Being the klutz I am, I’ve lost my cell phone. Being the college student and International Man of Mystery that I am, I really need to get a new one. Unfortunately, neither International Men of Mystery nor college students have a lot of disposable cash, so I’d like to buy a used or refurbished phone. Can anyone help me out with this? How can I quickly tell if a phone is compatible with verizon? Has anyone already done this? Can anyone recommend a phone that’ll be ~$100 without rebate?
Any help you could offer would be greatly appreciated.
If you see TDMA or GSM, forget it; that phone won’t work on Verizon. Any CDMA phone should work on Verizon, but if you get a phone that was used on another network, make sure it’s unlocked - some other carriers put a security code on their phones that keeps you from activating it on another network without knowing the code.
Note, however, that “should” isn’t “will”. If you get a phone that was intended for another CDMA carrier, you can probably get Verizon to activate it on your account (or do it yourself if you’re brave enough), and it’ll probably work at least for making and receiving calls in your home area, but some features might not work if the other provider handles them differently. Sometimes there are different versions of the firmware for different carriers.
A tri-mode phone (digital + analog) is recommended for America’s Choice plans, and required for National SingleRate plans. If you have a different plan, or if you have AC and don’t care about analog coverage, you can get by with a digital-only phone.
As far as finding cheap phones with no contract… try RadioShack. The Motorola V60s was recently discontinued, and rumor has it that RS still has some of them at close-out prices.
