Cell Phone Help!! Which One??

[disneyrun]

Ok I'll admit I'm the last one on earth without a cellphone. So I'm thinking of jumping in... but I do not want a contract. I've been reading about the tracfone, pay as you go, etc. but it sounds pretty spendy if you use it daily. I also travel occassionally so don't want to deal with roaming or coverage issues. Yikes! Anyone have something that works great and has no contract? Is there a way to get a phone from a regular carrier without a contract? Help!

 

[golfgal]

Yes, most carriers have something. I know Verizon does for sure. One thing to think about, you don't know how much you will use your phone and you can end up spending MORE for a pay as you go phone. You can get a one year contract from most carriers. You might want to look into that since even if you don't use it much, it will probably be less expensive.

 

[pdchris]

I'd suggest just trying out a Virgin Atlantic (not sure of the name) or a TracFone. Buy the minimum number of minutes and see how it goes. If you find yourself using it all the time, then go with a service. I use Alltel right now since I could add my DS for only about $12 a month more.
Course our wonderful Justice Dept will allow Verizon to buy them so you'll end up with Verizon in a year or so.

 

[golfgal]

I'd suggest just trying out a Virgin Atlantic (not sure of the name) or a TracFone. Buy the minimum number of minutes and see how it goes. If you find yourself using it all the time, then go with a service. I use Alltel right now since I could add my DS for only about $12 a month more.
Course our wonderful Justice Dept will allow Verizon to buy them so you'll end up with Verizon in a year or so.

I have had both Alltel and Verizon and Verizon is SOOOOO much better then Alltel!!

 

[yeartolate]

I dumped all my old plans and went for VIRGIN WIRELESS.

Tracfone was a nghtmare. Virgin diesn't have roaming chages in their coverage area - whch is large. If you anticipate beng chatty, this is not the plan for you. But I can tell you I live in Northern CA and the phones have done me well n DC,Orlando, Virginia. They have phones also that are free with thr purchase of 20 dollars worth of airtime. The only thing you do is every three months you add $20 of airtime. So that is less than $7 amonth for service. I have 3 of the phones - that is a $21 dollar a month obligation. That saves me nearl $1000 a year.

 

[kangareaux]

If you want something you can just *recharge* the minutes on, try a net10 phone. Most other pay-as-you-go are about $.25/minute. Net10 is $.10/min and has no roaming.


ETA:

Here's a comparison chart. http://www.net10.com/compare.jsp?nextPage=compare.jsp&task=compare