Anyone know where I can get the least expensive wireless prepaid phone which comes with some included minutes? A lot of the phones out there are just the handset and you need to buy minutes on top of that. I don't care what/who the carrier is and I only need a very basic phone for emergencies.
Since you want it mostly for emergencies that also means that you'll have very little usage. In that case you also should look how fast the minutes will expire. The included minutes won't do you any good if they are expired before you ever used them.
In regards to expiration T-Mobile was the best deal when I compared. Disadvantage is you'll have to put 100 bucks in to get to gold status, but after that you just put $25 a year to keep all the minutes. Depending where you live T-Mobile coverage can also be problematic.
Sometimes they have promotions going where you get $25 worth of airtime with the purchase of a phone, but this just ended some weeks ago. Right now they add a $25 card, but they increased the price of the phones by $50. If you're not in a hurry I'm sure they have the real deal again some time. I have seen it coming and going several times already.
I don't recommend anything like tracphone, even though I saw deals with phones for $9.99 with a few minutes. But you would be feeding it all the time with new minutes just to keep it alive. The smaller amounts expire monthly if I remember right.
TeeSemmel said:... but after that you just put $25 a year to keep all the minutes. Actually, you can add as little as $10 to keep a Gold Rewards account active for another year.
forthill said:Anyone know where I can get the least expensive wireless prepaid phone which comes with some included minutes? A lot of the phones out there are just the handset and you need to buy minutes on top of that. I don't care what/who the carrier is and I only need a very basic phone for emergencies.
The better deals for T-Mobile are back now. There's a Nokia phone with a $25 refill card now for 20 bucks. It was posted here.. Evtl. even Bing-CB works on that.
But as I wrote above you still need another $75 to keep it alive for a year, but with the card included you're good for 90 days. So you could postpone the other purchase 3 months. You only get less minutes that way, but that's probably not your concern.
I love my tmobile prepaid; had it for about 4 years now. My kids each have one and so does my mom. Great coverage and really great customer service, in my experience. the deal posted by teesemmel is, IMO, really great.
maxfleischer said:I love my tmobile prepaid; had it for about 4 years now. My kids each have one and so does my mom. Great coverage and really great customer service, in my experience. the deal posted by teesemmel is, IMO, really great.
I 2nd that about the customer service. They also give you the code and instructions how to unlock the phone once you're with them for a while. It's of not much use on the current deal as it's a dual band phone, but no prob unlocking the Mot V195. After that you can use them abroad with a local SIM. I used it with one from Aldi in Germany.
Only some areas are still spotty in regards to coverage. (E.g. rural areas in Iowa.) but it got a lot better the last two years.
Message edited by: TeeSemmel on 2009-11-05 17:57:17 CST
Best deal on prepaid is $18 for a phone and 600 minutes / 4 months from Net10 . T-Mobile may have better customer service, but their rates are sky high compared to Net10 's current deal. LINK!
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