Pre-paid cellphone

[nolawitch58]

I'm finally breaking down and getting a cell phone. It will be a pre-pain one because I don't want to be trapped by some fucked up contract. Ideally, I'd like rollover minutes since the concept of something I pay for to use expiring is anathema to me. And I think roaming charges are idiotic. I'm looking at either Virgin Mobile or Tracfone. Anybody have any other suggestions?

Comments

[kitten-goddess.livejournal.com]

I am very happy with my $50 Virgin Mobile phone. As of 1/08, you can get one without a contract. You can choose from two plans: Either pay $0.18 a minute / text and no other fees, or $0.10 a minute / text plus $6.99 a month. If you choose the latter, you have to feed the phone about $20 every 3 months.

[sunfell.livejournal.com]

Sprint has Virgin, and they have decent and improving signal nationwide. Not that I'm biased or anything, but I've been with them for 12 years, and they've taken good care of me.

[ph4red.livejournal.com]

There's actually nothing saying you "have" to get a contract - most are just conditioned to think that way. If you're needs are just basic phone and texting, there are plenty of phones available that don't cost much at the full price (< $100) and you can just go month to month with whatever plan you choose. The higher network you decide to go as far as capabilities (3G etc), the higher the phone price.

I've got T-Mobile and still have my little rinky-dink V3 Razr and have been out of contract for a couple of years. Does what I need - have no issues with it.

[happydog.livejournal.com]

DON'T DO VIRGIN MOBILE. It's like AOL in 1990, only on the phone. THE SPAM, IT BURNS.

[(Anonymous)]

I've been looking at Straight Talk. For $45 a month, unlimited talk and text and no contract.

Tracfone is good too if you don't use it a lot. It's got a double minutes thing with some phones that cuts the cost in half, too.

Stay away from Virgin. They just got bought by Sprint.

[gabbysmom.livejournal.com]

My friends both have prepaids, I think through T-Mobile. They initially put in about $100 worth of credit which meant it wouldn't expire, and add about $20 a year on top of that.

Sorry I'm so fuzzy on the details. I'll try to gt more info for you.

[kelli217.livejournal.com]

Tracfone uses AT&T -- they resell. You can then call AT&T customers and not use their minutes. They can also call you even if they have a GoPhone account (AT&T's prepay) and not use their minutes. Unfortunately, Tracfone does not extend the same courtesy.

They also share the same local voicemail access numbers, so you can use a land line to send voicemail messages between the two systems. I think they even share the email/SMS gateway (@txt.att.net).

[ms-issicran.livejournal.com]

LOL...loving the word play there...like it won't be a post-pain phone no matter what you decide to go with!

[nolawitch.livejournal.com]

I saw that typo and left it. Freudian slip of the fingers.