More muncane but practical: cell phone

[Freewill]

I want to downsize my cell phone bill at least for myself. I right now have a 5 year old flip phone which I am very happy with. Might like an upgrade on the camera.

Any way, can we have a discussion on what cell plans people use and if they are happy using them? Right now I am eyeing up Trac Phone. If not that then Virgin cell phone.

What I need is this and it doesn't have to be unlimited. Text, talk, and sending pictures. I can now connect to the internet with my flip phone and only very rarely use it to use the GPS mapping app. I like having the removal SD device and would want to keep it.

Any suggestions on a site that helps with selection? I have found such sites but they don't seem to cover all of the plans out there even to pan them.

Also, our ipad is Verizon, do other services connect to an ipad?

 

[Zoom-boing]

I have Virgin Mobile. Started with them 10 years ago because I needed a cell for work and was looking for the cheapest thing around. Didn't want to sign a two year contract and sure didn't want to pay a lot of money per month. I have auto top up so every 90 days it will top up $20. lol, yeah I only pay $80/year. Mind you, I don't use it much I mostly just want it in case of an emergency so that works for me. I try to remember to use it just because I'm spending the money by topping up.

I've had this flip phone (VM's Cyclops) for 6 or 7 years. It isn't broken, it does what I need it to do, I like the software on it. I did buy a newer phone a few years back (from someone on craigslist, was too cheap to spend $100 bucks on a new one, got it for $20 lol). I wanted it because it had a qwerty keyboard. Texting on the flip phone is a pita because it's rapid entry, no qwerty. The qwerty phone was not user friendly, they changed the software, the phone sucked. So back to the old flip phone.

I like VM. You have the option of doing some kind of unlimited plan and they're pretty cheap. The cheapest is $35/month up to $55/month. I just don't use the phone that much so I'm still with their Paylo plan. Actually, I never even changed that I still have my original "25 cents for the first 10 mins, 10 cents per minute after that" plan.

I did just treat myself to an ipod touch. Does everything a phone does except makes calls and no gps. I can now text my daughter (she has an iphone) and I'm told I can text any phone with it but I'm not sure. The camera on it is pretty dang good if you ask me. I mainly use it for music but am discovering daily many useful apps.

So with VM you can get some kind of unlimited plan and spend anywhere from $400/year to $650/year or go with one of their paylo plans and pay much less, depending on usage. The camera sucks on the low-end phones, texting is doable but without a qwerty keyboard it's a pita. Texts are 15 cents sending, 15 cents receiving.

So that's my two cents.

 

[Zander]

Throw your cell phone out. here's the newest thang.....a neural implant.....

DARPA, at the behest of the US Department of Defense, is developing a black box brain implant — an implant that will be wired into a soldier’s brain and record their memories.
US military begins work on brain implants that can restore lost memories, experiences | ExtremeTech

 

[Zoom-boing]

Throw your cell phone out. here's the newest thang.....a neural implant.....

DARPA, at the behest of the US Department of Defense, is developing a black box brain implant — an implant that will be wired into a soldier’s brain and record their memories.
US military begins work on brain implants that can restore lost memories, experiences | ExtremeTech

 

[Tresha91203]

I use my phone a lot, as I have both moms living on our property with us and I work till 7 pm. I've tried several no contract services and settled on Boost Mobile. I've had their unlimited plan for about 2 years and was down to paying $30/month for it. The phone itself was a pink glittery (non smart phone) I got as a Christmas present about 5 years ago so no idea what it cost. The plan is a shrink plan, so for every 2 (maybe 3?) months I paid on time, the bill dropped by $5/month until it hit $30 and stayed there.

About 2 months ago, that phone I loved finally died. Husband, who always has to have the latest and greatest, handed me an old smart phone of his. I called Boost Mobile and they activated that phone with my number in about 10 minutes and gave me their unlimited talk, text & data plan at its lowest shrink rate ($40/month). I was pleasantly surprised, as I assumed I would have to start all over with the shrinking.

I have always been pleased with their customer service but have rarely had to use them (CSR). I don't drop calls or hit dead spots, even though there are areas around here notorious for "no signal." I would recommend them.

I hated hated hated Net10, crappy call centers with heavily accented reps and loud background. They drug out those calls to milk minutes and I could get nothing accomplished online, not even simply loading minutes. I felt like they were scamming me. That was maybe 2 years ago.

Husband bought me a sparkly pink snap case for it and all is right with the world again ... except when one of the moms calls me at work to tattle on the other mom.

 

[Freewill]

Thanks folks I will check out the suggestions.

 

[Freewill]

OK, here is what I think I am going to do. Can the ipad and its own data package. My wife is the only one that really uses it outside where Wi-Fi is available. So for those times we will get a phone that has a Wi-Fi hot spot capabilities and link to the internet that way. We use almost no data with our phones now and 2GB works now with the ipad. So if that will work I think I will save money with maybe a little bit of speed difference.

Any geeks out there want to weigh in?

I really want to stay with the Verizon network, it works well at my house out in the sticks. I think I can do that with Tracfone. I have yet to see what network Boostmobile uses but I am getting a headache thinking about it. Information over load.

 

[Zoom-boing]

Virgin Mobile runs on Sprint, not as good as Verizon.

 

[Indofred]

I use two mobile phones.
The first is an all singing, all dancing Samsung galaxy note. A wonderful bit of kit but, although it works as a phone, it's awkward to use.
When it comes to making a call, I tend to use a very simple Nokia.
It has no camera and not much else but it does have a torch and an alarm clock and it's really easy to use as a phone.
SMS is easy as well, as it has a very effective predictive text editor.

 

[Freewill]

Virgin Mobile runs on Sprint, not as good as Verizon.

My daughter just got one of those iphone thingies and is on virgin mobile, which as you say uses sprint. She does get reception at my house but even sprint says that the reception will only be good, which in my opinion means bad.

The interesting part is I can see a cell tower from my backyard and it is not in Russia.

When they first put it up they didn't have the beacons set right and the white light flashed at night. Quite impressive how it lit up my backyard from about 1 1/2 miles away. Unfortunately I think it is a state cell tower so no luck getting better reception. When I mentioned it to ATT that I could see a tower and their reception was bad they pretty much said so what. So I said, goodbye to them. Verizon works much better I can even use it in my basement.

I am looking for a phone with a hot spot and it doesn't look like I can do that and get a phone the wife likes.