Tuesday, February 27, 2007

A Tale of Two PagePlus Phones...Coming Soon!

Courtesy BabbleBug (thanks again guys!) I'll soon be getting the Motorola T720 for review. And the Audiovox 8600. Both will have PagePlus service and both will be available for sale from BabbleBug. I've gotten a special deal with them so that if you order through my site you'll get $2 extra (plus the normal $3) in "BabblePoints", BabbleBug's rewards program. Check back in a bit for reviews and, of course, discounts should you choose to buy either of these phones!

Pocket: A Saga Involving Audiovoxes and Motorolas

To continue my Pocket saga...

...thoguh it's not traditional prepaid, though it is pre-paid and it's cheaper than 99% of all contract plans...

...anyway, come to find out, my Audiovox's browser is crippled, in that it's not only slow for some wierd reason (phone processing power...or lack thereof...shows here) but it has no way to input URLs into it or provision for making bookmarks. Crippled? I call that simply lame...

...so my reccommendation of the phone is now modified to say "I reccommend the phone if you don't need a good camera and don't use web much"...

...but it took two hours at a Pocket store for them\myself to see whether the phone model itself was the culprit, rather than just my phone...

...and another fifteen minutes on the phone to pretty much assure that when the Motorola v323 comes out that my phone will get exchanged for it, though I will ahve to go all the way to San Antonio to do the exchange...

...ech...at least I'm getting an exchange for what will likely be a better phone...

...and yes, I said Motorola v323. The price point will be about the same as the Audiovox 8910 (hence the even exchange possibility) but the v323 is generally a nicer phone...

...except that the caller ID screen is shaped so you can't use it as a camera viewfinder (though it's not exactly an enjoyable experience on the Audiovox) and the phone is likely bigger (most Moto v-series flips are...but that's okay...they have bigger screens) and it uses Motorola's positively wierd iTAP predictive text system...

...but (yes I'm making it a point to use ellipses in this post) the camera is likely a good bit better than that of the 'vox, the screen is higher-resolution and bigger, and there are some other great features that I read about on Phonescoop but can't think of now that generally make the phone better than the 'vox it is replacing...

...so I'm currently apathetic toward Pocket. If they deliver on the Moto exchange, I'm a believer again, and I'll be reviewing the Moto here after playing around with it a bit. Apathetic due to the wierdness of the 'vox and my spending too much of my time figuring out. But such is life :)...

Monday, February 26, 2007

Tracfone Airitme Expirations Up To 90 Days, Effective March 1st

A little birdie told me that, effective March 1st, the 60-minute cards on Tracfone will get an expiration boost to 90 days, up from the current\lousy 60. Which makes Tracfone a bit more attractive for people who don't use their phone much...and renders the $20 card cheaper per month than the 1-year card, though the 1-year card is cheaper per minute by a fair margin due to promo codes, though the price per minute delta can be narrowed by going to Tracfone's website and getting one of their famous "twofer" deals.

I'm supposing that the 90-day expiration will extend to all airtime cards that are now 60-day cards, starting on the 1st. Another bet, though less safe, is that Tracfone will integrate a fair amount of bonus units into the 1-year card (250, maybe? That's been the ongoing promo) to make it worthwhile for people to buy.

Hope this helps...

Sunday, February 25, 2007

Audiovox 8910

I have had this phone (on Pocket Communications) for about a month now, and I have to say that I'm happy with it generally, despite its being a bit of an off-brand phone...

First off, the design is okay, though it will definately not turn heads. The phone is practical...that's about it...but practical design is fine with me. The phone fits well in my hand and all that other good stuff, and the keypad is nice enough that I can text and email with ease and speed, courtesy T9 predictive text.

Which reminds me...this phone seems to model very much after the LG 225 cameraphone that I also have. Except that the user interface is slightly wierder, with a sort of techno style font, and a color external display is eschewed in favor of this wierd LED on the phone's front that Audiovox calls a "flash" for the phone's camera. Hmph...at least the external display stays on all the time...which reminds me: the UI on the 'vox isn't quite as good as the UI on the LG. But it's quite passable. Which is good.

