Helio Heat or no Helio Heat?

October 23, 2008 10:04 AM

I'm looking at getting a new phone and a new service provider. After careful searching, almost all companies require a stringent credit check. I have horrible credit. Prepaid is not an option as any decent prepaid phone is ridiculously expensive and the service is generally sub par. I narrowed it down to something from Virgin Mobile or Helio. I have heard some bad about both companies, but since neither require a credit check, these are my choices. I'd rather not go with Virgin Mobile as almost all of their phones feel like cheap plastic and some even feel like a cheap ceramic. This leaves Helio.

I'm looking at getting a new phone and a new service provider. After careful searching, almost all companies require a stringent credit check. I have horrible credit. Prepaid is not an option as any decent prepaid phone is ridiculously expensive and the service is generally sub par.

I narrowed it down to something from Virgin Mobile or Helio. I have heard some bad about both companies, but since neither require a credit check, these are my choices. I'd rather not go with Virgin Mobile as almost all of their phones feel like cheap plastic and some even feel like a cheap ceramic. This leaves Helio.

Right now, the Helio Heat is FREE with contract and no s&h. I like that price. Reviews on CNet and other sites give it an okay review (as low as 3.5 out of 5 and as high as 5 out of 5). $65/mo for 500 daytime minutes per month should do me just fine (it comes with unlimited night and weekend and unlimited usage of everything else they offer).

Bottom line: is this the right decision? Should I keep shopping around?

posted by 29 to technology (17 comments total)

A credit check?! I dont think I've ever had a credit check for buying a phone/service and I switch somewhat regularly. Who have you tried? Maybe I'm just ignorant about what they do when you arent looking. Is this a new thing?
posted by elendil71 at 10:14 AM on October 23, 2008

All major carriers perform a credit check and charge a security deposit based on that information. In some cases they won't even give you a phone if it's bad enough. Definitely not new.
posted by 29 at 10:31 AM on October 23, 2008

A friend of mine had to pay a $500 deposit cuz of his bad credit when getting a contract.
This was ATT if memory serves me right.
Maybe that would be an option here too... somehow?
posted by ClarissaWAM at 10:32 AM on October 23, 2008

Virgin Mobile bought Helio, so they're really the same company now.

AT&T has a prepaid plan. I imagine a lot of others do too. I don't know if they require a credit check for their prepaid plans. Maybe they do, but I'd recommend double checking to make sure you're really as limited as you think you are.

I just got the Virgin Mobile Arc myself. It doesn't feel like cheap plastic to me. I'm not sure I like the position of the earpiece and feel of the handset when using it for long conversations (there's a button right where I want to hold it and I have to be careful to keep the speaker someplace that I can hear it), but it supports bluetooth, so I could get a headset if I cared to.

I haven't had any problem with their service (other than the annoying music that plays when you try to call customer service).
posted by willnot at 10:36 AM on October 23, 2008

Honestly, I like my prepaid phone. With tmobile, I pay ten cents a minute, and it expires in a year. I have great credit, but since I don't use the phone much its much cheaper to have a $100 year long prepaid plan than a 65 dollar a month plan with "unlimited nights and weekends".

All things considered, I wonder if I pay less than you're looking to with no credit check.
posted by pwnguin at 10:43 AM on October 23, 2008

Most cell companies require a credit check, but they have started using your credit card account to check, rather than a full-blown check from Equifax or whathaveyou. The credit check went from pretty stringent to ridiculously easy during the recent credit explosion, so who knows where it's at now.

Anyway - pretty much no-one is barred from service, there's just more hoops to jump through like a bigger deposit, limit on the number of available lines and possibly the length of time it takes to get your deposit back. And you can get your deposit back, if you have absolutely no late payments. They're pretty strict that way.

No pre-paid service requires a credit check, and some work "post-paid" as long as you have a credit card they can withdraw your monthly fee from. AT&T GoPhone "Pick Your Plan" service works like that.

BTW - I'm not a cell phone salesman, I just worked in a call center for WAY too long.
posted by fiercekitten at 10:44 AM on October 23, 2008

If you don't buy the phone from the carrier you should be able to sign up with no contract and thus not have to go through a credit check. You'll pay more up-front for the phone but then you'll have your choice of carriers and plans.
posted by bizwank at 10:50 AM on October 23, 2008

I have virgin mobile and I really like it compared to previous experiences with tmobile, cingular (now at&t) and sprint. I have no late fees because I am paying month to month, so if I forget, it just switches over to the 18cents a minute plan until I refill my account. I get a text message warning me when my month is soon expiring. I am paying less for my minutes/texting than I did in my tmobile contract. My phone was cheap ($25, no camera), yet strangely people are impressed by its appearance. I leave ~5-10 dollars extra in my account just to be safe. Virgin's service runs off of Sprint's network, so the coverage it as good as that (whatever that means for your particular area).
posted by mandymanwasregistered at 11:34 AM on October 23, 2008

What about Tracfone?
posted by micawber at 1:05 PM on October 23, 2008

exactly what bizwank said:

if you don't want to pay some lofty deposit for service, then try to get a phone (used or new) that is compatible with whichever network you use via ebay, craigslist, or a friend.

