Help with pay as you go phone for texting

[CherylA]

Hey everyone, theres always so many knowledgeable people on here I was hoping someone could help me. It is time to get my middleschooler a phone. She has a new ipodtouch already but I need something she can use whn not on wi-fi. So I am looking to get her a prepaid phone that will be easy to text on (maybe something with a slide out keypad) and to choose a plan that will be focused on texting with the occasional phone call. Since she has the ipod touch she will use that to text when she is on wi-fi (so at home). The phone will be mostly for when she is at school or over a friends house. Anyone have any ideas as to where I should start my search?

 

[sksjasams]

My DS(now in 9th gr) got a phone right before the start of 6th grade. He really wanted a cool looking phone with a qwerty keyboard. Choices were quite limited a few years ago, but are better now.

DH and I have tracfones and have been very pleased, but at that time, tracfone did not offer any phones with qwerty keyboards, so we with with Net10 for DS instead. The service and phone have been great, but it is not as cheap as tracfone. We need to buy a $30 phone card every two months, which gives him 300 minutes - each text is only 1/3 of a minute. He ended up not using his phone nearly as much as he thought he would, and now has over 4000 minutes saved up! Tracfone comes out to be cheaper, plus you can always find promo codes for additional bonus minutes, and you can get a phone with double or triple minutes for life. So I would recommend tracfone.

He got a Samsung R355c - which is a slab phone that looks sort of like a blackberry. I looked at tracfone and they do have several phones to choose from now:

http://www.tracfone.com/phones.jsp (check the box for qwerty to narrow results).

The thing you need to know is the difference between a phone that ends in a C and one that ends in a G. C is for cdma (for ex: verizon), G is for gsm (for ex: at&t). When I type in our zip code it recommends GSM, but I know where we live, CDMA is much better. Make sure you choose the best technology for your area.

 

[JB2K]

Hey everyone, theres always so many knowledgeable people on here I was hoping someone could help me. It is time to get my middleschooler a phone. She has a new ipodtouch already but I need something she can use whn not on wi-fi. So I am looking to get her a prepaid phone that will be easy to text on (maybe something with a slide out keypad) and to choose a plan that will be focused on texting with the occasional phone call. Since she has the ipod touch she will use that to text when she is on wi-fi (so at home). The phone will be mostly for when she is at school or over a friends house. Anyone have any ideas as to where I should start my search?

Tracfone has plenty of the type phones you are looking-for (all "pay-as-you-go") at their website.

 

[StephMK]

Both of my DDs have AT&T go phones because they have decent texting plans. I pay $25 every 3 months for 90 days of service. They use some for calls but I also use that money to buy the text packages. It's .10 a minute to talk.

I buy either a $5 - 200 texts package or $10 for 1000 texts. The unused texts roll over so we usually do $10 for 1000, then 2 months of the $5 plan. If she is a big texter, unlimited is $20 a month. They seem to have "cooler" phones than tracfone.

 

[cstwwt]

Check out Kajeet.....I pay 17$ish per month for unlimited texting and 30 minutes of call time per month...they have other options too. The phone is pricey compared to other plans but in the long run is so worth it!

 

[Pigeon]

I didn't find tracfone to be cost effective for texting--kids burn through texts like nothing. You get charged for both sending and receiving a text.

I had kajeet for one of my kids for a time. We just switched out. There were some things I liked (you can set it up to not work during certain hours if you don't want your kid using the phone at certain times). YOu can also restrict certain phone numbers.

But overall, I didn't like it. It was expensive for what it was and there were all sorts of hidden fees with the wallets. I wanted a smartphone for my kid, but there were many smartphone features that never worked right with the kajeet service.

In your case, I'd probably look at Straight Talk.

 

[CherylA]

Thanks, I have some options to start looking at. Does anyone use Googlevoice on an ipod touch? Looking maybe to incorporate that too.

 

[wiigirl]

Tracfone has plenty of the type phones you are looking-for (all "pay-as-you-go") at their website.

 

[CherylA]

Both of my DDs have AT&T go phones because they have decent texting plans. I pay $25 every 3 months for 90 days of service. They use some for calls but I also use that money to buy the text packages. It's .10 a minute to talk.

I buy either a $5 - 200 texts package or $10 for 1000 texts. The unused texts roll over so we usually do $10 for 1000, then 2 months of the $5 plan. If she is a big texter, unlimited is $20 a month. They seem to have "cooler" phones than tracfone.

