarly work were offloading some old lte enabled tablets so we have one of those for long and if we are away from home should the kids need it.

I'm now thinking it would be nice to have the data enabled on these devices seeing as we have the capability in them, but considering they will get very limited use I'm really not wanting to spend a whole lot to use that functionality as we could just hotspot on the occasions it's needed using our existing data pools.

Open to moving our phone plans if anyone has any hacks or tricks we could use. We are considering one of us moving to the farm source plan. I've been looking at data sidekick and data sharing in 2degrees but don't think that's going to work on the farm source plan.

Interested to know if anyone has any tips, hacks, workarounds or other advice for potentially getting this functionality working for the lowest possible outlay.

General Discussion

Comments

  • Latex Fist on 27/05/2025 - 11:35

    $5 welcome sims from Kogan Mobile, which is annoying to do monthly, or their $16/mo 15gb data plan at the moment.

    • Everettpsycho on 29/05/2025 - 08:32

      As it's a tablet the $5 plans would be fine, I don't need a phone number so could just swap out as needed. Could buy a couple and have them ready to activate when required I guess.

  • Jexla on 28/05/2025 - 09:15

    I'd just hotspot personally. Increase your plan on your phone in general, or just the months you travel and may need it, if need be.

    • Everettpsycho on 29/05/2025 - 08:36

      We are considering upgrading one of our plans to the farm source deal anyway which ja 150gb of data so that is an option. I don't think the farmsource plan offers shared data or data sidekick as it's not carryover data because it goes endless after that. The other option was move to a 2degrees plan and grab a prepaid SIM and just data share to it, that would cost about $10 a year to keep the thing active on top of the plan. Also wondered if that is an option maybe we just have one person pay for the big plan and share to an $8 prepay plan for others and no plan prepaid for the tablets.

  • mdsl32 on 29/05/2025 - 18:20

    The data sidekick is not needed on 2d
    Sharing to 5 devices is free on a $65 a month plan (Got an Uber discount to bring it down a bit)

    • Everettpsycho on 29/05/2025 - 19:56

      At $65 for the lead plan I'd probably be better in our current situation buying 2 farm source plans for $60. As that plan is endless and a business one I don't believe you can share the data to another SIM card like the standard personal plans with carryover data. If would be the ideal solution of the lead plans werent so much compared to farm source.

  • monkey on 29/05/2025 - 18:45

    Depending on what 'very limited use' means to you, Skinny data binge or 2° data clock.

    Works well for me

  • Nzfade on 29/05/2025 - 19:03

    If there's e-sim capability you could pick up a 3HK e-sim which gives you 35 GB that'll last you 365 days for ~55 NZD.

    • Everettpsycho on 29/05/2025 - 20:06

      This might be an option for one of them, as we are heading to the UK, USA and Canada in a month probably not the worst idea so we can use it there as well. Probably be more useful in a phone when travelling though.

      We was planning to pick up a Lebara SIM in the UK as I've seen they offer intro plans at stupid money, it's about $3 a month for 110gb so I'll be buying 4 of those to stick in both phones and tablets while we are there and axing the plans after month 1. Will keep a lookout here for things like mighty mobiles $1 intro plans as those things kept us going for months.

  • Everettpsycho on 08/06/2025 - 12:59

    Quick update on this, we moved to farm source and I was wrong, the sharing works on that plan to a prepay SIM. So we now have one pool of data and a cheap as prepay SIM in the tablet we only need to add $10 a year to get more data. So I'm happy with that solution, I'll also pop one in my phone as a backup plan so I can wield two networks as and when needed.

Login or Join to leave a comment
Login Join