THEN, take the phone to that provider to get service. they may run a check, but no deposit is required.

after you have used their service for about a year or so, then you can look into upgrading your handset. at that time, they will use your payment history as the determining factor in what kind of handset/discount you qualify for.
posted by alice ayres at 1:33 PM on October 23, 2008

by bringing the phone to the provider, technically, you eradicate the need for the credit check, which they run because they are "lending" you the phone until your 1 or 2 year contract is up. the provider will still run the check, though, to make sure you don't have an outstanding account with them.

if you have a phone already, all the provider is doing is giving you service, and not any equipment/handset/etc.
posted by alice ayres at 1:38 PM on October 23, 2008

Last I checked, T-Mobile had a plan basically identical to their regular monthly plan especially for people with bad credit. You pay a modest deposit and are billed in advance for each month's service instead of afterward. They also place a strict limit on how much you can use the phone before they cut you off. I would certainly go into one of their stores and tell them what you've told us and see what they can do for you.
posted by kindall at 6:12 PM on October 23, 2008

Well, as an example, I did recently (in March) get a phone from Verizon. They charged me a $500 deposit because of my credit. Even when I had decent credit and signed up with Nextel I had to pay a $250 deposit. $65/month isn't the issue. And when I said "unlimited nights and weekends" I was only mentioning one of the unlimited features I'd get. Unlimited web, texts, etc.
posted by 29 at 7:23 PM on October 23, 2008

I currently have a Tracfone. The minutes are a little pricey and forget about texting. Some of the phones say they can do it, but it never translates the text properly (not sure why). Also, texting (sending & receiving) seems to eat up a lot of minutes/units.
posted by 29 at 7:27 PM on October 23, 2008

My TMobile "Pay As You Go" plan is ten cents a minute and ten cents per SMS message. I'm with you that prepaid usually sucks. I too was wary, but this was a plan I didn't mind. The more you buy at once the cheaper the rate, up to 100 dollars, which places you in a "Gold" category with a decent discount on otherwise terrible rates. What really pissed me off about prepaid was that they'd expire in 30 or 90 days if you didn't buy more minutes, written in the fine print. The Gold plan is a year long thing, and works out to 8 dollars a month.

I guess it's a bit like a year long contract, but it's far cheaper for me than the two year contract for a free phone deals. Obviously your personal financial and phone use situation varies from mine, but it might help you build confidence in your decision to estimate your usage and costs. Figure out how many voice minutes, text messages and so on you use a month, and how many you'd expect to use in the future. If you really do use a lot of phone time, then maybe the Helios plan is right for you (no clue about the quality of a free phone).

Also, texting (sending & receiving) seems to eat up a lot of minutes/units.

Texting is the biggest scam in cell phone technology, right up there with ring tones. Charging twice as much (or more!) for a message than a minute of voice data is hilariously out of touch with their costs. This is one of the reasons providers want to keep control of the phones on their network; it'd be trivial to use internet services available to undercut them, using something like libpurple.
posted by pwnguin at 11:46 AM on October 24, 2008

I just got the newer LG 600 from Tracfone and I never have any problems sending or receiving texts anymore. I did have problems with garbled texts with my old phone (also a Tracfone) all the time. The LG also came with free double minutes for life, which is a nice bonus. Although I think minutes are still more expensive than some of the other prepaid plans. I just don't have it in me to switch carriers again since I rarely use my phone.

It's a reasonably good phone, not top of the line but it has all the basic features I wanted. It has a VGA camera. It's also Bluetooth enabled. Using the web on it chews up crazy amounts of minutes, but I never do that with my phone.

Prior to that, I had a Verizon pre-paid and the minutes were cheaper, but they expired faster. I don't know if it's still like that, but the minimum you could buy was $20 worth and I don't talk much, so they were always expiring before I could use them.

I've also heard good things about the Go Phone from AT&T (also has free texting I think) but I do not have a credit card and when I last checked on it, you had to have one to set it up.
posted by howrobotsaremade at 4:31 PM on October 24, 2008

Sorry- meant to add that if you're not particularly invested in the Helio Heat for your phone, I think that number of minutes per month is less expensive with Tracfone, although you don't get unlimited everything.

It would probably depend if you make calls and texts more frequently during the day or the evening then. What are your calling habits? If you don't use the web on your phone and all the freebie stuff that you get from Helio, I would go for the cheapest minutes overall.
posted by howrobotsaremade at 4:36 PM on October 24, 2008