Compare Deals and save hundreds of pounds Sim Only Deals Phone Deals Compare 5G SIM Only plans and find the best deal for you.
There’s two parts to this question: the 5G bit and the SIM Only bit. The first part is simple – 5G is worth opting for because it’s far faster than 4G, leading to a much-improved internet experience whether browsing websites, downloading apps, streaming video, playing online games, or anything else that requires data.
As for the SIM Only part, that’s potentially the cheapest way to experience 5G, as going SIM Only is cheaper than opting to Pay Monthly with a phone – with the caveat that you’ll need to source a 5G handset from elsewhere if you don’t already have one and want to get the best possible speeds.
You also tend to get more flexibility with SIM Only plans, as you’re usually only locked into a contract for either 30 days or 12 months, whereas plans that include a handset are typically 24 months long.
A number of networks offers 5G SIM Only deals, including O2, Sky Mobile, Three, Vodafone, Tesco Mobile, Asda Mobile, Giffgaff, iD Mobile, Lebara, Lyca Mobile, Smarty, Talkmobile, Virgin Mobile, EE and VOXI. However, you can expect more networks to start offering 5G over time, and all the latest and best 5G SIM Only deals can be found above.
Whichever network you choose you’ll be supplied with a trio SIM – that means a SIM card that includes all three possible sizes. So you can just compare it to your old SIM card or the slot in your phone and select the size you need. However, you will almost certainly need the smallest size, called a nano SIM.
There’s no clear-cut answer to that which would be the same for all people, but the single biggest factor is likely to be coverage, and in particular making sure there’s 5G coverage where you are. The only way to be certain of that is to use each network’s coverage checker, as even if they claim to have coverage in your town or city, there won’t necessarily be coverage in all parts of it. So enter your address on their coverage checkers and see how your street fares.
Beyond that, you may also want to consider prices (the latest of which you can see above), and whether unlimited data is available, more information on which can be found below.
At the time of writing that’s hard to say for sure, as the only real comparison is the number of towns and cities each network has brought 5G to – but they’re of varying sizes and varying levels of coverage. On top of which, every network that offers 5G is expanding its coverage rapidly, so any detail we put here would quickly become dated.
Your best bet is to check our coverage pages for more in-depth and up to date details of each network’s 5G and 4G coverage, and also to check their official coverage pages.
At the time of writing, Tesco Mobile, Three, Vodafone, O2, Smarty, Lyca Mobile, Lebara, iD Mobile, Giffgaff, Asda Mobile, EE and VOXI all offer unlimited data 5G SIM Only plans. Don’t be surprised if more networks offer this over the time though. The most up to data unlimited data deals can be found above.