Saturday, May 24, 2008

Tracfone News Bits, Reviews To Come, etc.

First off, apologies for the long period of silence on here. It was more out of laziness and poor time management than anything else. I intend to remedy that. Yesterday the Flare was FINALLY sent, and today, after doing a few other writing-related things, and seeing Indiana Jones at my local theater, I'll get down to doing some phone reviews.

Speaking of phone reviews, I grabbed an LG CG180 from the local AT&T store (formally Dobson CellOne formerly Concho CellOne) with $25 in airtime for $40. The purpose was to test out the data speeds on AT&T's current network around here, which is EDGE but suffering from not-so-great backbone service due to former ownership by Dobson CellularOne. In the AT&T store itself speeds were decent, around 225 kbps, though latency (delay) on page loads was not too hot. However it seems like they had a mini cell site in the store, because my average speed tests on my iPhone (into which I put the AT&T SIM card...it's a nicer phone than the CG180, heh) are around 70-80 kbps. That might seem decently fast, until you find out that 3G rom AT&T will be coming here early next year, and between now and then you have your choice of Verizon and Sprint EvDO, which is 10-15x that speed. Sorry guys, not impressed.

Yes, if you're wondering, a review of the LG CG180 on AT&T will follow relatively shortly.

In other news, Tracfone is releasing a few new phones. The LG 300g is GSM, runs on the Tracfone side of things, and looks to be a replacement for the Motorola c139 even more than the Motorola w175g is. The price will be the same as the w175g, looks like: $15, though Circuit City may sell the phone for $20. Though I'd think the LG would be more amicable to a promotion or two when such times come around.

Speaking of Circuit City, they'll have Tracfones soon,including another all-new one: the Motorola w376g! It looks like this phone, basically the Tracfone version of the w375 on Net10 (which is a cameraphone version of the w370 for all practical purposes), will have Bluetooth! Then again, Tracfone has culled Bluetooth from the feature sets of its phones before, so you can't be sure. But one can hope...and the price is right, at $50. I'll get it when it comes out, to review.

Last but not least in the line of phone information, the Virgin Mobile Slash is out! Well, at RadioShacks, that is. This cameraphone slider looks nice from what The Sweeper has posted over on the forums. Hmm, wonder if my local RadioShack franchise has it...

Last but not least in the news area, take a look to your right. No, not at the ad of BabbleBug this time (currently this site's main sponsor) but at the Creative Commons badge below it. Yes, this site is now licensed via Creative Commons, and with my particular license, in order to copy content, just make sure to cite Go4Prepaid as the source, don't use the info for commercial purposes unless you check back with me, and pass these license conditions on to whoever reads the content you lifted from this site. Sound fair Cool...a lot cooler than a copyright, for sure...

Wednesday, May 14, 2008

Net10 Deals

They've done it again...Net10 has a lot of refurbished phones so they're unloading them at prices that contract carriers would call "FREE!!!1!" without flinching...remember that all phones come with $30 worth of airtime preloaded...

Motorola v170/v171 - $19.99*
LG 1500/Motorola c261/v176 - $29.99*
New Nokia 1600 - $29.99*
Nokia 1600 w\extra $30 card - $30***
New Motorola v171 - $39.99
New Motorola w375/LG 1500 - $59.99
Motorola v176 w\extra $60 card - $60**
New LG CG225 - $79.99

* This phone costs the same or less than the airtime on it
** This phone costs less than the airtime on it plus the airtime bundled with it
*** Both of the above

All things considered, it's a good time to buy a Net10 phone, especially if you want a cameraphone; the c261 is effectively free refurbished. Or grab the refurbished Nokia 1600...just counting the airtime alone you're getting sub-six-cent minutes!

Coming soon...

Apologies for the long period of silence. I'm now over a week out of school (yep, I'm now a sophomore at Colorado School of Mines) and I need to get back to work here. Expect reviews of a half-dozen phones, and if you're waiting for that Flare you won, I'll get that out to you. Very sorry for the silence, the wait, etc. Once I have all these phones that are sitting around reviewed, I'll give some of them away and buy some others to review. Et cetera, et cetera, et cetera...

While you're waiting, check out the forums for the latest information and deals on prepaid service. If you have any questions, the folks over there are quite helpful.