Friday, September 19, 2008
Page Plus Intros "New" Phones
Looks like Page Plus has come into 2006 or so; in addition to the old LG vx6100 ($60), the vx3200 ($20) and the vx4500 ($40), they now have the LG vx3300 (vx3200 + removable faceplates), the Motorola e815 (great phone, $60), the Motorola v710 (good phone, $70) and the Razr v3c ($90). Prices have been rounded up by 5 cents for readability, and I have to say that this is a small step in the right direction for Page Plus. But they do have two more years to go, at least, in phone models, before they're on par with...well...the phones that people actually use on contract carriers today.
Thursday, September 18, 2008
Trac Hack - 300 extra minutes
Looks like there's currently a trick you can use to get 320 minutes when activating a Tracfone instead of 20. See here:
http://s7.zetaboards.com/Go4Prepaid/topic/8023074/1/
http://s7.zetaboards.com/Go4Prepaid/topic/8023074/1/
Saturday, September 13, 2008
Tracfone LG 600g = Bluetooth-ness
Looks like we've got double-confirmation that the Tracfone LG 600g, so far their most advanced phone, can do Bluetooth file transfers. So if you're into that sort of thing and want a phone that uses all of AT&T's contract-class network, this is it...
Friday, September 12, 2008
Motorola w377 on HSN
No, the Net10 Motorola w377 does NOT have a 3.0 megapixel camera or video recording capabilities like HSN's website says, but it is a halfway-decent deal, at $100 for both the phone and a Bluetooth headset.
Virgin Mobile Changes Kickback Policy
Effective Tuesday (but only reaching my inbox today), Virgin Mobile has made a few changes to their Kickbacks program.
Instead of money ($10 if I remember correctly) it's now more like the Tracfone refer-a-friend plan of yore: you get minutes, they get minutes. 60 minutes, to be exact. Worthless if you have an unlimited plan, but awesome if you would otherwise pay 20 cents per minute.
The limit on referrals has also been increased, to 100 (!) per year. You heard me right: you could conceivably get 6000 minutes per year (500 per month) through Virgin Mobile referrals. Every person referred does have to activate online and add $20 or more to their account within 45 days, but that's still a nice deal. One more thing: you have to register for the promotion to get your referral code, which can be posted wherever. More private than a phone number, so "wherever" really does mean wherever.
To that tune, I'll be putting up a referral code up here the next time I review a phone. That way if you want an extra 60 minutes upon activation of your Virgin Mobile phone, you can get it. Information on the kickback program (with Go4Prepaid as the referrer) will be posted on the sidebar here once I get around to it.
Instead of money ($10 if I remember correctly) it's now more like the Tracfone refer-a-friend plan of yore: you get minutes, they get minutes. 60 minutes, to be exact. Worthless if you have an unlimited plan, but awesome if you would otherwise pay 20 cents per minute.
The limit on referrals has also been increased, to 100 (!) per year. You heard me right: you could conceivably get 6000 minutes per year (500 per month) through Virgin Mobile referrals. Every person referred does have to activate online and add $20 or more to their account within 45 days, but that's still a nice deal. One more thing: you have to register for the promotion to get your referral code, which can be posted wherever. More private than a phone number, so "wherever" really does mean wherever.
To that tune, I'll be putting up a referral code up here the next time I review a phone. That way if you want an extra 60 minutes upon activation of your Virgin Mobile phone, you can get it. Information on the kickback program (with Go4Prepaid as the referrer) will be posted on the sidebar here once I get around to it.
Wednesday, September 10, 2008
Shuttles and Data Plans and Service Days, Oh My!
Nope, this may be post 711, but the Shuttle isn't available at 7-Eleven stores...yet...it'll be coming to BestBuy with a price of either $80 or $100l, looks like.
Thanks to The Sweeper, nothing has gone unnoticed over at the Virgin Mobile HQ. Least of all their introduction of the Stereo-Bluetooth, music-playing, MicroSD-toting, rootin' tootin' red slider phone known as the Shuttle. Check out Virgin Mobile's page on it here. The Shuttle also has a page or two from Helio's book (they're part of Virgin Mobile now, remember?): Buddy Beacon GPS location. Very, very cool. Short of a keyboard, this phone has every feature a non-smartphone user on a contract plan could want.
