I am in need of a new phone. I want the cheapest, lowest-tech model available. All I want to be able to do, literally, is make and receive calls. What’s your opinion?
Go to Target or Walmart and get a cheap prepaid phone, they have various models and carriers to choose from.
What Bijou Drains said. I used to have Virgin Mobile, and they had a plan where you only needed to “top up” your account every 3 months (I think) with $20 (again, I think). You could buy minutes as you needed them; they did have an automatic debit service, but I never used it and didn’t want it. Came out to under $8 a month for a phone that we barely used. We counted it a good deal and were satisfied with the service. (I’ve written about it here before; a search might dig up those posts.)
This was five or so years ago; I’m not certain what they offer now. ISTR something similar from Tracfone (available at Target, I think) where you could buy minutes for like $100 or so and be set for a whole year, but again I’m not certain whether that’s still offered.
I have an AT&T plan that costs $25.00 a quarter, or $8.33 per month. It is $0.25 per minute so the entire year at $100 means you have 400 minutes or about 8 minutes per week of use. For me I just have it for emergencies and an a call once in a while, for me it’s a bargin.
It really depends on how often you use the phone and how many minutes/month you expect to use as well as whether you prefer to have a contract or not. Pre-paid plans and pay per minute phones can get pricey (compared to contract plans with the big providers) if you talk a lot.
If you have them in your area, Cricket has no contract, unlimited talk and messaging plans (I know you don’t need messaging but it is included) for around 30-40 month. And the big carriers all seem to have bare-bones plans for around 40-50 (after all taxes and fees) for anywhere between 750-1000 minutes per month.
If you don’t talk on it much (or expect not to) many local carriers do have (unadvertised) emergency-use plans for very little (like $10/month) that include few or no minutes, but the per-minute price after the included 10 or 15 minutes can get pricey, so it really pays to shop around if you decide to go that route too.
You don’t need to go to Target. I ordered mine online.
It’s $.25/minute, available in blocks of 120 minutes. (There are other packages as well.) You can also buy a package that gives you no minutes, but all future purchases are double minutes for life.
The big problem is that without buying more minutes, the phone eventually “expires.” This is a problem for me because I almost never use the phone, but it’s about to expire. I already have about 400 minutes, and I have to buy 240 more in the next week.
If you want a lot of minutes, this is a good option:
Walmart sells the phones directly as well.
I like tracphone. I got a card that doubles the new minutes when you put them on. Since I don’t talk much, it’s fabulous.
T-Mobile’s prepayment increments include 1,000 minutes for $100, with the added benefits that the minutes last a full year, and any unused minutes roll forward if you buy an other $100 worth. I used a little over 800 minutes last year and think it’s the best deal I’ve seen.
The chief downside is that I find T-Mobile’s coverage is not as good as other major carriers.
I still have that Virgin Mobile plan that Snickers mentioned, and one of their cheap, basic $30 phones. Works great for my needs.
I have a TracFone which I bought online almost a year ago. It came with lifetime double minutes, and every three months or so I buy a 60 minute card for $20, which actually gets me 12 minutes. I currently have about 260 minutes on it which are good until mid-March. I don’t use it much, but it comes in handy often enough to be worth the money.
Yeah if you do TracFone right it comes out to about $7 per month.
I use Virgin Mobile. It’s $20 every 90 days to keep your account active, but if you if you go on their automatic top-up program, it’s only $15. The plan I’m on is $0.10 per day, whether I use the phone or not, then $0.25 a minute for calls. After the daily fees, it works out to about 24 minutes worth of calls for the $15 top-up, or 44 minutes if you do a $20 top-up. And any money you have left in your account at the end of 90 days stays in your account, so it’s sort of like having roll-over minutes. You can also buy a package of minutes, which will lower the cost per minute. I don’t make a lot of calls, so the basic $15 / 90 days works for me.
This is a site that compares prepaid plans (thanks to the member who originally posted it here): Prepaid Compare
I have the same plan. Same impression.
I figure mine is about that, and I have more minutes than I know what to do with. They roll every year, too. One phone got broken after a couple years and I got a new one and the minutes transferred over!
I call it the Phone of Dorian Grey.
I’m checking out the VIrgin Mobile TNT (?) for 19.99 at Target tomorrow. I believe it’s a pay as you go type of thing.
I’m really happy with my GoPhone. I paid ten dollars for it. The package was 25 but you get a free 15 dollar card, and I have a choice to pay 15 a month or 30 every three. I rarely use it, so my minutes accumulate as long as I pay before the time runs out. It’s good for talk and text, plus it has a few simple games. The phone seems really sturdy too. I’ve had it over two years now and it’s still fine, without using a case or anything. Once I dropped it and it looked all scrambled, but by the next day it was right as rain again.