What I tell you three times is true.
I have a virgin mobile phone. It is not a bad plan for me. Others have listed the plan so I will not.
I did have trouble with them changing my plan so that it charged me 25 cents a day. They claim that I signed up for this when I bought the plan, but I still have the paperwork from the original, so that was an untruth. Then they blamed a “computer” glitch. Since I program for a living I am not tolerant of that excuse and I simply told them that if it happened again I would not only drop the plan but also contact the Attourney General in their state.
However, other than that, I have been content with the service. I only have a cel phone so that I have something with me if I break down.
I did it. Got a Nokia phone and 140 minutes for about $60. This should last me for at least five or six months.
The phone’s pretty cool – it even has a flashlight. The only thing I don’t like about the phone is that I can’t tell when the battery’s full charged. My other phone told me. Maybe I’ll read the manual. 
I have an Altell pay as you go plan that works fine. I pay about $45 a month. I’m the type that always loses gizmos and I didn’t want to lose my phone and have some joker rack up a huge bill before I could cancel it.
I’m probably going to get a cell phone later this month, and go with Virgin Mobile.
However, I don’t know [del]dick[/del] squat about cell phones, and I’ve been reading reviews about battery life on some models. Could some kind soul explain the difference between “off” and “standby mode”? If the phone is off does it get messages still, but not alert you until you turn it on? Or does being off mean you miss those calls all together?
I’ve never used standby, but yes you still get voicemail when the phone is off.
Oh, in case you were asking this as well…you won’t know that you missed a call unless they leave a message, unlike when the phone is on if a call comes in.
I know there’s massive differences between the functioning of mobile phones in the USA compared to the UK - but are you sure about this? I live in a dead spot for reception, and regularly get missed-call alerts from the previous day once I turn the phone on and head out of the house.
It may vary from plan to plan, or even country to country. I was refering to my experience with my virgin mobile phone since that’s what Elfkin is getting also.
It won’t give you the “missed call” alert on your main screen, but if you go into “Recent Calls” in your menu, you can get a list of calls you missed, even if the phone was off.
hmm, maybe somethings wrong with my phone then, because they don’t even appear there. I just took it that was the way it worked, thanks for letting me know that I seem to be missing a feature. 
I have both PAYG T-Mobile and PAYG Vodafone - the latter, though registered to me, is used by my daughter.
Both can be topped up from the handsets, using a registered debit card. I put GBP 5 on mine, and GBP 20 on hers per month - being 16, hers is used rather more heavily than mine.
Neither of us have had any reception problems, country-wide.
Every couple of years I get her the newest, snazziest phone from eBay, always “unlocked”. I then take her old one, switch SIM cards and dump my old one.
We’re both very happy with this arrangement.
Forgot to add to my post above :smack: …
There is no daily charge, and no required monthly top-up on either of these accounts.