Good prepaid phones?

[calamari]

finally i'm off from a 1 year contract  and after tasting the bitterness of t-mobile, sprint and verizon, I was going to get another 1-year contract with cingular or other, when I realized that... there is no such a thing as a 1-year contract anymore! 

the plans suck and i'm feed up with their BS, so I decided to get a prepaid (i don't use more than 3 min a day anyway, and was paying $70 a month with t-mobile).

I have my eye on http://www.net10.com and http://tracfone.com and yes, the phones suck, but i'm ok as long as they allow me to send/receive phone calls.

any other I should know about? this is for northern california use. mostly local and some nationwide twice a month or so.

here's what I've been writing while searching:

recently finished contract: T-Mobile - costed $804 per year

+ net10 - 10 cents per minute -> http://www.net10.com/
at least $180 per year = 1800 minutes
(local, long distance & roaming)

+ tracfone - 1 unit per minute -> http://tracfone.com/
at least $119.94 per year = 360 minutes
or $179.94 per year = 720 units
or $179.98 per year = 900 units
(local and long distance. roaming = 2 units per minute)

[blue05twin]

Not sure on rates but all the phone companies you listed also do no contract phones.
Is there  http://www.metropcs.com/ in your area?  It's prepaid but you get unlimited minutes.

[calamari]

metropcs offers no contracts alright, but the $40 monthly fee sounds like a 'plan' and that's what i'm trying to avoid. I don't need unlimited minutes, since I only spend an average of 80-120 on the phone each month.

found another provider, sounds very good too:

+ Boost Mobile - 10 cents/min M2M -> http://www.boostmobile.com
recharge every 90 days
at least $80 a year = 800 minutes M2M
(local, long, roaming)
$0.10 to send text message. free to receive

btw, I'm looking to replace a family plan I had. most of the minutes I used were to talk to gf on the family plan.

[Onlypastrana199]

Some plans give you free m2m minutes so you dont use up the minute you pay for by calling someone with the same provider. Cingular is kind of stupid about theirs though its 10cents/minute for calls and $1 a day for unlimited m3m but only on the days you use it. Verizon has one of those too but I dont know their prices off the top of my head.

[calamari]

yes, I know some plans give free m2m... in fact, that's what I had with t-mobile, but their cheapest family plan was $67-$70 a month (including taxes, hidden charges, bs charges and whatnot) 

I know about the 'great' plans most providers offer (it's all BS). I've spent all morning researching about it (besides having actual experience with the top 3 providers I mentioned in 1st message of this thread).

basically, I'm looking for feedback from those who have pre-paid cellphones... to see which ones work as advertised and which ones don't.

I also have an expired virgin mobile pre-paid phone from a long time ago. Didn't like it. the phone was crap (one finger would push 3 buttons) and they charge 25 cents a minute for the first 10 minutes. (BS)

[john]

Cell contracts suck.

I refuse to enter into a contract for any period of time.  I use only about 50-100 minutes a month so T-mobil works good for me in cost and coverage.  Once I hit the bonus minutes a $50 fill lasts me about 6 months.  T-mobil's coverage here in Phoenix rocks!

[fettcols]

revol.us    It's a new thing in Ohio, I haven't checked it out but I've heard it's a decent deal.   

My contract was with AT&T and it expired before they were bought out by cingular.. Cingular hasn't changed my plan or anything, I've been rolling for like a year without a contract or anything. I just pay my bill through the automated thing and never use the customer service for fear they might cut me off or something. I've just been trying to keep under thier radar and squeek by with the sweet little plan I have..

[Cal Price]

I dropped a monthly plan in favour of a pre-pay a while back, I soon discovered that it was costing me a lot more so I did what I should have done in the first place. use your calls log to monitor your use for at least a couple of months and analyse what you need, are you someone who goes in for long conversations or do you make a lot of brief calls etc etc, what about texts ? living where I do, I required international roaming.

Once you have carefully analysed what you require from your phone it is pretty simple to find the best option, it may be pre-pay or a different plan. Don't let the providers seduce you with gadgets and gismos, they are just toys. Surprisingly i returned to my origional provider but on a different plan. I don't know about the US but here it is possible to buy 400 mins a month on-line for the same price as 200 minutes over-the-counter in one of the operators stores.   

The first rule when considering just about any expenditure, economy measure or change is to work out what it is costing you NOW and what you are spending your hard-earned on, same applies to groceries, gambling  or beer, keep a log for a while, you may be surprised.

[calamari]

well, in the end I went with Boostmobile.

I mainly use it to get and send phone calls to my gf, and at 10 cents per call is a real bargain (we both got different phones from same service company)
The phone I pick is basic (no camera or crap like that), but functional and rugged. It also has walkie talkie to talk unlimited (both in speakerphone or private) for $1.50 a day when we decide to use it (the charge is only on the day of usage).

But the best feature so far is the text messaging system, and that's one of the reasons I got it.
Sending text messages from the phone costs $0.10 per message, but receiving any amount of text messages with as many characters as I want per message is free (no 160 character limitation)... and how do I benefit from this? well, I can send messages using an email account, and of course this is free (send/receive), and best of all, I can forward a copy of all my incoming emails to the phone (also free to receive as many as possible).

test this by sending me a message (or a bunch) to anfume[at]gmail.com
a copy of your message(s) will be forwarded to my phone and I don't have to pay a cent for it 

great deal is you ask me.