Giga Comparison: But M1

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Giga came out swinging only 3 weeks ago as a new subsidiary/mvno (though they do not call it that) of StarHub as a response to Singtel’s GOMO Plan. It was a great plan, but had its thunder stolen by M1 with their revamped plans that beat Giga’s plan on almost every front at the same price. Is there any reason to get Giga over M1?

Let's take a look of Giga’s plan and compare them with M1.

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From a quick overview, M1 has Giga beaten on every front. However, Giga does have a few hidden advantages.

Rolling Over Data

  • You can roll over unused data up to 25GB for up to two months. However, M1 does have unlimited Spotify streaming and unlimited weekend data

Cheaper Top Up of Smaller data packages

  • For data top ups below 5GB, Giga has cheaper data top ups at $2/GB
  • However, M1 does have 5GB more data than Giga in their base packages and extremely cheap big data add-ons. For example, you can get 10GB for $10 or 50GB for $20

Cheaper Small Data Packages for SEA and Oceania

  • Giga charges a flat $5 a GB for overseas data that can be used in Australia, China, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Japan, Korea, Macau, Malaysia, Myanmar, New Zealand, Philippines, Taiwan, Thailand, Vietnam.
  • There is no data roaming for other regions on Giga at all.
  • On the other hand, M1 only has data passports to let you use your local data overseas, however their costs do start at $10 and can go up to $25 for the regions that Giga is supported.Giga does a lot of things right. Features such as data roaming, not much throttling over Starhub’s typical speeds, not compromising on texts and calls, a decent amount of data and more are nice to have.

It also brings new innovate features, such as the ability to sign up and register with your ID quickly through their mobile app and data rollover which we have not seen before.

It’s just that M1 has revamped their plans with even more sweetness at the same price. The benefits over M1 are not many, with the roaming one probably being the biggest advantage.

Coverage aside, M1 is generally a better option with more data, free weekend data, VOLTE, cheap large data add-ons,and in-store support. Unless you need the cheap data roaming for those specific countries, it is hard for me to recommend Giga over M1.P.S. the giga app:

The app is quirky looking, well designed and functions quite well, however the app gif graphics are loaded every time the app is launched so it will eat up data (like 3MB for each page.)

Not a big deal for local use with the enormous amount of local data, but for roaming data it might be a huge deal.

Additionally, the app on Android only runs on Nougat and up, and the iOS app is very slow on the iPhone 5s.