Best inexpensive smartphone/plan these days?

September 10, 2015 7:27 AM

What is the best smartphone/plan combination right now, given a budget of $250 max for the phone and $45/month max per month for the plan?

I need to replace my smartphone since my current one has virtually no battery life anymore and has been missing a lot of texts lately-- I don't know if it's the phone or the network at fault for the missing texts. I've been on Virgin Mobile's pay-as-you-go $35/month plan (unlimited data, 300 talk minutes, 300 texts, runs on the Sprint network). Their offerings for phones right now though seem pretty slim. My current phone is an HTC Desire.

I want to buy the phone outright and would strongly prefer a 'pay-as-you-go' style plan with no contract. I don't need unlimited data, 1-2 GB a month should be enough. I strongly prefer Android though I would consider a Windows phone. Camera is not so important to me. Ideally I would like 16 GB of internal storage since my current phone has 8 and that is not enough for my regular usage.

I am looking at AT&T's GoPhone with the Moto G, mainly on the recommendation of the wirecutter as best budget phone, but the phone only has 8 GB of internal storage.

Does anyone have any inexpensive-ish phones/plans that they love?

posted by matcha action to Technology (22 answers total)

Can't speak for plans, but I used to have a first-gen Moto G because of price sensitivities and it wasn't a bad device at all, and can only recommend it.
posted by General Malaise at 7:32 AM on September 10, 2015

Ting is a pay-as-you-go plan that covers android phones.

$45 a month would get you 1 GB of data, 100-500 minutes and up to 100 texts. (It's the data that's pricey in this plan)
posted by Lucinda at 7:37 AM on September 10, 2015 [4 favorites]

Have you looked at Ting? They run on Sprint's network like Virgin so your coverage will be identical. It's not prepaid, but there's no contract and you pay only for what you use.

You can port your VMO phone over, I did it and it works just fine. If the phone meets your needs why not just spend $50 to have the battery replaced and keep using it?

whoops missed the preview. consider me a second
posted by JoeZydeco at 7:38 AM on September 10, 2015 [4 favorites]

$45 gives you unlimited everything on T-mobile. Look at swappa.com for a used phone at a good price, with low scam potential.
posted by rabbitrabbit at 7:42 AM on September 10, 2015 [2 favorites]

I bought the first-gen Moto G a few months ago since my HTC One's battery was only lasting 20 minutes after a charge. I also splurged on a 32 GB micro SD card. The performance is decent, but it does get noticeably slower when I have too many apps or I haven't cleared the partition cache in a few weeks. Speaking of which, I need to go and clear it now...

If you don't have expectations for a performance akin to flagship phones, the Moto G does a good job.
posted by mlo at 7:47 AM on September 10, 2015

I've been happy with my Moto G and a plan from Republic Wireless. They're very aggressive about handing off both data and voice to wifi networks if they're available, so you can keep cell data use down. I've switched to a plan where I pay by the GB for data, and my usual bill is somewhere just under $20. Unlimited data (no 4g) comes for $30 or $35, and they run on Sprint's network.
posted by craven_morhead at 7:51 AM on September 10, 2015 [2 favorites]

I've had good luck with Cricket, who use the AT&T network (and are owned by AT&T), and in my opinion have the best combination of low-cost plans and good coverage. $45 after tax for unlimited talk and text anywhere in North America, 5GB of LTE, or just $35 for unlimited US talk and text with 2.5GB of LTE. You do need to set up autopay with a credit card to get those rates. They have the Samsung Galaxy S4 for $249 with activation of one of the above plans, which will do just about anything you need, or you could take General Malaise's plan and get an unlocked Moto G.

rabbitrabbit, where does $45 give you unlimited everything on T-Mobile? Even the T-Mobile Straight Talk SIM, which is a pretty good deal, only gets you 5GB of LTE for $45 plus tax.

If you do go with Ting, be sure that you get their coverage through T-Mobile, which they only just introduced. Historically, their service has been through Sprint, same as Virgin Mobile.
posted by eschatfische at 7:51 AM on September 10, 2015 [1 favorite]

Thirding Ting. I'm a three year user and it's worked very well for us. We buy used phones either from Ting directly or from Glyde, Swappa, etc. For a family of three (with one heavy-texting teenager) our bill runs between $60 and $80 per month. Phones have cost us around $100 each (iPhone 4s, Galaxy S3/S4).
posted by erebora at 7:54 AM on September 10, 2015 [1 favorite]

I've found T-Mobile to be a lot better than AT&T GoPhone, although I haven't used AT&T in several years, so things may have changed. I have a $30 plan with unlimited data and text plus 100 minutes voice (which I can no longer find online), and T-Mobile also allows wi-fi calling so if I know I need to make a long call I just do it somewhere with wi-fi. They do have a $40 Simply Prepaid plan that seems like it would meet your needs.