I might as well say now that unless you have good lighting conditions the camera turns your pictures into studies in modern art. I kindof like the effect, but people who actually want to take decent pictures with a phone should look elsewhere. Not that my LG 225 is a supercam, but it takes pictures quite a bit better than the 'vox. Sad how that happens...I have unlimited picture messaging on the 'vox but STi has totally shut me off from pix messaging (well, web and pix messaging needs web) on the LG...ah well...

As far as other features go, this phone has all the usual ones, like voice recording, voice dialing, calculator, speakerphone and downloadable apps. Except this is a BREW phone so things get wierd with downloading apps...no GMail Mobile or Google Local Mobile or suchlike :(.

Which brings me to another thing...either it's just Pocket Communications or the phone won't let you input your own URL into the web browser (an OpenWave affair of course). Which is really annoying as there are no bookmarks either so you basically have to search for whatever page you want to go to, then every time you start up the browser keep it from loading the homepage and losing your own webpage. But I'm betting this is provider-related rather than phone related. And data does work quite well over 1x...pictures send quickly enough and webpages load quickly enough. Haven't tried the phone as a modem yet (don't have the cable yet) but I'll post back on that as I don't want my $5 unlimited web access to go to waste...

What about voice quality and battery life? Well, voice quality is great in areas that have good signal. Unfortunately, I can't really tell whether it's just my phone, my model of phone, or whether Pocket simply doesn't have good coverage where I live...it seems I always have to extend the phone's antenna to get decent service inside buildings with the phone, at least for voice calls. But the phone is better than the Kyocera K132, if that counts for anything...

The speakerphone is loud enough, but it's wierdly placed well to the inside part of the phone. Meaning that ringtones end up coming out not quite loud enough sometimes. But they're not terribly quiet either...it's a defect small enough that you can live with it.

As to battery life, I reckon I'm getting 3-4 days on a charge with light voice usage and not going to places where my phone is searching for service all the time. On the other hand, the phone will just barely make it through the day if it's searching for service a fair amount, being used for a little bit of texting and a little bit of voice, and is being used for a fairly heavy amount of web browsing (as in checking my GMail some two dozen times throughout the day). So the 8910, while not being an LG 3280, is fine battery life-wise.

So, in sum, this phone is a fine basic cameraphone. Sorry to say it's now discontinued by Pocket Communications and pretty much everyone else, but hopefully this review helps someone out there...

There, I'm now caught up on my phone review stuff. Now to get caught up on homework... :)

Saturday, February 24, 2007

Tracfone 60 minute cards for cheap

As some of you know, I used to sell Tracfone 60-minute cards on here for very cheap. Well, I'm now selling cards to distributors but there is now someone to bridge the gap, so to speak. Just click on the title of this post and you get a place where you can buy Tracfone 60-minute PINs for $13 apiece. He has quite a few, but then again some of them may be gone already, so I'd say grab them while they last...they're not much more expensive per minute than Tracfone's $50 cards and they're a lot cheaper per card. Hope this helps!

Thursday, February 22, 2007

Mmmm...SearchChips

Yeah, I know, I'm totally off-topic but I last night found a pretty interesting search engine. It's called SearchChips and runs off of Ask.com. For every search you make you get a "SearchChip" that's worth, if you trade it in for various prizes, a little over a penny. Pretty interesting concept if you ask me. Plus they randomly ive out gift certificates, and you can make the SearchChips pile up a little faster by doing various stuff like referring friends...

But see for yourself...click the hotlinked title of this post or the button below...and I promise my next post will be something cellular-related, if not actually the review for the Audiovox 8910, which I've now had for nearly a month...



Sunday, February 18, 2007

Nokia 6061

Here it is, finally: the review of the Nokia 6061, commonly found on Cingular's GoPhone service. Just as a note, I don't have Cingular towers in my area so my very small amount of voice quality testing was done with a friend's postpaid Cingular SIM.

