buying cheap mobile phones - anyone done it?

[Saskiwi]

I know this has been discussed somewhere on Disboards before but blowed if I can find it - wanting info on buying a cheap mobile phone for use in the US as my network can't do roaming from the US

Can anyone recommend a good cheap US carrier/phone retailers?
TIA!

 

[aussietravellers]

I just picked up a couple of cheap nokia's from Best Buys. They were about $29 each I think and came with $15 of credit, they were a pack with phone and credit. We didn't use all that with both phones but it was handy to call each other, call a taxi, WDW would sms when our room was ready etc. Ours were At&T and they seemed to have range everywhere. There were cheaper ones too, I think $19.

You can get them at places like Walmart, Target, lots of places, even some vending machines at the airports.

It was well worth it and I would do it again. I wasn't fussy about carrier, just took the phone I like the look of best and it happened to be At&t.

 

[Ms. Shuttergirl]

Yep Best Buys for me too. Same as Aussietravellers did, in fact i think she was the one that helped me chose what to get .

The first time we went to Kmart and had to work it out all ourselves. The second trip we just walked into a Best Buys, bought them, they put sims in, got the service going and we walked out of the store ready to dial. Super easy.

 

[PrincessInOz]

I think I've bought about 3 handsets over the years like this. Paid anywhere from $29 - $49 for the handset, (prepaid) SIM and some included calls ($15 - $30).


It seems to be cheaper to buy handset/SIM rather than just a SIM.


DH and I have family in the US. They are all with AT&T, so we usually use them in order to access cheap/free on-net calls.

 

[Caroline NZ]

We bought cheap sim cards and put them in our exisiting phones. That was for the trip in 2009. This year we didn't even get around to doing anything about phones, and ended up not particularly needing them anyway.

 

[Tara2004]

We just recieved our AT&T sim cards from Ebay, cost me $14 all up to get both here to Victoria. I want to take our iPhones with us so we can take advantage of all the cool Disney Apps (like the line waiting times etc). I rang AT&T and they will activate them just before we leave, so when we touch down in LA we have phones ready to go. AT&T are one of the biggest I think with good cheap plans with data. AS we have an iPad as well we can use the internet while at disney and not have to pay the $10 per day fee for WIFI. We want a phone each in case we get separated or one of the kids wants to do the girly stuff and one wants to do the boys stuff. Cause one is 4 and the other 7 we may need to give him more breaks so one of us can take him back to the room while the 7 y/o can keep going with the other parent.

 

[Saskiwi]

Thanks for the help everyone - we just want to have a phone each in case we go to do different things with a kid each - last trip I was forever losing the family in the Disney store in DTD, so a phone would have been handy.
Will look out for a cheapo at LAX or Best Buys. thanks again!