First EE Mobile bill charges

[eliminator_pest]

My first bill coming from O2 and amazed to see I am charged for picture message and using "emoticons" as these are classed by EE as pictures ??? Is that normal ? Should i keep strictly to pure text and never use emoticons again......new to me....and at @ £1 per message could add up nastily....my bill says this ~

"Picture messages may not be included in your plan. Sometimes, texts to large numbers of people or texts that use emoticons are automatically converted into picture messages"

[bristolian]

Android phones can be configured to use the Unicode text set, meaning that all modern emoji are sent over SMS and thus included in text message allowances.

This won't apply to animated-GIF, but an Android phone should always give an on-screen warning of "converting to MMS" whenever you're inserting content not supported by SMS.