No-Contract Cell Phones

[Matt34]

The wife and I are temporarily downsizing our lifestyle to get back on track now that our housing situation is stable. One area is our cell phones, currently with Verizon and both have iphones and the monthly bill we can basically cut in half by going to a no-contract cell phone.

Anyone have suggestions on what are the better phones to be looking at?

Smartphones preferred.

Phones

Shop No Contract Mobile Phones | Boost Mobile | Boost Mobile

 

[jinjuku]

Wish I could help you out on that. You should be able to find some type of comparo out there with Google I would think.

 

[Matt34]

Wish I could help you out on that. You should be able to find some type of comparo out there with Google I would think.

Yeah, I'm doing the legwork researching them. Came to realize that most of those straight talk phones are 3-4 model years old.

Going to look more at Boost mobile and Virgin and see what their selection looks like.

 

[BoredSysAdmin]

Matt, Checkout Prepaid Cell Phones | Mobile Phones | Cricket Wireless

 

[Matt34]

Matt, Checkout Prepaid Cell Phones | Mobile Phones | Cricket Wireless

Nice, forgot about Criket. Really like the HTC One V so far.

 

[Rickster71]

Matt just in case you haven't seen a side by side comparison:
Prepaid Cell Phones Review 2012 | Best Prepaid Phones | Prepaid Mobile Phones - TopTenREVIEWS
My only other thought is to look at their coverage maps to see if it's satisfactory. For example, I looked at Boost for my area and there were a lot of 'non-coverage' areas.
You don't want to have your wife getting a flat tire somewhere with no service.
For my $0.02 if you really want to cut back and save for a while, don't get a data plan. That seems to be where a lot of money goes.

 

[BoredSysAdmin]

T-Mobile brings prepaid Galaxy S II to Walmart for $299 | The Verge

I own SG2 and can vouch for it's awesomeness (after ics 4.0 update)

 

[adk highlander]

Just saw this on Google News:

RadioShack's No Contract Wireless launch tomorrow, phones detailed - TechSpot News

Does not say you can use your existing phone so I don't know if you could keep your iPhone.

 

[BoredSysAdmin]

Just saw this on Google News:

RadioShack's No Contract Wireless launch tomorrow, phones detailed - TechSpot News

Does not say you can use your existing phone so I don't know if you could keep your iPhone.

RS service will be powered by Cricket
RadioShack announces No Contract Wireless powered by Cricket, launches tomorrow | The Verge

but they MAY offer better prices initially to lure consumers ... who knows

 

[agarwalro]

Going with a dumb phones and no data will be cost effective and liberating .

 

[Nemo128]

Let me explain what I do...

The woman and I both have AT&T Prepaid. GoPhones.

We buy one $100 card a year from CallingMart for $90. So the 10c a minute plan comes out to 9c a minute effectively.

We install Google Voice and GrooveIP on our smartphones to make VoIP calls.

Our smartphones are Samsung Exhibit II which I paid full price for, they're about $150-180. Fast enough for just about anything except the most graphical games. Since I paid for them, I was able to get T-Mobile to unlock them without a problem. I use them on AT&T's network now.

Let me know if you have any questions about our setup. Using a GVoice number, we effectively have free talk time anywhere we have a wifi signal, including at home. There are some technical details of course.