Virgin Mobile has also introduced new data plans to the arena, making them pretty competitive in that realm (though they don't have an "unlimited" option like AT&T's GoPhone does). $10 gets you 20 MB of data usage, $20 gets 50MB. VirginXL usage (ringtones and such from Virgin Mobile's own system) don't count against the limit, and if you have a monthly plan data costs are halved. If you don't have a monthly plan, the $5 for 5 MB monthly plan still stands. Virgin Mobile has also increased the minimum amount for pay-per-use data from $1 to 1.50 for a day pass, but the data allotment has been increased from 500 KB to 1 MB.
What's interesting is that now an unlimited voice plan with unlimited messaging is $90, just like on Sprint, and 50 MB of data brings the monthly total up to $100. Granted, 50 MB of data isn't 5 GB (Sprint's soft cap) but for casual mobile web usage you won't go over 50 MB even on an EvDO-equipped phone (not that I said casual web uage, not putting music or video into the equation), plus Virgin Mobile's plan taxes and fees are less than Sprint's. So yes, you can get away with more and more these days on a prepaid plan, and if you're looking for a feature-rich experience with unlimited voice minutes Virgin mobile is it.
One thing: if you look at the title bar on your browser when browsing Virgin Mobile's data plan apge, it mentions 2G data. The Shuttle is 3G. Are there even better plans coming?
One more thing: if you buy a Wild Card, Slash or Shuttle from Virgin Mobile you, for a limited time, can get a full year of service when you activate. It looks like you have to add some sort of airtime card to the mix in order to do this, but that card could be as little as $10, and a year of service included with the phones is a goodway to keep people around and use all those high-end features the Shuttle (which will be out on the 28th, looks like) has to offer.
In conclusion, Virgin Mobile's red-rimmed slider phone brings the provider up in my estimation in compparison of all cellular providers, contract as well as prepaid.
Thanks to The Sweeper, nothing has gone unnoticed over at the Virgin Mobile HQ. Least of all their introduction of the Stereo-Bluetooth, music-playing, MicroSD-toting, rootin' tootin' red slider phone known as the Shuttle. Check out Virgin Mobile's page on it here. The Shuttle also has a page or two from Helio's book (they're part of Virgin Mobile now, remember?): Buddy Beacon GPS location. Very, very cool. Short of a keyboard, this phone has every feature a non-smartphone user on a contract plan could want.
Virgin Mobile has also introduced new data plans to the arena, making them pretty competitive in that realm (though they don't have an "unlimited" option like AT&T's GoPhone does). $10 gets you 20 MB of data usage, $20 gets 50MB. VirginXL usage (ringtones and such from Virgin Mobile's own system) don't count against the limit, and if you have a monthly plan data costs are halved. If you don't have a monthly plan, the $5 for 5 MB monthly plan still stands. Virgin Mobile has also increased the minimum amount for pay-per-use data from $1 to 1.50 for a day pass, but the data allotment has been increased from 500 KB to 1 MB.
What's interesting is that now an unlimited voice plan with unlimited messaging is $90, just like on Sprint, and 50 MB of data brings the monthly total up to $100. Granted, 50 MB of data isn't 5 GB (Sprint's soft cap) but for casual mobile web usage you won't go over 50 MB even on an EvDO-equipped phone (not that I said casual web uage, not putting music or video into the equation), plus Virgin Mobile's plan taxes and fees are less than Sprint's. So yes, you can get away with more and more these days on a prepaid plan, and if you're looking for a feature-rich experience with unlimited voice minutes Virgin mobile is it.
One thing: if you look at the title bar on your browser when browsing Virgin Mobile's data plan apge, it mentions 2G data. The Shuttle is 3G. Are there even better plans coming?
One more thing: if you buy a Wild Card, Slash or Shuttle from Virgin Mobile you, for a limited time, can get a full year of service when you activate. It looks like you have to add some sort of airtime card to the mix in order to do this, but that card could be as little as $10, and a year of service included with the phones is a goodway to keep people around and use all those high-end features the Shuttle (which will be out on the 28th, looks like) has to offer.
In conclusion, Virgin Mobile's red-rimmed slider phone brings the provider up in my estimation in compparison of all cellular providers, contract as well as prepaid.
Sunday, September 07, 2008
The Shuttle Has Landed
Looks like Virgin Mobile is coming out with the UTStarCom 8954, or Shuttle, soon. It's a slider phone and is rumored to have music and camera capabilities. It'll probably be in the $100 range and looks to be a replacement for the old Slider Sonic from Kyocera. The cost will likely be around $100. More info when tit comes out...
