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Ask Slashdot: Best Mobile Phone Solution With No Data Plan?
New submitter clorkster writes "I am looking to upgrade my mobile phone. I have always bought the cheapest possible phone with the least features since I only use it to make calls and text. Further, I am opposed to paying for internet access twice and my home access is certainly more important and necessary. I am now running into the issue that my phone is too archaic to receive text messages from newer smart phones (they somehow become picture messages). Any thoughts on a good smart phone without data plan or an almost smart phone solution?"
While on this topic, I thought I should encourage you to purchase your phone off Craigslist or eBay. If you're trying to save money, do NOT buy it from your wireless provider. If you show up with your own phone, you can demand that they deduct the built-in phone subsidy from your bill. Since you're trying to skim by on a cheapie phone/plan combo, no need for them to keep charging you $5 per month as if they had given you a phone.
Seth
$5 / month hosted VPS on linux = awesome!
No companies are appreciably different from each other when you eliminate what they are actually selling from consideration.
-1 overrated isn't the same thing as "I disagree".
Indeed. T-Mobile has the best pay-as-you-go plans of any provider.
I rarely use my phone for cell phone stuff but use it a lot on wifi and as a portable computer (it's a G2). With T--mo PAYG (gold) my minutes last a year, I can pay for data as needed, and I can use a top-shelf phone. I pay about $20 per year (yes, per year) to keep my phone active. It's awesome.
I was really worried with the AT&T deal because I know they would have killed T-Mobile's awesome pay-as-you-go plans.
No companies are appreciably different from each other when you eliminate what they are actually selling from consideration.
For the submitter, they are selling telephone and text service. And in that regard, they really are not appreciably different. A call or text placed on Verizon or AT&T or T-Mobile or Sprint is essentially the same product.
They ARE different when it comes to data. AT&T and T-Mobile don't offer real 4G. Sprint doesn't cap data use or throttle you. Verizon has real 4G and the largest, fastest 3G/4G cellular data network.
Do you pay a lot of attention to what brand of sugar or salt you buy? Probably not - because salt is salt. The same for phone calls and texts.
paintball
My god, you have no idea how dumb that sounds. Russian Reversals lose all of their value when they involve waiting for some good or service because, quite simply... that's not how it was. You can't make fun of Yakov Smirnoff's bad joke telling if you try to deliver something that actually contradicts his routine. Observe an actual joke made at the time in the actual Soviet Union:
A: "I want to sign into the queue for a car. How long is it?"
B: "Ten years from today exactly."
A: "Morning or evening?"
B: "Why does it matter?"
A: "A plumber is due in the morning."
For making this obscenely lame quip, I hereby sentence you to reading this list of real Soviet jokes and watching this actual clip of Yakov's routine, and this much more painful and effective parody of Yakov. Thank you. Good night. You are done mutilating limp-wristed Family Guy jokes on the Internet.
Bio questions? Ask me to start a Q&A journal. Computer analogies available for most topics!
It really depends on where you live. While I supposed there's some value in rating the different carriers by overall national performance, it doesn't really make sense to make your provider decisions based on national results since they may vary drastically in your local market.