Pre-paid phone in us

July 19, 2008 10:48 AM

Pre-paid phone in us

Iam with verizon wireless and absolutely tired of paying $40/month for 450 minutes , no text when I rarely go above 200 minutes

Simply I want maybe 200 minutes with 200 txt included for less than $25/month. This is prolly better with a prepaid phone.
Give me your reviews on virgin mobile, at&t pay as you go service
does virgin charge for roaming?

Bonus: If the phone can be used as an mp3 player with a sd card slot

posted by radsqd to technology (5 comments total)

I've had Virgin Mobilr for over a year, and feel pretty good recommending them. As far as I know, they don't currently have any phones like you're looking for but most of their phones are intended to be low-cost. Right now a pay-as-you-go account could have 200 minutes and 200 texts for $25. There's no roaming, VM works on the Sprint network. If there's coverage, it's the same rate everywhere.
posted by pupdog at 11:04 AM on July 19

A recent previous question which might help. I've had VM for several years w/o complaint.
posted by jamaro at 11:43 AM on July 19

Also here previously. I would suggest looking through PhoneScoop or some other database of phones, search for the features you want, then investigate that carrier's pre-paid plan or an MNVO that uses their network. Howard Forums is a great resource to learn more about the various options. The short answer is there is no perfect solution, and most of the companies are deceitful.
posted by Chrishartley at 3:38 PM on July 19 [1 favorite]

The $25/mo lets out most of the plans that have $1/day charges for usage. There are some interesting ones there.

Last I looked, the best deal I found was $.10/min, $.10/txt from T-mobile, with a $100 purchase*. (Which would be 125 min, 125 txts for $25/mo. however you want to split them, per month.)
(* But only if you buy them all on one $100 card - The smaller cards cost more per min. This also makes you a 'Gold rewards' memeber or something, and your minutes won't expire for a full year.)
posted by Orb2069 at 7:24 PM on July 19

Page Plus might be close to what you're after. Bonus - they are a reseller for Verizon, so you can use a Verizon phone on it. A $25 card gets you 9 cents a minute. (A text is one minute worth of time.) So you can get 300 minutes or texts for $25. The $80 card gets you 1400 minutes IIRC. Go to www.pagepluscellular.com for more info. When you activate they give you 100 free minutes to start. Alternatively, you can ask them if there are any local dealers for Page Plus, but you'll pay an activation charge if you go to a delaer.
posted by azpenguin at 8:02 PM on July 19 [1 favorite]