First off, if faux chrome made phones good, this phone would be a very good phone. Yet, personally, the plastic chrome and glossy black plastic covering most of the phone seems a little overdone. Maybe because if you look at the phone from its side, which is plain matte black plastic, the phone is remarkably thick and generally large. Generally this phone gets points for Nokia design, but it's decidedly low-end in its styling, or at least it seems that way to me.

Open up the phone and you find a fair-sized screen and what seem to be fair-sized matte-black buttons. Small problem: the buttons lack tactile feedback, or at least they lack enough to suit my tastes. It's an annoying experience to hammer out a text message on this phone's keypad, to be plain.

As I said, the phone has a fair-sized screen, but Nokia's user interface that it uses on its flip phones is less effiicient than the one used on its small-screened bar phones. Which places the 6061 at a decidedly middle-of-the-road position on ease of use. Plus, the UI isn't perfectly snappy...not to my reckoning as bad as the Nokia 2236i, but it's just not snappy.

What about call quality, speaker quality (the phone has speakerphone) and battery life?

As to call quality, there's nothing to shout about here. Reception is again middle-of-the-road, but an added foible is that the phone's earpiece speaker is quite small. Which means you have to position your ear in just the right place to hear what the person is saying on the other end. To make matters even more mediocre, the earpiece volume frankly doesn't get that loud on this phone.

Speaker and peakerphone volume, however, is fine. You will be able to hear this phone's ringtones if you set the volume to maximum, which is nice, considering that this is a basic phone (basic enough to only have an indicator light on the outside, rather than a caller ID screen).

As to battery life, I only got about three days on a charge from the phone. This is probably because the phone is refurbished (that's what they solkd online...maybe they still sell them but I didn't see any the last time I looked) and because it was searching for service some of the time, but, being a GSM phone, it should have been better.

And yes, in case anyone was wondering, there is plenty of Cingular branding on this phone. Plenty. And you can't seem to use a normal unlock code calculator to unlock this phone...I tried a time or two, then gave up (I don't want to hard-lock the phone).

But anyway, this phone, to my reckoning, is middle-of-the-road for a low-end phone. It has some things (loud speakerphone) that are good about it but some things (lack of tactile feedback on the keypad, large formfactor, mediocre battery life) that keep it from my reccommending it above other cheap phones on Cingular.

Hope this helps someone, and thanks to BabbleBug for sending out this review unit!

Saturday, February 17, 2007

RadioShack Nokia 2126 Deal!

Contrary to popular belief, I'm alive and well. Well, sort of...I'm having a wierd allergic reaction to some antibiotic I took recently but I haven't missed any school because of it...but I do need to catch up on play memorizeation...I have the lead role this time...

But on to prepaid wireless...

RadioShack (the link is in the title of this post) has a sweet promotion on the Nokia 2126: it's a mere $15 (plus tax and shipping) after an online discount. 50% less than what Tracfone and pretty much everyone else is charging right now for the phone...which is nice. As I said, shipping costs extra, unless you (?) use their Ship-to-Store feature or buy several of these phones at a time or somehow otherwise bring the order total above $50. But anyway, this is a nice deal on this phone...it's cheaper this way than it ever was before (it stared out at $19.99 plus tax and maybe shipping, then rose to $29.99). Granted, it's not SingleRate, but it is a solid phone.

Saturday, February 10, 2007

Virgin Mobile Deals Online

Right, I know, I need to get a few reviews out here, but here's something in the meanwhile:

The price of the Snapper on Virgin Mobile's website is now down to $60 new, from $80. Not as good as $40 refurbished, but that deal's gone now.

The Switch_Back is down to $100 now, too. But I think I said that already...

The Kyocera K9 is now the $10 refurbished phone, and has been for awhile...

And there are no fewer than three "free" phones available right now. Free as in you get $20 or $25 in airtime when you buy the phone for $20 or $25. The $20 phones are the Nokia Shorty (yay!) and the Kyocera K10 Royale (boo except if you need a color screen or internet). The $25 phone? Why, the Audiovox 8610 of course!

