Pay-As-You-Go Cell Phones

I am one of the ten people in the civilized world who still does not have a cell phone.

I would like to get a pay-as-you-go one for Xmas this year and was wondering if anyone here has one, or has had any experience with them. I want to know which ones to look into and which ones to avoid.

Features I would like are text messaging, voice mail, external caller id, color display, and possibly picture taking capabilities. Right now, I'm liking the look and features of the Virgin Mobile Audiovox 8610 and 8910 Flasher V7. The Nokia, Motorola and Kyocera ones that I have seen are all ass-ugly.

Anyone able to provide me some info.?

I had a pre-paid cell, which is somewhat similar. You buy a set amount of minutes from phone cards, I usually grabbed a twenty, and they lasted for six months (expired if you didn't use them up by then). You buy more minutes from the cards (or a kiosk) and add them to your available time as you need it.

It sucked ass, had shitty service, and cost more than a plan with a lot more minutes. I highly recommend you don't get a pre-paid cell. It was a Nokia, by the way, and the phone itself was very small and easy for what it matters.

Absolutely. Only good for emergencies/ VERY Limited use. Total ripoff.

Unless you're a phone whore (like a lot of people are) and you get one of those minute carry-over plans (where the minutes you don't use per month are transferred to the next month) you'll have a gajillion minutes.

I don't have my phone activated right now but when I did, I only used it for making calls, never the house phone and I never went over 200 minutes a month when the minutes counted (free nights and weekends and whatnot). A $39.99 a month plan will set you up pretty good but you'd probably still be good with lower plans, a pay-as-you-go phone if it is anything like the internet when you had to pay hourly will end up costing way too much.

If you plan on using your phone AT ALL, do NOT go with prepaid. Also, you usually can't find phones with any real features, and if you do, they are EXPENSIVE. If you get a phone with a plan, the company pays for half of that phone at least, if you go prepaid you pay for the whole phone yourself. So let's say a Verizon camera phone costs $129.99 under the normal plan, same phone will cost closer to $250 prepaid. Or you can just go with a shitty phone for like $50.

That being said, I have a TracFone, and for what it is, it's pretty good. Me, I barely use the phone, I only have it so that if my car breaks down (or some other emergency) I have it. The phone cost me $40, and I buy a $30 minutes card every other month or so. That $30 only buys 100 minutes though, if you can see yourself using that in a month, go with a regular plan, as many places now give you 700 minutes a month for that price.

Out of prepaids I've seen here's how it breaks down:

TracFone: Phone works everywhere, good reception and quailty if you get a newer digital phone. Stay away from analogs. Phones are cheap, minutes are so-so. You can take advantage of speacial promos and get free minutes.

Cingular: Prepaid sucks. They are not even very clear on exactly how many minutes their cards last, and you still have to buy them every month. Ugh.

Verizon: This would be my pick, pretty cheap minutes plans, but one drawback. They have expensive (but nice) phones. Cheapest prepaid phone I saw was $80, which still isn't too bad.

Sprint and AT&T also have prepaid services now, but I can't say I know anything about them.

Being in this industry, I can tell you a few things.
Your customer service will suck. Period. 1/2 to 3/4 of all prepaid cust service is farmed out to the same shitty company.

Most networks will set your phone to a lower priority...System a little loaded? Your going to get more system busy messages than the guy next to you with a plan. Tower s can even give you a lower priority than the post-paid customers and you could be prone to dropped calls as a tower needs to give a channel to someone on a higher priority.

If you use the phone more than 10-15 minutes a month, use ANY advanced features, your better off on post-paid.

Virgin Mobile is whats known as a VMNO (Virtual Mobile Network Operator) they use sprints network, so your essentually getting sprint service, which is pretty much well known for its suckage.

Wowsers, it seems like your phone networks and plans suck fat cock.

you actually pay for minutes? thats crazy. How does sms'ing fit in with that?

I use pre-paid, use my phone all the time, and I have no complaints. I would spend slightly more than GohanX a month on credit, but I use my phone alot more.

Heh, I miss my Sprint sales plan...basically it was 750 anytimes minutes for 15 bucks. This was back when a 300 minute plan was like $40 a month. Perks of selling the phones... now it's a lousy 15% off their normal plans.

I second what everyone said about any kind of usage on pre-paid = extremely expensive. I know first hand from a few months back. I had a Virgin Slider V5. Nice little phone/size and such, but damn, .25 cents a minute.. I ended up putting around 4 of those $20 cards in within around 3/4 weeks. And I'm not that talky with cell phones (granted, it was first week of school and such, but yeah). Anyway, I had it on my stomach or something and forgot when I got up. Screen cracked and it would've been the cost of a new one to fix, so yeah, I’m on T-Mobile now, service okay around here, though they all say Verizon’s better. *shrug*

I'm going to monotonously agree with everyone and say that yes, pre-paid is terribly expensive if you use a phone regularly. I'd reccomend grabbing Verizon on the cheaper plan and seeing how you go with that. Get the $39.99 one. You can always change it depending on your usage. If you start with a prepay, spend $150 on a phone and time, and find out that you use the fucking thing too much, what the hell was the point of that?
If you still insist on prepay, go with Verizon's awesome service and the LG VX3200. It's tri-mode and nifty.