Welcome to Free Line Rental Mobile, a mobile phone comparison site originally set up to compare free line rental deals, which has since expanded somewhat!

Free Line Rental Deals

A couple of years back Free Line Rental contracts were all the rage, however problems with the complexity of these deals created a few issues. Some retailers that “got it wrong” went out of business as they were literally giving away contracts at a loss. On the flip side, other retailers imposed so many restrictions on thier customers that many were lift disapointed when they failed to actually get the free deal they were hoping for. To find free line rental deals on this site you can just hit “Search” in the widget to the right (without choosing any other options), or you can click to view this page which has some sample deals and more importantly information on how these deals work, and how to be successful in your quest for a 100% free mobile phone contract!

Automatic or Instant Cash Back Deals

Due to some of the issues with free line rental deals (mentioned above) automatic or instant cashback deals became more popular. These deals do not promise a free contract, but they do guarantee the amount of cashback you will receive. Typically cashback is sent out at the same time the phone is dispatched to you. These deals are easy to understand and pretty well zero risk in terms of the amount you will end up paying. You can find cashback deals in this site using the “order by” filter in our widget, though it would be better to click here for a more detailed explanation with some sample deals.

Free Gifts With Mobile Phone Contracts

Since this site was launched there has been an explosion in the number of free gifts being offered as incentives with mobile phone contracts. The most popular items are consumer electronics, and in particular other mobile devices that naturally fit / sit alongside a mobile phone purchase. We will sumarise the most popular gift deal categories below, but before we do, we would like to make the following point:

There is no such thing as a free lunch!

These gifts are “Free” with your contract, in that they are bundled in with the total cost, but there will always be a trade off. Either:

• You accept a lower spec handset than you could otherwise have had
• You forgoe the cash alternative that may be on offer with the contract you choose

Either way you will always be trading something off for your “free” gift. On that note, it is always worth comparing the cash value of any gift you may be interested in to the amount of auto or instant cash available with an equivalent deal.

Free Laptop Deals

(To find free laptop deals look at the “free gift” filter option in our search widget)

The number of laptop deals available on any given day can vary wildly, subject to stock availability. For this reason, it is worth keeping an eye on the deals available for a couple weeks prior to your contract coming up for reneway to get a feel for what is available, and, if necessary delaying the order for your new phone for a couple of weeks if you have to wait for the right product to come back into stock. Availability issues aside, free laptop deals are by far the most popular free gifts available, and it is pretty easy to see why:

1. Laptops are mobile devices which complement and can work in conjunction with your phone.
2. The life cycle of a laptop (for many people) is similar to that of a mobile phone contract

Moore’s Law states / predicts that (based on the number of transistors that cab be placed on a circuit board) the processing power of computers  will double every two years. Add to that other innovations such as multi core processors and, as you probably know, there is a huge performance difference between laptops manufactured 18 to 24 months apart, which happens to be the most popular contract lenghts for mobile phones these days (12 month contracts having given way to 18 month contracts due to lower running / upgrade costs). By rolling up your phone contract with your laptop upgrades you can make some significant savings, as well as making the purchase more convenient. You can find more information on free laptop deals here, along with information on “how free” these deals really are!

Games Consoles

Games consoles also make very popular free gifts when it comes to incentivised mobile phone contracts. Perhaps the reason is that the consoles themselves make great gifts for kids. Our guess is many of the free consoles ordered with phone contracts are actually parents who go on to give them away to their children, certainly, orders for this type of contract spike prior to Christmas, indicating that many people do actually wrap up their free gifts, and go on to give them as presents!

As for the consoles themselves, there are lots available, we will quickly run through some of the most popular to give you an idea of what is available:

Xbox Deals

The Xbox is arguably the best console on the market, currently coming in several flavours including the Xbox 360 350GB, 4GB and Arcade. As you may guess, the difference between 4GB and 250Gb is the amount of storage available internally on the Xbox. Whilst the 4GB machine can play all the games, it cannot store them onto the internal drive which you can do on the 250GB, so you always have to play from the disk the game came on. Furthermore, there is no room for Movies, downloads or game add ons such as maps. The Xbox Arcade is an older model that was replaced by the 4GB slim.

On top of these variants you can also order these consoles with the “Kinect” device (look for Xbox with Free Kinect or similar in the gifts drop down list in our widget). The Kinect add on is similar to the Nintento Wii in that it allows you to physically interract with your console. Unlike the Wii it is not reliant on motion sensors but uses some image recognition / modtion detection wizzardry, i.e. the Kinect device has a camera which it uses to track movements.

Sony Play Station Deals

The Sony Play Station 3 (PS3) is the main rival to the Xbox, these are powerful consoles with a good list of titles available. Furthermore some models are now fitted with a Blue Ray player. Sony also have a range of hand held consoles, the PSP or Play Station Portable. These are popular free gifts to order with mobile phones as they are, like the phones themselves portable devices. Although many phones can now play games directly they cannot really compete with the PSP in terms of gameplay, althgough, interestingly Sony Ericsson are to release a handset based in part on the PSP which promises a far higher level of gameplay than you would normally experience on a mobile phone.

The Play Station “Move” add on, is similar to the Nintendo Wii allowing more interactive games to be played.

To find deals offering a free play station with your mobile phone, use the “Free Gift” drop down list in our search widget to select the console you are interested in.

Nintendo Deals

Nintendo consoles are not as powerful as either the Xbox or PS3, and they seem to have retreated from the mainstream console market to focus on their Wii (interactive) and DSI (portable) platforms. What really keeps Nintendo competitive in the market are the highly addictive games they have which are unique to their platform, coupled with the high level of innovation within their products which often gives them an advantage over the other manufacturers, the Nintendo Wii being the most obvious example. The Wii is Nintendo’s famous interractive gaming system that was so far ahead of its rivals it is only now, a few years after its release being seriously challenged by the Move (PS3) and Kinect (Xbox).

Like Sony, Nintendo have a portable console (the Nintendo DS) which makes the ideal partner for a mobile phone as it can be carried and played on the move.