Thinking this option might work. If I can use the money from the $25 '90 day refill card' to buy the texting plans. So it would be $25 for the refill card then I would use $9.99 to buy 1000 texts the first 30 days, $4.99 to buy 200 texts the next 30 days and another $4.99 to buy another 200 texts for the last 30 days giving me 1400 texts over 90 days and leaving me with $5 for 3 months worth of talk (50 minutes of talk time over 90 days) and the cost would be $25/3 months or $8.33/mo and the basic phone with a qwerty keyboard is $30 to get started. I can't imagine anything cheaper than that. Right now she's not a big texter and I think she'll only use the talk time on an extremly rare occasion, I'm sure as she gets older that will change! So do I have this right or is what I'm thinking to good to be true?

 

[HM]

We used Kajeet phones when our kids were in middle school. Great product.

I could turn their phones off at night by setting up times they were allowed to use and not use online. I set my kids phones for being off b/w 10pm and 6am on weekdays and off at midnight on weekends. I didn't want them texting friends when they were in bed.

 

[TnTWalter]

$9.99 + tax for unlimited text and 250 minutes a month.

Options: you can add data for $5 for 100mb [minimal] data and
mms for $3

I bought her a used sprint phone on ebay for $60.

works pretty well.

 

[lvillotta1]

I am using Straight Talk now for $45/mos. Unlimited everything. Nice phone and I plan to have it forever. Will most likely get my daughter 1 in about 2years. $100/mos for 2 phones everything unlimited is cheap. I had a Trac phone,but always was adding minutes to it. It was not for me.

 

[lisaross]

Look at Pageplus cellular

 

[WeLuvTink!]

Look at Pageplus cellular

Agreed. We use PagePluscellular.com for DS (age 13). For $12 a month he has 250 minutes, 250 texts, & 10 MB data. It reportedly uses the Verizon network. Been using it 3 months and it's always worked flawlessly. We use an old "dumb" phone we had (we've used Verizon for 8+ years).

 

[mjlewis23]

I don't know what service you have currently for you and your husband, but we have Sprint, and it only cost $20/month to add my daughter's iphone 4 to our unlimited data plan. (that included the phone for free) I found that much more cost effective than any prepaid plan where we had to watch the number of texts.

 

[kiki02]

Agreed. We use PagePluscellular.com for DS (age 13). For $12 a month he has 250 minutes, 250 texts, & 10 MB data. It reportedly uses the Verizon network. Been using it 3 months and it's always worked flawlessly. We use an old "dumb" phone we had (we've used Verizon for 8+ years).

I dont even undersetand how you sign up for page plus. and use a dumb phone? ???

 

[luvmy3]

I dont even undersetand how you sign up for page plus. and use a dumb phone? ???

https://www.pagepluscellular.com/
You can go directly through PP, or a vendor who does new activations. Its a really simple process.

We use PP and are very happy with it. My dh and dd both have the $29.95 plan, I use the $12 one and for each of my dses we do the $10 every 120 days.
I purchased our smartphones on ebay. You can purchase one directly through PP, or use an off contract Verizon phone(not the pre-packaged pay as you go ones). My dses use dh and dd's old Verizon dumbphones. We switched from pay as you go Verizon over to Page Plus because we wanted smartphones but didn't want to pay Verizon's prices. Data is included in the monthly plans, and its pay as you go if you get the refill cards. A smartphone is not required to use PP.

 

[kiki02]

https://www.pagepluscellular.com/
You can go directly through PP, or a vendor who does new activations. Its a really simple process.

We use PP and are very happy with it. My dh and dd both have the $29.95 plan, I use the $12 one and for each of my dses we do the $10 every 120 days.
I purchased our smartphones on ebay. You can purchase one directly through PP, or use an off contract Verizon phone(not the pre-packaged pay as you go ones). My dses use dh and dd's old Verizon dumbphones. We switched from pay as you go Verizon over to Page Plus because we wanted smartphones but didn't want to pay Verizon's prices. Data is included in the monthly plans, and its pay as you go if you get the refill cards. A smartphone is not required to use PP.

thanks on their site, they have two phone for sale. just two... i don't want any data at all as it's for dd and just want text phone calls.

 

[WeLuvTink!]

thanks on their site, they have two phone for sale. just two... i don't want any data at all as it's for dd and just want text phone calls.

We had our old Verizon dumbphones just sitting around the house. We were able to have PagePlus activate one of them...saving the cost of buying a phone. We've been very happy so far.

 

[CherylA]

My daughter wants one with the slide out qwerty keyboard, even though TracPhone shows those the option disappears when I put in my zip code. Straittalk has a phone like I want but all the plans are like $0-$50/mo. I want to pay about 10. Currently my daughter doesnt text much or talk on the phone so for now I only need maybe 500 texts a month and a few minutes for if she calls me in an emergency. I liked the GoPhone plans but they don't offer the slide out qwerty keyboard phone.