A lot has changed for the four main telcos in Malaysia for the prepaid segment over the past few months. Xpax introduced a brand new Xpax prepaid pack about a month ago, Digi launched its Live Prepaid pack in August last year, Hotlink decided to offer 8GB of free monthly internet for its Hotlink Fast earlier last year, and U Mobile has been constantly announcing attractive offers like free Music Onz, affordable data roaming and more.

If you are looking to get a new prepaid pack from any of these telcos, here’s an updated comparison of prepaid packs from the four main telcos in Malaysia – #Xpax, Hotlink Fast, Digi Live and U Mobile Power Prepaid.

Free Internet

If there’s one thing in common with all these starter packs, it’ll definitely be free internet – basic internet at 64kbps, as well as high speed internet. Get a starter pack and you can instantly connect to the internet without having to top up and subscribe to an internet plan. Xpax offers the most free internet with 20GB a month, followed by Hotlink and Digi with 8.5GB in total, and 3GB for U Mobile.

But, while these internet are free, they may not be available for everything. For instance, Digi and Hotlink’s free basic internet is for social messaging only, and the free high speed internet on Hotlink is limited to 4G LTE connectivity only. To make things even more complicated, Hotlink’s free high-speed internet is for weekends only (at 2GB every weekend), and Digi’s free high speed internet is for use on its Video Freedom and Music Freedom services (limited to 1GB each per week).

Xpax and U Mobile Power Prepaid offers the most straightforward prepaid packs. For the #Xpax prepaid plan, users get 10GB of high speed internet for Facebook usage (Facebook app or Facebook via mobile browser), as well as 10GB of free basic internet a month that can be used for all your browsing needs. On the other hand, U Mobile’s 2GB + 1GB of basic and high speed internet respectively can be used for anything.

However, with Facebook constantly being among the most-used apps among Malaysians, coupled with the fact that the Facebook app consumes a lot of data, the new Xpax plan looks to be better in the long run.

Internet Plans and Passes

Want more internet? Then get an internet pass, where each telco offers daily, weekly and monthly internet plans so you can pick one that is most suitable for your usage and budget. All the internet plans available from the four telcos are as below:

For daily internet passes, Xpax and Hotlink offer the most affordable plans at RM3 for 1GB of data. U Mobile does not provide any daily passes, while Digi’s pass with only 50MB of data is way too little to consider.

As for weekly internet plans, Xpax is the most affordable and most straightforward. Just pay RM10 to get 2GB of data valid for 7 days, and use it on everything. On the other hand, Hotlink and Digi breaks down the allocation, offering only 600MB and 500MB of data respectively, while adding on data for use on specific apps only – 300MB for YouTube with the Hotlink 600MB plan, and 500MB each for Video Freedom and Music Freedom for Digi’s 500MB weekly pass.

For monthly internet passes, again, Xpax is the easiest to understand and is one of the most affordable too – pay RM30 a month for 5GB or RM50 a month for 10GB; the data can be used for anything and everything you do online with your mobile phone.

U Mobile’s UMI plans are very affordable too with a whopping 12GB of high speed internet for only RM50 a month, but sadly, this is part of a 3x data promotion for all of its UMI Plans which expires on 15 February 2017. After that, the data quota will revert to the original offer – 1.5GB for RM20, 2GB for RM25, 2.5GB for RM30, and 4GB for RM50, which pales in comparison to what Xpax is offering.

Since Digi decided to offer 50% additional data for its monthly internet plans, they are very affordable too with up to 7.5GB of data for only RM48. Digi did not specify if this promotion is permanent, so let’s keep our fingers crossed that it is.

Add Ons

That’s not all, each of these telcos offer various add-on options too, so you can pick and choose one that fits your budget if you’d rather not subscribe to a lump sum monthly pass. For example, if you’re most active at night or love to leave things to download overnight, get a late night or midnight pass from Xpax or Hotlink.

There is a long list of additional add-ons, but as you can see, Xpax is the easiest to understand with only two price points and two validity options. Hotlink has two Daily Monster Passes (none for social network or chat apps), and in addition to that, they also offer ReloadPlus that comes with data and calls & SMS when you reload. However, the free data is for 4G LTE connectivity only, and the free credit is available for local calls and SMS only (not available for purchase of internet passes, IDD, etc.). Finally, Digi only offers passes that are valid for one day, while U Mobile only has a booster plan for data.

Final Words

Prepaid packs have always been very complicated. While things have simplified over the years and have gotten a lot more straightforward, some of the things can still be a little confusing. Take the free internet or internet passes for example, some are limited in terms of the connection (for 4G LTE only), while the others are limited to what type of apps you can use them for (social only, video only, etc.), and the time you can use it (weekend, midnight, etc.); even the free basic internet at 64kbps is limited.

What makes the new Xpax stand out is it sticks to its #NoKelentong tagline. The starter pack comes with 10GB of basic internet to be used on anything, anytime you want, and the 10GB Facebook internet is for Facebook, not just Facebook lite with limited speed, but Facebook as a whole be it on the full mobile app, the lite version of the app, or the mobile web version.

The internet passes are simple too, just pick the quota you want, subscribe, and you have data that can be used anytime you want be it on a weekday or on a weekend, or when you’re connected to 3G or 4G. Of course, there are customised add-ons as well, so if you need data specifically for midnight usage only, just pick the Late Night Internet add-on, of if you just need data to stay connected or to watch some videos on YouTube, just pick Facebook or YouTube internet, the choice is yours.

Disclosure: This article was sponsored by Celcom.

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