Slashdot Mirror
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?"
Like you, I am a cheap mother fucker. I went with Verizon and took the free phone they gave me. Recieves text fine from all my friends who spen $100+ a month on their phone. Me? Not that moch.
If you want news from today, you have to come back tomorrow.
You are an idiot and should not have a phone.
If MMS is your only issue, why not just get something like a RAZR? It's cheap, it can receive MMS, and it's not a smartphone so nobody is going to try to force a data plan on you.
I got one of the T-Mobile LG Optimus T android phones for about $100 (it was on sale, probably $150 now) and use pay as you go with them.
If I buy my minutes $100 at a time, I pay $0.10/minute, $0.10/text message and $0.25/picture message.
I don't use my phone that much, so I average around $10/month with this setup, and I have a capable phone that can use WiFi and run apps and such with it.
Get a used Android, especially from a buddy, and get a plan from Cricket, PagePlus, or similar.
A friend gave me his old Droid Incredible and now I use it with PagePlus on their prepaid cards -- they offer monthly plans too, but it comes to about $7/mo. if I go prepaid, as little as I use it.
You don't need a data plan to enjoy a smartphone.
I'm on my second used blackberry now, and they've been great for me. I'm on a GSM network, so I was able to make it my phone just by putting my SIM card into it. Being as I made the switch without going to the carrier's store, they couldn't force me into a new contract either.
As a bonus I bought a used blackberry with built-in wifi, so anytime I have wifi access I have internet access on my phone without having to pay the carrier for it. Granted, this may be slightly more difficult to do on a non-GSM network, and you didn't specify who your carrier is.
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
Get your ADSL and mobile from the same supplier. It's much cheaper that way.
No-one pays for data these days anyway. You probably end up paying extra to get a contract without data...
cricket has a $35 a month plan that has unlimited minutes and texting.
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!
Best deals I've seen are tmobile prepaid. For example they have an unlimited data/text (up to 5gb at 4g speed) and 100 minutes for $30 a month.
Then I would actually buy an android smartphone used or new (tmobile will sell you a sim card for $2 or $6), and install google voice. Now you can have free calling within the US.
Those MMS text-messages are most likely to be the Group MMS messages that originate from iPhones when you do a group text. To the best of my knowledge, only iPhones support those; they do not even work on Android devices unless you have an app to handle them (very surprisingly, no good ones exist).
As for the data plan: smartphones can easily function over WiFi on a regular voice plan. However, you may find it useful to have data on-the-go: i.e. receiving picture messages, email anywhere, navigation, etc. You're basically paying for internet while you're not within range of any WiFi access point you can use.
For a cheap plan, look into something prepaid. I currently use T-Mobile's 200MB Monthly4G (actually HSPDA+, at the top end of 3G) service and pay $50/mo. I get unmetered talk and text, plus 200MB of uncapped data. No contract involved. Other companies to look at include Page Plus Cellular, H2O Wireless, and SimpleMobile.
Tracfone is the cheapest by far. I was with them for years until I needed a smartphone with data. Get a phone with triple minutes and buy the biggest cards and you can get 4.4 cents per minute (texts are .3 minutes to send or receive).
As someone who hates mobile contracts with a passion, I've been quite happy with Virgin Mobile. $30-$50 per month, depending on how much you talk. You pick your phone (from a moderately limited selection) and then pick your plan. I found dealing with them easy and hassle-free, compared with other providers I've had in the past.
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
Yes! My wife and I each have a tracfone, and between the two of us it's costing us *maybe* $10 a month, at the very most.
It is also important to mention that if you do not use your phone much, you can get by with as little as $10 per year in refills once you get the Gold Rewards status (after purchasing $100 worth of refills)
Buy the phone up front.
Pay for your minutes.
You don't have to buy data or text messages unless you want to.
No contract.
You can quit any time.
up to 20 phones per account at $6 per phone per month.
Good selection of Android phones.
Uses the Sprint network.
Check it out.