Thursday, September 04, 2008
AT&T Intros Samsung a137, Gives Out Handsets to Gustav Refugees
A&T is at it again. Among the new handsets aailable on their GoPhone prepaid service (Samsung a727, Nokia 2610 in silver, Sony Ericsson z750a etc.) is the Samsung a137. A smooth-looking non-camera-phone, the little guy, like the LG Flare on Virgin mobile, supports Bluetooth and has dual color displays. The price: $40.
In other news, AT&T is giving out (or probably has given out...the program started Tuesday) two hoursand Gophone handsets, each preloaded with 15 minutes of airtime, to victims of Hurricane Gustav. Not a huge loss, as 15 minutes of airtime is much less than what they typically hand out with new phone purchases, but it's a nice gesture and a phone with a little bit of airtime is better than no phone, right?
In other news, AT&T is giving out (or probably has given out...the program started Tuesday) two hoursand Gophone handsets, each preloaded with 15 minutes of airtime, to victims of Hurricane Gustav. Not a huge loss, as 15 minutes of airtime is much less than what they typically hand out with new phone purchases, but it's a nice gesture and a phone with a little bit of airtime is better than no phone, right?
Saturday, August 23, 2008
Boost Intros i776, Free Directions to Reboost Locations
Looks like Boost Mobile is actually expanding their handset lineup now. Dennis from wapreview.com (who has incidentally come upon an invite code to the awesome Skyfire mobile browser, good until August 30th) tipped me to the presence of the Motorola i776 on Target's website. No price, no online and no in-stock message for stores anywhere near me (to be expected) but it's coming. Engadget doesn't like it, but really you have to give Sprint\Motorola credit: it's a nice phone on what is, for Sprint anyway, a dying technology. The i776, like the i875 that Boost used to sell, has a lot of features (camera, Bluetooth, external color screen) though there are no external music controls on this one. But at least there's something available better than, say, the i855 (no Bluetooth) or the i355 (no camera).
According to Sprint's own roadmap, the phone will probably come out next month (Q4 '08), which isn't too bad. I'd say the phone will run about $100 on Boost Mobile, who is now subsidizing their phones at least a little, as oppoed to the days of yore when you could get a top-of-the-line i885...for $400.
So if you must have walkie-talkie and GPS Boost will soon have a more feature-rich, if not attractive, phone for ya.
Speaking of GPS, looks like Boost will allow use of its turn-by-turn directions software for free...if you're looking for a place to reboost. Of course, the only benefit to this is if you either don't have a credit card (in which case you would be able to add airtime to your phone by dialing *ADD) or you're looking for a random convenience store somewhere nearby, which you may or may not get with the Reboost locator. Stll, it's a nice touch.
According to Sprint's own roadmap, the phone will probably come out next month (Q4 '08), which isn't too bad. I'd say the phone will run about $100 on Boost Mobile, who is now subsidizing their phones at least a little, as oppoed to the days of yore when you could get a top-of-the-line i885...for $400.
So if you must have walkie-talkie and GPS Boost will soon have a more feature-rich, if not attractive, phone for ya.
Speaking of GPS, looks like Boost will allow use of its turn-by-turn directions software for free...if you're looking for a place to reboost. Of course, the only benefit to this is if you either don't have a credit card (in which case you would be able to add airtime to your phone by dialing *ADD) or you're looking for a random convenience store somewhere nearby, which you may or may not get with the Reboost locator. Stll, it's a nice touch.
Friday, August 22, 2008
Net10: w377 Coming Soon
If you're wondering when Net10 will come out with something comparable to the Bluetooth-enabled, hard-plastic-keypad Motorola w376 that is already on Tracfone, the answer is "soon". The Sweeper over on the forums just caught a glance at the Motorola w377, essentially the w376 with a different color scheme, on the Net10 phone activation selector, on the Net10 website. It'll bw a nice addition to Net10's lineup of phones and will probably cost the same as the w375 does now.
Thursday, August 21, 2008
TNT Meets VM
Looks like the Kyocera TNT (S200) is finally available, after a long period of vaporware, on Virgin Mobile's online store. Pushing the Marbl (K127) down to $12.99 and the LG Aloha to $9.99, this new phone on the block has looks reminiscent of the non-Virgin Mobile version of the Marbl: the K132 "Velvet". Except this time there's a narrow caller ID display on the soft-touch outside of the phone rather than...um...nothing. The phone also looks a bit higher-end, with styling cues from the Kyocera Deco S1000 such as a rounded-rectangle footprint with a single barrel hinge and big, contigious buttons. Of course, what I just said is simply taken from the photos on Virgin Mobile's website but it still makes for good buzzword bingo, right?
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