Thursday, February 08, 2007

LG 3280 FAQ Number Ten Zillion

Hmmm...seems like the LG 3280 is a very hot topic relative to this blog. Also seems like I should be doing homework right now or maybe memorizing play lines or writing the Nokia 6061 review or something like that...ah well...

Before I actually say anything though, I now have high speed internet, courtesy BeeCreek Communications (www.beecreek.net; if you're interested in signing up with them check back with me...they have a referral program). Which, yes, means that I had dialup before...but everyone knew that. Anyway, with fairly (not cable-speed but okay nonetheless) high speed internet eminating wirelessly from my garage, I should have a little bit more of an excuse to post here...

But about the 3280...

Q: Will the LG 3280 work in my area if it doesn't show up on my zip code on Tracfone's phone sales site?

A: It should. Plug your zip code into the Tracfone coverage map finder and see if the 3280 is there...and it'll be there practically everywhere.

Q: How do I get other ringtones onto my 3280?

A: You don't. At least, until I'm proved wrong (please do!) there's not even a way to transfer ringtones from a computer to the 3280. And we all know that, at least for now, the 3280 can'tdownload ringtones over the air, nor can it receive them via text messages. So yeah, you're stuck. I'm sorry too.

Hope this helps!

Monday, February 05, 2007

Tracfone Airtime Promo

Sorry that I still haven't posted the review of the Nokia 6061 yet...I'll very, very likely do that tonight. For the interim...

Tracfone has promos on airtime, too (ostensibly for Valentine's Day). They've been done before, but hey:

The 1-year card can be boosted to 500 minutes (up from 250, by 250) by using promo code 52834. Making the otherwise-expensive-per-minute card as cheap per minute as the $50, 250-minute card. Cheaper if you buy the card with a Nokia 2600 online and can bear waiting for it to ship, all for a mere $.250 less, not counting the free phone that normally costs $15 + tax. But anyway...

All 60-day airtime cards' expiration can be boosted to one year (for an additional $50) during the online airtime redemption process. Not a great deal, unless you don't talk much, but hey...

That's about it for now. But I'll be back with reviews of first the Nokia 6061, then the Audiovox 8910...

Friday, February 02, 2007

Trac Announcements

Just a few announcements, besides the fact that I'm alive and well and just finished sorting a sizeable Tracfone order...

1. The LG 3280 is available online, if your store doesn't have 'em. Just put in 78624 as the phone zip and you'll get it as an option. Keep in mind that if you have phones like the Nokia 1100 and Motorola c261 you won't get the LG 3280 at Wal-Mart.

2. The Nokia 2126 deal is gone! :( It looks to have been out of stock since Sunday...boy what a waste of an hour or two or three putting in orders for 'em...the Nokia 2126 for $19.99 refurbished with two airtime cards (60 minutes apiece) is no more. :(

3. Free shipping is still available on all Tracfone purchases that are at least $19.99, which is good :).

4. Tracfone is offering $10 off as a Valentine's Day bonanza for their more expensive (more than $15) phones.

On the CDMA side, the Nokia 2126 is back down to $19.99 + tax (right where it should be...that's where it was when my dad got his) and the LG 3280 is down to a cool $39.99, making it a pretty nice buy if you, over the lifetime of the phone, are going to roam more than about 200 minutes...which you'll likely do...

Also, the Nokia 2285 is being offered with the discount, making it $19.99 + tax...with a 120-minute card. Sounds like a good deal to me if you want a 120-minute card...though you can get two 60-minute cards and a Nokia 1100 for the same price on GSM...

On GSM, the Nokia 2600 bundled with a one-year card is down to $90...er...$89.99. I'm not into 1-year cards unless they're deeply discounted, and you're basically paying full price (compared with online refill stores that don't charge tax) when you figure in tax. But then again, you get the Nokia 2600, new, with the deal, which makes it not so bad after all.

Second, two sweeter deals: the Motorola c261 and v176 are both $10 off. Making the latter a more palatable $50 and the former a sweet $40...yeah, $40 for a cameraphone...not bad, eh?

That's about it in the way of Tracfone stuff right now. I'l;l be back later with a review of the Nokia 6061 though...I hope...