Sorry, no phone rec!
posted by mskyle at 8:11 AM on September 10, 2015 [1 favorite]

Also on ting (you'll get better coverage than virgin/boost because they also roam (for free) on Verizon when out of sprint area...their site doesn't really mention it, you have to dig) I've been using a Galaxy Note2 for like 3 years now and still love it...very fast and responsive, very little carrier cruft. On swappa.com they're around 100-150 now...you could even go for the note 3, maybe 4 and be even more current.
posted by sexyrobot at 8:23 AM on September 10, 2015

I'm pretty happy with my Droid Mini ($150 new in box on ebay) combined with the $30 Page Plus plan, which leases from Verizon. Internal storage is a little low (16GB) but okay for me. I also looked at the Droid Maxx which can go up to 32GB but I wanted a smaller phone. Both will be upgraded to Lollipop so I think they're a decent deal.
posted by veery at 8:32 AM on September 10, 2015

Boost Mobile.
posted by Oyéah at 8:46 AM on September 10, 2015

Seconding Republic Wireless. Unlimited everything for $25 per month.
posted by wwartorff at 9:35 AM on September 10, 2015

Ting service and Blu Studio Energy phone.
posted by stormyteal at 9:46 AM on September 10, 2015

Get Straight talk wireless service for unliited for 45 dollars a month. Buy a used android of your choice on ebay or craigslist.

Straight talk has ATT and Tmobile towers, you get to chose which one it runs on.
posted by crawltopslow at 9:58 AM on September 10, 2015

I hate ting because sprint has awful coverage where i live. So does tmobile.

I use the ATT straight talk plan, which at this point if you supply your own phone, gives you 5gb of data and unlimited everything else for $45 a month.

Zero complaints, it rules.

has been missing a lot of texts lately

I had this problem with virgin mobile and boost(which are the same company). My solution was... to get rid of virgin mobile.

Haven't had it since.
posted by emptythought at 11:42 AM on September 10, 2015 [1 favorite]

If you are really price sensitive about your phone just buy a new battery. If not consider buying used.

Text messaging on tmobile with my new phone is pretty unreliable - sometimes I get messages right away - other times they show up an hour later.
posted by srboisvert at 11:54 AM on September 10, 2015

I use Consumer Cellular. Their no-contract plans are quite reasonable if you're not a heavy user. You choose the talk and data parts of your plan separately. I pay $15/month for 750 minutes of calls and $20 for 1.5 GB data (which includes unlimited texts) plus $10 to share the plan with an additional phone. I bought my phone through them, too - the one they call the Moto G EXT, which is apparently the 2nd generation Moto G, for $150. I like it, but I'm finding that the 8GB of storage isn't enough. It has a microSD slot so you can expand to up to 32GB.
posted by Redstart at 12:34 PM on September 10, 2015

The catch with Republic Wireless is that in coming new customers cannot get that $25/mo unlimited plan. In addition, RW wants their customers to do the majority of their usage, both calls and web surfing, on a Wi-Fi network. The point of the phone's cell phone abilities, according to RW's MO, is that it's used as a back up when you're away from home. It's also good for cord cutters: those who don't want to have plain old telephone service at home or office.

I'm not sure, but if you buy just 1 GB of away-from-Wi-Fi data and you use it before the month runs out, you won't have any away-from-Wi-Fi data until you're new month starts. They offer an option to buy an additional quantity of away-from-Wi-Fi data if you run out so that you can surf the web, stream music, send and receive e-mail, etc. away-from-Wi-Fi. The away-from-Wi-Fi data quantity doesn't roll over, they'll just refund the unused amount to your bill.
posted by dlwr300 at 1:11 PM on September 10, 2015

It's already been said, but Ting, baby, Ting.

Been with them for a few years and 2 phones (first phone was bought direct from Ting, but had issues after a year, which was an LG hardware problem, not Ting). Bought a second (Sprint) phone off eBay and had it ported over with no problems.

If you're not a power user/data burning kind of person it's probably a good deal for you. I have literally nothing bad to say about Ting.

My phone bill is rougly $33/mo. I have consistent 4G signal in my area, luckily.

Whenever I've called them, a human being in the USA picks up within a few rings.

Whenever I've called them, these same human beings help/fix whatever quickly and efficiently.
posted by kilohertz at 2:13 PM on September 10, 2015

Ting is not your best option. It's more expensive than Straight Talk while offering nothing that it does better.

Skip it and go with Straight Talk (choose AT&T or T-Mobile's network -- whichever you'd like.)

As far as phones, I'm partial to the BlackBerry Z10 or Z30 (both touch-screen-only phones.) You can can get them under your budget, and in addition to having the most efficient email, calendar, texts, and contacts support out there they have a great browser. Oh, and they run Android apps too, so you can make use of Straight Talk's unlimited data by, say, streaming tons of Pandora or Netflix. :)
posted by -1 at 3:40 PM on September 10, 2015 [1 favorite]

My husband and I share a Cricket unlimited plan (maybe the data hits a buffer after a while?) for handmedown iPhone 5 (him) and iPhone 4 (me). It costs $80 total. No complaints other than some weirdness in porting my phone number over from my Virgin Mobile prepaid plan.
posted by Maarika at 7:39 PM on September 10, 2015