Buying a cellphone

I have just returned from my year and when i arrived in america, i had $200 to spend on a phone but everyone i was with bought a small crappy cellphone that was like $20 with a top up, so then i did to. 2 months passed and after losin them several times people just went and out and bought an other one at $20, they were rubbish and didnt have a camera.

 

Hi Brad
Does the unlimited texting count for international messages too, or does it come with an extra fee? USA - Norway for example

 

To text Canada it cost me about 30 cents a text, whereas to text others in FL it was about 15 cents. Generally unlimited texting doesn't include out of country texting.

 

Oh... thats too bad. Had no hopes though, I thought it was too good to be true to actually get free international texting
But hey: what do we have MSN and Skype for?

 

Can anyone from the UK (or Canada I think) tell me if the Yummy sim is any good? I don't really know anything about phones to be fair, I've got O2 pay as you go here with text bolt ons and that's it and I've had that same thing for as long as I've had my phone lol. Can you get pay as you go sims out there?

 

Hey! Metro PC, Cricket, and Boost all have cheap unlimited international calling and unlinited international texting plans. Check them out. I'm going with Boost mobile because they have some of the best coverage for a super cheap plan.

 

any company that is good for like unlimited domestic texting? I'll use skype for overseas stuff but just for contacting people within the USA, and I'm more of a texter than caller?

 

The plans I posted above have good plans for just nation wide texting.

 

Get yourself a cheap 20 dollar Net 10 phone from Walmart of Walgreens-everyone ends up with them

 

I just went to the USA with my Family for a skiing vacation. While there I bought my cellphone. I ended up going with Tracfone because of there good coverage and cheap plans. The people at Target and the company led me on to think I could do international texting. After reading the fine print this is not the case. Though I was happy to see that it is the same price to call local as it is to call Canada.

Has anyone else used tracfone?

 

for my first few weeks-like you, i bought mine a few months before i went out there to work, when i was on holiday with my family. I ditched it after about 2 weeks because it wouldnt do international texting and i could affoard to keep using my UK phone to do it.

Net 10 all the way for me

 

i might change over. I'll see how it is without texting. If i miss teting too much, i might switch. Did you try to text at all? I've red in some postings that you can text but if you get cought doing it they will deactivate your phone.

 

Oh my gosh! All this phone stuff is so confusing! I happen to live near some Americans at the moment, so I'm gonna quiz them and try and buy one of their phones off them before we all leave Germany in the summer! Sounds like a plan... ;D

 

who will deactivate your phone-why wouldnt your be able to text? Unless you mean in work, in whcih case if you took your phone out in work they would probably fire you, because, well, you are in work.

American phones, i wont lie to you, are on average, crap. Of all the good things in America, their phones aint one-we get FAR FAR FAR better phones and deals with phones here in the UK and Europe-i mean, ive never owned a phone that charged me to OPEN texts and ANSWER calls, but that is the standard deal with American phones im afraid. And their phones, even their most expensive ones, look like they belong to a time traveller from 1995.

Go Net 10, its the best of the worst

 

Net 10 is available in the US? If you think USA cellphone and cellphone plans are crap NEVER open a Canadian phone. If their is a way to charge people extra money then Canadian phone companies will do it. I was thinking about AT&T. Where would I find Net 10?

 

Walgreens,Walmart-most people bought the cheap $20 net 10 ones

 

With At&t you have to be on a 2 year contract unless you're looking at prepaid. I currently work for a Canadian cellphone carrier (TELUS for those Canadians) and yes I agree that you should never use your phone outside of Canada unless you've added on a US roaming package before your trip. I wasn't aware that our phones were crap though lol. I guess I really have no clue what you all use on the other side of the ocean, but I really like blackberry. I am totally on board with our plans being outrageous though in comparison. I think much of it is because we have 33 million people spread across the 2nd largest country in the world. I think it just costs a lot more to have cell phones to begin with, but it still really sucks.

I also hate prepaid... for anyone who uses their phone regularly, prepaid just costs too much and is an inconvenience. I am thinking either metropcs (really hoping they'll get the new blackberry curve 8530) or Verizon. Verizon will cost more per month but they do have the best coverage in the USA.

I'm still basically stuck ???

 

from what ive heard of other americans and canadians, and from my experience in the states, we brits dont know how lucky we are with phone deals-from little things such as the price and the actual technology, to the packages-one thing i just dont get is the american acceptance that they have to pay to open a text messege-never fails to amaze me

 

Well since I work for a canadian company, let me give you an example of a very common monthly plan and you tell me what it would cost you to get the same thing...

For a blackberry,iphone or smartphone, to get 200 local minutes, unlimited talk and text to five numbers nationwide, unlimited local calls after 9pm on weeknights and unlimited local calls all weekend long, unlimited text messaging (sent and received), call display and voicemail you would be paying $65 + tax (Canadian dollars)

What would taht cost for you?

 

That's unbelievable! My UK phone plan was £20 a month (about $30 US dollars) For that I got 600 nationwide minutes each month, 600 free texts to send each month (its always free to receive calls and texts here), plus unlimited calls anytime to local numbers and here in the UK "local calls" means to any landline home phone in the country. Free voicemail and caller display also as with almost all plans here.
It didn't include a free phone but you can get one pretty cheap anyway.

I've lived in America a couple of times before and have always been with t-mobile there and not had any problems with coverage or international texting. I've got a pre-paid phone but texts to the UK would cost me 20c each which is pretty awesome. I hate the paying to receive calls, I end up spending more money on receiving calls than i do making calls. It just doesn't make sense!