Ponca City, We Love You
T-Mobile contract free plans are way less expensive that Verizon, AT&T, or Sprint. They also let you use any phone you want and won't force a data plan on you just because you have a smartphone. Of course this has tradeoffs. With the companies I have dealt with I would rate them as such:
Verizon:
Coverage: Excellent
Reliability: Excellent
Data Speed: Excellent
Service: Average
Price: Expensive
AT&T:
Coverage: Good
Reliability: Poor
Data Speed: Good
Service: Poor
Price: Expensive
T-Mobile:
Coverage: Good
Reliability: Good
Data Speed: Poor
Service: Poor
Price: Cheap
In my opinion both Verizon and T-Mobile are good values for what you get (they just target different markets), while AT&T is worst of both worlds, and should be avoided. Haven't dealt with Sprint or the other smaller carriers.
I'm in Canada where cellular choices generally suck, so I won't try give you any advice about carriers and phone brands. But I will say that having a cheap smartphone with no data plan actually works out pretty good. I picked up a couple ~$150 android phones for my kids when they started high school, and put them on inexpensive no-contract, no-data plans. There's so much free WiFi out there nowadays (homes, school, restaurants) that not having cellular data is no big deal.
And the nice thing about giving my kids smartphones is that they can do so much more than dumbphones and featurephones can: lists, reminders, etc.
Slashdot: come for the pedantry, stay for the condescension.
First, forget about 2-year-contracts and subsidized phones. Contracts exist to benefit the carriers by reducing churn. Why do them any favors? Subsidized phones end up costing more in the long run, once you factor in the higher monthly plan costs.
These are pretty much the best deals going right now:
Boost Mobile
+ Runs on Sprint's network. Unlimited everything. $55/mo for smartphones, plan goes down in price by $5 every 6 months, finally stopping at $40/mo.
- Must use an approved phone, Sprint's network coverage and data speeds are *meh*
Straight Talk
+ Runs on AT&T or T-Mobile's network (you pick when ordering). Unlimited* everything. $45/mo. Use any unlocked GSM, AT&T or T-Mobile phone. You can use an iPhone.
- Outsourced tech support can be difficult to deal with if you run into a problem. *Unlimited means 2GB/mo of data, not what you think it means.
Page Plus
+ Runs on Verizon's network. Unlimited Talk & Text, 500MB/mo. $55. Also have several less expensive plans, including a Talk & Text only plan for $39.95 Use any clean ESN Verizon phone. Great Verizon coverage.
- Expensive data overages.
If you're really hell bent on no data plan, Page Plus probably fits the bill. That being said, many of these plans are so inexpensive, you may want to reconsider if it's worth going on a no-data-diet just to save a few pennies each month.
---
DRM is like antifreeze, to the MPAA/RIAA it's sweet, to the consumers it's poison.
consumer cellular. it works, they're really helpful on the phone, and it's cheap.
TracFone (http://www.tracfone.com) - Cheap, reliable and smartphones in their inventory.
I have a Tracfone, and like it pretty well.
For US$20, I get 90 days + 120 minutes (+ usually a bonus 20 minutes). If you need more minutes, they're not that expensive.
You have your choice of phones. You can get a Smart Phone if you want, but you can also get a relatively primitive phone for US$20. I've got one of the cheaper ones. Supports texting (although I've only used that a little bit) and web browsing.
Best of all, it's pay-as-you-go, and so all it takes to "opt out" is to stop buying renewal time.
150 Opening BINARY mode data connection for slashdot.sig (129323052 bytes).
This works!
I use T-Mobile pay as you go and put in $100 a year ago (Gold status good for a year of 10 cents a minute calls and texts). At the end of my first year I still had $34 credit so I added $10 and now have another full year to use my $47 balance (they give you bonus credit for Gold status).
They used to have a nice "Day pass" feature for data at $1.49 for 24 hours (unlimited but throttled) but they discontinued that plan (upset me and a lot of other people). In it's place you can buy a $2/day (2G) or $3/day(3G) plan but you have to start and stop it manually each day and it only runs til midnight (not 24 hours). If you don't turn it off before midnight, it will charge you for another day. This is a PITA so I don't use it much. I used the old day pass more.
I don't read your sig. Why are you reading mine?
If an iPod touch costs $200, why does a phone (which is almost the same as an iPod touch with a 3G radio and a GPS) cost $500?
Does "5 GB of HSPA+ data and unlimited EDGE data" sound easier for you to understand?
I think the answer depends a lot on which country are we talking about. How could you forgot to mention something that important?