I need to have a cell phone, mainly to receive calls. I had one, got fed up with it, and let it expire. So I still have the phones but no longer the service. The actual phone has been through a lot, so I wouldn’t mind getting a new one if it’s inexpensive, but could just use the one I have now if necessary.
Bonus: I hope to spend a good portion of June in Germany, so if I can find an inexpensive phone set which will (also/only) work with a German SIM card I’d be very indebted.
I don’t know about Germany, but what I did recently when I decided that I just really needed a cell phone finally, is that I asked my best friend to put me on his plan. I hardly ever use it, so it doesn’t eat into the minutes that we share very much, and it’s very, very cheap. Twenty bucks a month, you can’t beat that with a stick! I just transfer the money into his bank account online every month, he pays the bill, it works out great. I did have to pony up almost $200 for a deposit, because his credit sucks, but I’ll get that back after I’ve had it for a year, just like he got his back a year after he got his.
If you want to use SIM cards, you have to stick with the GSM network. In America, I think that leaves you with only two practical carriers: Cingular (now combined with AT&T Wireless) and T-Mobile. As far as I know, Cingular usually offers better coverage but T-Mobile is usually a bit cheaper.
Make sure you get a tri-band or quad-band GSM phone. I think Cingular’s website has a section that explains international phone usage, but it’s probably tailored towards roaming with your Cingular SIM and not using a foreign SIM from an actual German carrier. If you want to use somebody else’s SIM card, you have to first “unlock” your phone so it’ll accept non-Cingular SIM cards. This process varies in difficulty from phone to phone.
As for WHICH phone to pick… you know, in this day and age, it’s not hard to find a very usable cell phone for cheap, especially if you only want to make normal calls and not use any of the advanced data/photo/internet/video capabilities of the more glitzy models.
My suggeston is this: Go into a Cingular or T-Mobile store and ask one of the employees there which models are tri/quad-band and would work in Germany. Among them, choose three or four that you like and write down their make and model numbers. Then, go home and Google “(phone model) unlock” and see which ones are unlockable.
When you’ve settled on one, you can either go back to the store and buy it there or you can buy it online from places like Amazon.com or Buy.com; both offer rebates that can often dramatically slash the cost of a phone. You get the same contract and plan from the same carrier, you just don’t pay the same retail price.
(By the way, if international usage isn’t TOO important to you – like if you’re only going to be in Germany for less than a month over the next few years – you might want to drop that as a requirement. That’ll give you a lot more flexibility with both your carrier and your phone, since you would then be free to consider Verizon and Sprint and all their phones.)
By the way, Consumer Reports (online or print) is an excellent source of information if you’re willing to buy the magazine or pay $5 for a month of online access.
But anyway, here are some of their top phone recommendations as of 04/06:
Cingular: Motorola RAZR V3, Sony Ericsson W600i, Motorola V220.
T-Mobile: Motorola V360, Nokia 6010.
Among them, the Motorola RAZR V3 is a thin, sleek phone that was WILDLY popular the last few years. You can get it for $-50 at Amazon.com (yes, that’s negative – the phone is $150 and the rebate is $200, meaning you earn $50 by getting the phone).
I kind of see these as separate requirements. I know I can buy a “disposable” phone in Germany for a semi-reasonable price. If I can get one phone that serves both purposes, great. But if it’s less expensive to get two different phones I’m good with that, too.
It’s not necessarily more expensive, but you do have to spend time making sure the phone will work in another country and also making sure that you can unlock it yourself. Depending on how technically inclined and how patient you are, this may or may not be a huge pain in the ass.
(By the way, we simulposted a second ago, so make sure you see the post about the RAZR. I just noticed that deal comes with a free Bluetooth headset, making it even sweeter.)
Yeah, that’s the last thing I put up last night so was surprised to find your post before mine. Thanks!