Smart Phone - Best Buy

[Tradd]

I've seen Tracfone smartphone models at Target. Pay $75-$100 for phone. Lower end Android phones, but for someone looking for something basic, worth it, I guess. I think one of the other plans, such as a flat fee per month under Virgin Mobile or one of the other prepaid providers (AT&T, Verizon, etc.), might be a better option than Tracfone for something beyond basic.

[rodeosweetheart]

I did what Alan's wife did with the Virgin mobile I phone--bought the iphone and arrange dthe deal through Radio Shack--very affordable.

[Cypress]

Thanks for the advice. My tracfone is now 4 years old. It works fine but I wonder what the life span is meant to be. It's also a flip phone, nice and small, tucks right into my purse. Tracfone does make a smartphone for about $60. Than you buy your minutes as needed or per quarter. I bought it through Radio Shack and took advantage of the double minutes at point of purchase.

I saw an ad for TMobile mentioning that the rates for international calls are the same as domestic. Of course, the fine print wasn't mentioned but as I have tentative plans to travel to Italy next year, I was hoping to use the phone there as well as take pictures and send them home or into the cloud if possible.

I think a trip to Radio Shack is next. I generally receive good customer service when in the store.

[SteveinMN]

I saw an ad for TMobile mentioning that the rates for international calls are the same as domestic. Of course, the fine print wasn't mentioned but as I have tentative plans to travel to Italy next year, I was hoping to use the phone there as well as take pictures and send them home or into the cloud if possible.

I'm not sure which ad you saw, but I can tell you that T-Mobile will bill international calls at 20 cents a minute, which is more than most U.S. calling plans but far less than the other Big Three charge (right now; they well may co-opt T-Mo's exclusive on this).

Also keep in mind that every carrier out there uses the word "unlimited" very loosely. All of them have some cap one can reach which will affect your calling/data experience, whether it's a hard cap (e.g., no more data after your 2GB until the next billing period) or a throttle (e.g., no longer LTE data but EDGE or worse). Most folks will never hit that cap, but data-intensive users (people who watch video on their phones, stream music, or use their phone as their Internet router at home) can without much difficulty.

Finally, the T-Mo features you mention are on their postpaid plans, which require a credit check, unlike TracFone and other prepaid plans (including T-Mobile's).

[ToomuchStuff]

I wonder if the commercial you saw, had people sledgehammering the walls down? (saw it the other day but didn't pay much attention)


The reason I ask, is I believe "international" calls, originate from here in the USA. My understanding is not all the networks in Europe are compatible with the US ones, so your phone may not work over there (or there could be other charges or restrictions)

[Alan]

My understanding is not all the networks in Europe are compatible with the US ones, so your phone may not work over there (or there could be other charges or restrictions)

The technology is mostly the same. Digital cell phones in this country started with a hodge podge of technologies, CDMA (code division, multiple access), TDMA (time division, multiple access) GSM (Global System for Mobile communication), etc., with providers in this country setting up their networks to their preferred standard while virtually all of Europe consolidated on one standard, GSM.

These days, it isn't so much about the particular networks as it is the frequencies the carriers are allowed to transmit/receive on. Most modern phones will work within multiple frequency ranges.

[SnakeBlitz33]

Wow, glad I switched to Tracfone. My wife and I were paying $200 a month for two iPhones and then we wisened up and are now spending a grand total of $20 a month... saving that much money a month means a lot... especially when you really don't have the money to give!

[gail_d]

This may not work for Cypress--but after multiple years on my Tracfone flip phone, I upgraded last week to the LG 840g. It is not a smartphone, but it does have a capacitive touch screen. It costs about $30 on Amazon and gets triple minutes for the life of the phone. I easily transferred over my old phone number and the 700 minutes I had on the previous phone.

The LG 840g is a GSM phone running on the AT&T network, like my previous phone, which gets decent coverage where I live and travel. Not perfect--but good enough. It lets you easily use wifi, which I do have at home, so I can browse the Internet at home or wherever there's wifi. (You can also use Tracfone's mobile web also but it's slow and eats up minutes; nice to have in a pinch though.)

It has a camera, video camera, photo storage, calendar, alarm, e-mail push notifications, notepad, music player, Bluetooth connectivity, speakerphone, calculator, tip calculator, task list, & stopwatch. You can access Facebook, Twitter, and MySpace via the SNS feature. I've downloaded a number of free books from Project Gutenberg in the Qi00 format and they work just fine. It has good battery life. Comes in white or black. (And did I mention it was $30? I spent another whole $3.15 for a silicone skin.)

Those are the pros. Cons: It's a Java phone--apps and games are very limited. (I don't use my phone to play games, though.) While it resembles an iPhone, it is not a 'computer in a pocket' like the iPhone or Android phones. I've read on a Tracfone forum that it only shows YouTube videos in quarter-sized display. It has some weird quirks: on some screens, you can enter data via an onscreen horizontal keyboard; on others, you have to use the numeric keypad and "punch through" to get the letter you want.

But I think it will work fine for me for the specific uses I have in mind. I'm already using the simple calendar and notepad features more than I thought, and I'm currently re-reading _Little Women_ on my phone when I wait for the bus.

[ToomuchStuff]

gail_d,

Does it allow you to look up prices on something?

That is the only feature of a Smart phone I would somewhat like to have. (still using my $60 a year prepaid) Very few places would I even consider that, as most of my shopping is done before I go to a store, but I do have some damaged freight type of stores, that can have bargains, to more then retail.

[Glo]

I'm getting an iphone 5S. DS1 is adding me to his Verizon account for $40/month. That's unlimited calls, unlimited texting, and not sure what else. I've had a tracphone for several years and never liked it.