Tracfone, Cingular, T-Mobile

First off, Tracfone's site has nothing new. Which is okay but not great; no c261 to be found...

Second, I talked with DealKing and their Cingular $30 cash back promo, just like with their TMo promo, also $30, has zero strings attached. Just buy the phone through the link and wait for the cash back.

Personally, I'd go with Cingular, not for the service but for the phones. For the same price as the Nokia 6010, and without the hassle of mailing in a rebate, you can get the Nokia 6030, which is a much newer phone.

But then again all T-Mobile phones ordered from their site right now come with a $25 card at no extra cost. So that's $40 worth of airtime (190 minutes) plus a Nokia 6010, which can be unlocked and sold on eBay if need be for $40 or so, for zippo after the mail-in rebate ($30) and the cash back. If you count the card value in, with cash back the Samsung x495 is $15 (I medded up with the last post; the phone is $70 without anything, not $60). The Nokia 6101, also fairly easy to unlock, and a camera phone, is a mere $45 by this logic. And now the Samsung t319 camera ph0one is available on T-Mobile To Go at the same price, but I'd go with the Nokia still.

So It's your choice. Either Cingular service and a pretty wide selection of free or nearly free, though basic phones, or T-Mobile and a fair amount of airtime on some ppretty nice, though pretty cheap, phones. Razrs are available on each carrier for $250, though of course on T-Mobile the $25 card is included. But I'd just get one elsewhere for $170 + shipping (this somewhere would be TigerDirect.com).

Hope this helps everyone. If I wasn't so dirt poor for having to save up for a laptop I would already have the Nokia on its way, but I can't afford to wait for another mail-in rebate.

And sorry about not having up the Tracfone minutes page today. I'll have it up tomorrow most likely.