Prepaid Android Phones and 3G

Unabogie

Philosopher
Unabogie
Joined
Aug 5, 2005
Messages
9,692
Location
Portland, OR
So my 8 year old phone just died, and I'm interested in finally getting a smart phone. But my situation is a little unusual in that:

  1. I work from home, so I almost never need a phone aside from my landline.
  2. My house is surrounded by trees, so I generally can't get a signal from home anyway.
For the last six years, I've had a really old T-Mobile phone and I put $10 worth of minutes on it when I travel or know I'll need a phone. Otherwise, I just don't carry one. My question to the group is:

Is it possible to get an Android phone that would still let me buy minutes in small blocks? And more importantly, can I buy data minutes this way?

For instance, I travel to see family several times per year. I'd love to be able to load up 30 minutes of talk time and two hours of data time and then just go. I don't want to pay a monthly fee because I would never use it enough to warrant the cost.

Also, what do I look for in a phone? (totally separate issue I know!)
 
That really depends on where you're located and what carriers you have around. When I was backpacking in Australia, that was exactly what I did: I bought a $99 Telstra Pre-paid android phone (the cheapest one you could get) and bought the amount of data and call minutes I desired. I believe the smallest recharge amount with Telstra was $20 AUD.

The phone itself was ZTE Racer, with all the basic functions of a smartphone (albeit a bit slow but that's what you have to expect for that price) and easy enough to unlock.

As for what to look for in getting a smartphone... it depends on what you want on it and how much are you willing to pay for it. I'd suggest getting one with the latest firmware and pay attention to battery life. Everything else is pretty much the same all around and you can download tons of apps for free from Android Market.

Googling T-Mobile, I take it you're from Germany? If that's the case I cannot be of any help regarding carriers.
 
TeapotCavalry said:
That really depends on where you're located and what carriers you have around. When I was backpacking in Australia, that was exactly what I did: I bought a $99 Telstra Pre-paid android phone (the cheapest one you could get) and bought the amount of data and call minutes I desired. I believe the smallest recharge amount with Telstra was $20 AUD.

The phone itself was ZTE Racer, with all the basic functions of a smartphone (albeit a bit slow but that's what you have to expect for that price) and easy enough to unlock.

As for what to look for in getting a smartphone... it depends on what you want on it and how much are you willing to pay for it. I'd suggest getting one with the latest firmware and pay attention to battery life. Everything else is pretty much the same all around and you can download tons of apps for free from Android Market.

Googling T-Mobile, I take it you're from Germany? If that's the case I cannot be of any help regarding carriers.
Click to expand...

No, not Germany. I'm in the U.S.
 
More info required. You want to stay on T-mob ?

Do you want to play with the phone/use it for android apps on wifi ? Or just really simple occasional web browsing/email.

The samsung exhibit is $190 and not a bad phone as far as specs.

You can get cheaper, like the T-mob comet or dart, but you get 'less' phone as far as specs. That will work fine for more simple tasks, and cost less.

For data on t-mob, I think they charge by the day/24 hour period - although there may be a by the MB option I am not familiar with it.
 
TheL8Elvis said:
More info required. You want to stay on T-mob ?

Do you want to play with the phone/use it for android apps on wifi ? Or just really simple occasional web browsing/email.

The samsung exhibit is $190 and not a bad phone as far as specs.

You can get cheaper, like the T-mob comet or dart, but you get 'less' phone as far as specs. That will work fine for more simple tasks, and cost less.

For data on t-mob, I think they charge by the day/24 hour period - although there may be a by the MB option I am not familiar with it.
Click to expand...

Thanks, I actually have an Android tablet for use on wi-fi, so this is really just for the occasional travel use and because I want to have a cel-phone since the one I have died. I just figured if I'm going to buy a new phone, I might as well go for a modern one so I can take pictures, load music on it, etc. This one seems like a pretty good deal. I'm not stuck on t-mobile, but they do seem to have the kind of data plan I'm looking for. Are there others that do the daily web plans as well?
 
Virgin Mobile has the cheapest Android phones & plans. No contract, month-by-month, starting at $35/month for unlimited txt/data and 300 talk minutes. Samsung Intercept is $99. If they are in your area, of course...
 
GregInAustin said:
Virgin Mobile has the cheapest Android phones & plans. No contract, month-by-month, starting at $35/month for unlimited txt/data and 300 talk minutes. Samsung Intercept is $99. If they are in your area, of course...
Click to expand...

Yeah, but that's not cheaper than my current plan, which is no plan. I buy 30 minutes for 10 bucks and it lasts me a few months from T-Mobile. So I really pay something like $3 a month. So all I really want is to add the ability to do the same occasional data access for when I travel. I do NOT want to pay a monthly fee.
 
AT&T has the LG Thrive as a prepaid phone. They offer similar prepaid options and you can buy data ($15 for 100MB etc). AT&T is rated worst for customer service but the Thrive has worked well for us. We only buy data when traveling and rely on wifi the rest of the time.
 
Unabogie said:
Yeah, but that's not cheaper than my current plan, which is no plan. I buy 30 minutes for 10 bucks and it lasts me a few months from T-Mobile. So I really pay something like $3 a month. So all I really want is to add the ability to do the same occasional data access for when I travel. I do NOT want to pay a monthly fee.
Click to expand...

You can do that with Net10. They have an android:

http://www.net10.com/phones.jsp

I get a 600 minute card for $45 and it lasts me for months and months.
 
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