Saturday, July 23, 2005

Tracfone - More Info

I guess I didn't make things over-clear when talking about Tracfone yesterday. I've figured out that there are actually 4 categories of phones: low-end (Nokia) bars, midrange bars, high-end (or supposedly high-end) Moto bars and Moto flips. Here are the ntworks and their respective phones for each category:

TDMA
Nokia 1221 - Low-end Nokia Bar ($35 or free with some promo or other)
Moto v120t - Midrange Bar ($20, available in stores only)
No high end bar
Moto v60it - Moto Flip ($60 new, $40 refurb, or sometimes free with a promo)

CDMA
Nokia 2285 - Low-end Nokia Bar (same pricing as 1221)
Moto v120c - Midrange Bar (same pricing as TDMA version)
Moto C343 - High-end Bar ($50, available in stores only)
Moto v60ic - Moto Flip (Same pricing as TDMA version)

GSM\SingleRate
Nokia 1100 - Low-end Nokia Bar (same pricing as other low-end bars except less likely to go on cheap freebie promos)
Nokia 2600 - Midrange Bar (First Tracfone color phone, could be called high-end, $50)
Moto C155 - High-end Bar (wierd-feeling selection keys, $60)
Moto V170 - Moto Flip (Trac's only color flip phone, albeit small display, no external display, $80 or maybe slightly less at Wal-Mart)

Also, I got my promos mixed up. Here's what you have buying at full retail with the promo codes in effect:
1-year card - 350 minutes for $90, 26 or so cents a minute
40-minute card - 80 minutes for $20, 25 cents a minute

On eBay 1-year cards are routinely found for about $75 and 40-minute cards for as low as 13 so that's where 22 cents a minute on the 1-year card and 16.25 cents a minute on the 40-minute card. Hope this clears things up a bit. Right now, as you can see, 40-minute cards on eBay are cheaper per minute and per month than most ESN minutes deals so only use ESN minutes when there's nothing better; they can never have promos.

No comments: