LG 3280 Review (finally here!)

Everyone who did not get a chance to listen to the podcast, rejoice! Here is the main thing that probably everyone really wanted to knnow but might not have been able to access, due to the podcast being...well...a podcast: a review of nothing other than the LG 3280.

First off, I have to give this phone a rating as a solid option if you want to get into Tracfone, or rather want to get into Verizon's network, except on prepaid. Which is what you're doing with the LG 3280, because it's SingleRate. But more on that later...before I talk about that, I want to say a little bit about the other new things that the LG 3280, which incidentally is a rebadged, rebranded version of the Verizon (plus a bunch of regional CDMA carriers) LG vx3300, has to offer on the Tracfone scene.

The LG 3280 sets a lot of firsts for Tracfone. Besides being the first SingleRate CDMA Tracfone, it's the first Tracfone to be made by LG, and the first in five or six years to be made by a company other than Nokia or Motorola. I'm guessing that Tracfone switched to LG for CDMA, at least at this point, because Nokia is slowly but steadily moving out of the CDMA business, and while the Nokia 2126 (or 2125 or 2128...they're the same phone) is a solid phone with good features, it's getting a little bit old and will probably dry up stock-wise eventually. So Tracfone is introducing LG on the relatively high end ($50 for the 3280 vs. $30 for the 2126) early on to get people used to having a different user interface for their Tracfone. SingleRate is probably the carrot Tracfone is dangling to get people to make the switch. Why?

Because of a little, tacky sticker on the LG 3280 when you buy it, or rather what the sticker tells you. That sticker, sharing the glory with another clear badge telling the world that this is a Qualcomm (CDMA) 3G (um...2.5G thanks...1xRTT) phone, says two words: "OTA CAPABLE". At first blush, this may not be such a big deal. But this capability means that firmware upgrade may be applied to the phone, and thus new features added, "in the field". And new features are sure to be added...

I get this idea that new features are sure to be added for several reasons. The first is that the phone has a hundredths place in the airtime balance display. Right now this hundredths place isn't used for anything; everything is still conducted in tenths of units (texts) or whole units (calls). However, this system allows for fine-grained billing structures heretofore unavailable to Tracfone. Now Tracfone can instritute quarter-unit decrements with aplomb, or go to even smaller increments (pay-per-KB web access anyone, via a firmware update?). Or they can institute a dollars-and-cents mentality; a call will cost $0.15 a minute instead of 1.0 units a minute. Just thoughts...

The second reason is that, in the hundred and forty-four "info pages" of the Tracfone prepaid system, there seem to be mentions of web and picture messaging charges, a la Motorola c261\v176...with the same prices. If you have an LG 3280, these pages can be accessed by entering *#104, then hitting OK, and scrolling up and down from there. Interesting, to say the least.

The third reason, or half-reason, is that the "Buy Airtime" function of this phone (!) is currently unavailable on the phone. Yes, this phone has the option, though unavailable at this time, to buy airtime directly on the phone through the prepaid menu...don't know the exact specifics yet but it looks good. A firmware update would be ostensibly required to turn this feature on.

I'm guessing thast Tracfone will, using this capability, add features and services and such to the LG 3280 (and future ohones) as they make better agreements with the underlying carriers. I'm digging it.

So we have here one advanced phone. And SingleRate takes things up a notch...

We're talking about real, honest-to-goodness SingleRate here. Whether your phone says local or roaming, you're still only charged one unit per airtime unit. And this is on CDMA, too. Text messages are also cheaper now, at 0.30 (note the extra decimal place, everyone) to send and receive, down from 0.5 units so as to be the same as the pricing on new GSM phone models. But the sweet fact remains that you can now go anywhere on Verizon's America's Choice II network (read: Verizon contract coverage) and talk for the same rate as...well...everywhere else. I'm not saying that Tracfone is cheap, but now nobody can complain about small local coverage...the US is your home area...all of it...beat that, Cingular (no wait...they can't hear me...the chainsaw they're using to raze the bar is too loud).

As you can see, I'm excited about SingleRate, since the phone will, albeit reluctantly, switch to our excellent local co-op's cellular signal (Five Star Wireless) and charge the same rate for calls and texts! Yay Tracfone!

But now to the phone...

I might as well start with what counts: reception, call quality and battery life. On all three, I'm impressed. My 3280 may not be able to cath a signal quite as well as my parents' Nokia 2126s, even with its stub antenna (Nokia always seems to make really good phones), but it works great nonetheless, with great call quality. The only dropouts and lost calls i've had are in naturally low-signal areas.

As far as battery life goes, I usually, with light usage, get six days on a charge. Which may be merely average for GSM. But it's really, really good for CDMA.Then again, there's no excuse for battery life to be anything but good, since the phone has no external caller ID display and thus has very little to power for most of the time the phone is on. But, nonetheless, six days on a charge is very good.

However, if the phone slips into analog mode (which it can do, as it is a tri-mde phone), you'll have to kiss good battery life goodbye. The phone simply doesn't last long on analog...but then again no phone does these days so I'm not holding this foible against the 3280.

Going on, the phone is designed well and feels solid, like the highst-end Tracfone should feel. THe Nokia 2126 set this standard and naturally, since it's more expensive, the LG must rise to this challenge. It does. However, the battery cover on my phone has developed a wierd discoloration on part of it. Nothing huge, but wierd nonetheless.

As far as features go, this phone is great for Tracfone CDMA but not so great everywehre else. It has polyphonic ringtones, which can be loud, and monophonic ringtones, which can be ear-splittingly loud, a la Nextel. Which is great for people that need that sort of thing. It also has a vibration motor in it, and the vibrate function is nice and strong.

The phone is a flip with a color internal screen but, as has been the case for every color Tracfone, has no external caller ID display. This omission might be due to the Motorola v176's not having such a display...thus Tracfone didn't want to over-promote their CDMA side. The typical extras, ranging from voice recording (including in-call recording of the other party...very useful for certain stuff) to using those recordings for ringtones, to voice dialing, to standard and tip calculators, to limited PDA functions, are all here too. However, games are wierdly omitted...firmware update anyone? The phone also has, naturally, two-way speakerphone, which can be used (again a la Nextel) to play voice recordings with...which is great; the Motorola v176 is reputed to have only a one-way speakerphone.

The phone isn't a Razr, but it isn't too thick either, and fits well in the hand and looks passable. Changeable faceplates are a nice bonus, and Tracfone includes two in the package. One is silver and one is dark gray. Both bear the Tracfone logo...but the faceplates are neat nonetheless.

The phone's screen isn't exactly huge, but it is bigger than that of the Nokia 2126. Then again, this phone is a flip so a bigger screen is to be expected...though the LG 3280 screen isn't as big as the Motorola v176's or c261's screen, at 128x128 (I think) vs. 128x160 (I know). But LG, as always, puts this real eastate to good use with a user interface that is quite useable. LG may not be as elegant as Nokia in making user interfaces, but it's a lot better than Motorola, Kyocera and UTStarComm and, being a former LG user myself (LG 5225 and 225, from STi Mobile), I'm fine with the UI LG puts on this Tracfone. It's clear, fast and pretty, so I'm not in the least complaining.

I guess that's it for the review of the LG 3280. Again, it is definately and always SingleRate, unlike any of the other CDMA phones, including the Nokia 2126, even with the new packaging (though the 2126 is still a great phone). If anyone has any questions about the 3280, just comment on this post and I'll answer them! As I said, I'm catching up here, except in greater detail, to what I said on the podcast, and I decided to start with something everone was wanting. So enjoy!

Podcast Responses

Whew! That was a lot of feedback on my podcast! Keep it coming! I'm on a brief respite from a Boy Scout camping trip (which isn't that bad actually...the camping trip, that is) so I still won't be able to submit my 'cast to iTunes or make the podcast info page...those things will have to wait till tomorrow...but they will get done, and I'll respond to the comments now:

"8.1 MB? Ian, that is almost 1-2 hours of downloading on a dial up connection? You may wish to provide a text summary!~"

True, it's 8.1 MB. But take a look at the podcasts at www.twit.tv (big podcast place). They're all at least that much, of not waaaaaay more. Podcast stuff isn't really a dialup thing, though I myself just go to the local coffee shop (I'm there right now) to do all of my 'cast downloads and uploads. However, I did provide somewhat of a summery of the podcast topics that I covered, several of which I already talked about on the blog. The remaining topics will be put up here eventually, probably before the next podcast...

"Great info. Comes through great with [DSL]. I'd recommend breaking it up into easier bit sizes--lots of information. The blog actually is nices because it can be referred to over & over & just for specific information looking for. Great job but doubt I'd use it much, I like the blog format the best. "

Yeah, the blog format is nice, but podcasts are fun, too. They're sort of targeted at different audiences. Don't worry about the blog, though. I'm definately keeping it :). I type about as fast as, in the end, I speak for podcasts.

"Is it possible to search on your blog? I am trying to find what needs to be changed to access the different carrier phones through Tracfone. The archive links are not working right now--at least for me so can't look manually either. Great site & I refer to it alot. "

If you're looking for info on how to Tracfone-ize other phones, you will find no info; it can't be done. But you can just use Google to search my blog (type in site=www.go4prepaid.info along with your query). I may switch over to BlogSpot as my host, so everything will work right and blog search will be easier; I can't for the life of me figure out why the archive links aren't working and switching back to BlogSpot would bring everything close together and thus remove room for error...

"How does one see the CDMA page vs the GSM phone page for Tracfone?"

In the URL of the Tracfone site you'll see "tech=GSM4" or "tech=CO" somewhere. CO shows CDMA phones. GSM4 shows Cingular phones (GSM5 shows T-Mobile, which is more limited). Just edit the URL, hit Go and enjoy!

"I like the availability of a podcast. You need to use a bit more emotion and appeal to create more interest. It would also be nice to have a text transcript. Break it down, take your time, give breaks, and add some more music."

Emotion and appeal...hmmm...appeal...give me an example of a podcast with particular appeal and I'll try to follow suit. As far as text transcripts go, I will cover, sometime or another, the meterial I covered in the podcast here on the blog. Breaking it down anhd taking my time seems to be hostile to those people on not-so-high-speed connections, but again I'll take suggestions in the form of podcasts I can look up to. As far as music goes, I'm probably going to get some more of that as time goes on. This is episode 1, so things will change :)

"Is that your voice or did you disguise it?"

That's my voice. I'm fifteen years old and I talk like that when I'm miced...only a slight change from normal...but yeah that is my voice.

"8.1mb on dial up shouldnt take that long.@56kb you should get at least 350kb per min so entire file should take like 25 min"

Wel...dialup is NEVER 56k, but yeah...this podcast isn't really THAT painful even on a dialup connection. It's about the size of a long song like Sufjan Stevens' Star of Wonder, downloaded via eMusic. (I like Sufjan actually, and I like eMusic).

Thanks for your comments! Have to go now...so see everyone tomorrow probably! By the way, I just ordered two Virgin Mobile UTStarComm Slice phones from RadioShack.com for a total of $43.28, including tax and shipping. THe Black Friday deal is online and is until tomorrow, so grab some phones while you can, and email me if you'd like to support this site by giving me a kickback!

The Podcast - It's Up!

The podcast is up! The title is hotlinked to the MP3 file. If you want to use podcasting software, like iTunes, to get the podcasts, just point the software to http://www.memusic.org/go4prepaid/podcast.xml. I'll be putting it onto iTunes soon, and I'll have a podcast page up with links to the various episodes as well, coming later today.

In this esposide I cover all things Tracfone:
Tracfone's Refer-A-Friend Backdoor
Tracfone's Online Deals
Wal-Mart's Tracfone Rollbacks
BabbleBug's Tracfone c261 Deal
LG 3280 Review

So take a look, download it, listen to it, and speak up! Comment on this post with your views and reviews of the 'cast. Is the quality not good enough, audio-wise or material-wise? Should I keep doing this? Let me know! Hope this helps everyone!

THe Podcast - It's Coming!

Just letting everyone know that the first episode of the Go4Prepaid Podcast will be online today. Get iTunes ready; when it is up the feed will be at http://www.memusic.org/go4prepaid/podcast.xml! I'll post again when the podcast is actually online!

Podcast Coming...

Right now I'm in the research phase, but I should have the first Go4Prepaid podcast up by Saturday. Stay tuned...and tell your podcast-happy friends that there is now a prepaid cell phone podcast. I'm looking forward to trying the idea out.

When the 'cast does come out, I'd appreciate it if people would leave comments on the blog post related to the podcast, saying whether it's any good or not. One thing I will promise, though, is that either this podcast or the next one will have the long-awaited LG 3280 review in it.

Tracfone Deals - Refreshed!

Tracfone just updated their GSM website (SingleRate for the Tracfone-ites) and the results are quitte favorable. Gone is the refurbished Motorola c155 deal...and the Nokia 1100, albeit refurbished, is back in the running as the phone that comes with the two-60-miniute-cards-for-$20-plus-tax deal! Which is great in my opinion; the Nokia 1100 may be barebones, but it's solid.

Also new on the block is a $20 rollback on the Motorola c155 and Nokia 2600...with a 1-year card! In short, you can now get a new Nokia 2600 ($30 value) AND a 1-year card for $20 less than you'd be able to get the 1-year card alone for. You're saving a cool $50 on the whole deal. Same thing with the Motorola c155, except it isn't such a great phone.

In short, you're getting a great deal.

P.S. The Motorola c261s for $50 - a $5 coupon are still available, with the big possibility that refer-a-friend will net you 140+ minutes on them. Grab 'em while you can!

By the way...

Because of the refer-a-friend program, you can get 140 minutes with the Motorola c261. So you're getting a camera phone on Tracfone, plus 140 minutes, for $45 (with the coupon code). I'd say that's a really good deal. You can even add a promo code and give yourself even more minutes than 140 on the phone! In every way, you win. But there are only two of these phones left, so scroll down and order one now!

Refer-a-friend...It's Aliiiiiive!

Courtesy dave940 at HowardForums.com, refer-a-friend can very well be alive and kicking even now. Here's how to do it:

Use the following link:
http://www.tracfone.com/ota_sell_a_friend.jsp
1. Fill out the form to send invitations. Instead of clicking SEND,
click the PREVIEW box.
2. Click on the green box that says BACK.
3. You will see the "dear John" letter about RAF ending on Oct. 15.
Click the back button of your web browser.
4. You will see your RAF invitation filled out again. Click on SEND.
You should see the message saying that your invitation has been sent.

What does this also mean? Why, ESN minutes are now available again! Go to my minutes page and you'll see that I am now selling them for $12 apiece. Don't forget to email me with your phone serial number when you order.

Also, I'm getting in the phones starting Friday, and there are more than enough phones for the ESN minutes to go around. Then again, $12 for 120+ minutes is good. So preorder your minutes now...and enjoy refer-a-friend while it lasts!

A few Moto c261s for $50 shipped

I just made a deal with BabbleBug...

They have two (just two) Motorola c261 Tracfones available at $50 shipped. I take the order, they ship it. Likely faster than Tracfone's own site and even cheaper than Wal-Mart!

I'm getting a little bit off of this, so I can afford to subsidize. So in that vein, the first order gets a $5 discount via the coupon code "yournewmoto". Order quickly and I might not even have time to turn off the coupon for the second phone...who knows?

Anyway, here is the Google Checkout button to buy the phone...enjoy!

Wal-Mart Rolls Back Tracfone Prices

On their website and at probably at their stores, Wal-Mart now has the Motorola c261 available for $50, in both black and red colors. Let the war of the camera phone prices be waged! Seeing as how Virgin Mobile has the refurb'd Audiovox Snapper for $40 direct from their website, and Target has it for $40 new at their stores, or will have it at that price Friday.

On a side note, the price of the Motorola c139 has gone down, too. By one dollar. Nonetheless, a rollback is a rollback, so now you can buy a candy bar and the phone isntead of just the phone itself, though I'd say the Nokia 2126 is a better use of one's money, especially since you can get it with two 60-minute cards on Tracfone's store for the price of the c139 along.

Speaking of Tracfone's online store, they themselves are still selling the Motorola c261 for $60 :(

And while we're on that topic, has anyone noticed that T-Mobile-based Tracfone areas don't have the Motorola c261 or the Motorola v176? Maybe because TMo and Tracfone still only have a voice-and-text agreement with each other? While Cingular also has a web\pix messaging agreement with the carrier?

Then again, if you want T-Mobile based service, you can just go with T-Mobile To Go; it has a good amount of roaming coverage now when compared with its contract version, if you're complaining about coverage, and it has web and pix messaging, for usually less than Tracfone (usually as in Tracfone has promos). Plus there's a larger phone selection.

But anyway, viva la competition! I'm personally looking forward to $20 camera phones on prepaid, preferably with Bluetooth tethering :)

Tracfone - Triple-Stacking Now Available

Just to let everyone know, Tracfone now lets you "stack" airtime expirations up to 180 days from when you add the airtime. So if you want to use 60-minute cards for getting a long time in service, you can now do that, up to half the time of a -year card. Nifty.

P.S. The $12 refill coupon code is no more, and neither are my 60-minute cards. I'm selling all of 'em that I get to elsewhere. I'll tell everyone when the cards get back in though, and if ESN minutes start working again I'll post about that too.

60-minute card promotion!

Only for Sunday, and only for Sunday, I'm lowering the price of the 60-minute Tracfone cards, through a promotional code (aren't they fun!) that will, for one order per customer, lower the price of the refills to $12 apiece.

I only have eight cards left, and the coupon can only be used once per customer, so stock up on airtime cards while you can! Feel free to put this coupon code wherever online...

The code is "$12 refill", without the quotes and with the $ and the space. Enjoy!

Tracfone Deals...Better Ones!

Tracfone updated their phone lineup Friday. Here are the deals:

Free ground shipping on all orders of $19.99 or more ($5.36 savings including 8.25% tax)
Need I say more?

Free universal accessory kit and gift box on all orders of $60 or more
Small problem: the refurb deals, even three of them, as far as 60-minute card deals are concerned, don't quite add up to $60. So you have to spring for something more expensive to get the gift...more expensive by $10. Which means there's one less order of phones with two 60-minute cards included. Dang. But then again, if you're in for a 1-year card deal all is good.

Take your pick; buy a 1-year card and get any of these phones free:
Nokia 2600 - New (!)
Motorola c155 - New
Nokia 1100 - Refurbished (!?! but okay)
Motorola v170 - Refurbished

So you get a phone usually costing between $10 (Nokia 1100) and $40 (Moto v170) for zip when you buy a 1-year card. Sounds like getting on a contract plan to me, but hey, it works...and the Nokia 2600, new, is part of the mix!

Also, the Motorola c261 is still available for either $60 alone or free with a double-minute card. Sounds like a contract typa thing to me, but hey...it's a camera phone!

Here's the lineup of phones, stretching from $10 to $60
Nokia 1100 Refurb - $10
Motorola c139 - $20
Motorola c155 - $30
Nokia 2600 - $30 (good deal if you ask me)
Motorola v170 - $40
Motorola v176 - $60
Motorola c261 - $60

On the CDMA SIDe of things (geeky pun intended) nothing has changed, which is a good thing. The Nokia 2126 is still available for $20 refurbed with two 60-minute cards, and that's really all that matters. Though now with free shipping the LG 3280 is a good deal online just like it is offline...at least I think it's a pretty good deal.

Anyway, hope this helps!

Tracfone Deals...New Ones

Actually, there isn't much to say here, except that Virgin Mobile now has competition...sort of...for the $10 phone. That competition is the Nokia 1100 if you're in a GSM area...but the Nokia costs $4.95 to ship, plus tax on that $4.95. The K7 Rave ships free. But then again, GSM coverage is a lot bigger than Sprint coverage. It all depends...yet the Nokia 1100 now sits on Tracfone's website, waiting to be bought refurbished for $9.99 plus tax, shipping and tax on shipping. I can't wait till they're back into being given out for zip with two 60-minute cards; the Motorola c155 is inferior...in my opinion...

Another sale is with the Nokia 2600...though the sale is the same as last time, to $30 down from $40. It's an okay deal for what kind of phone you get, I suppose. The Nokia 2600 is a good phone, ya know.

Last and maybe least is the Motorola v170. The flip phone with a tiny screen on the inside and no screen on the outside. For $40. At least it's not $50...

Red Slice, VM Stash

First off, some good\neat news...

Now available from BestBuy is a red version of the UTStarComm Slice. Dunno about anyone else, but some people, me included, think that the red plastic on the phone looks better\sturdier than the black plastic of the normal Slice. And it's red. But then again it's $50 plus tax and shipping (if your local BestBuy is a long ways away\doesn't have the red version of the phone\both of the above), whereas next Friday RadioShack will have the sufficiently good-looking black model for a mere $20 plus tax. But hey, people pay more for red stuff than black stuff, and more for black stuff than white or silver stuff usually. Just ask Apple ;) Oh, and the box of the Slice says "Red" in little letters above "Slice". Nifty...

That's the good part of this post. Now to the bad part: showing what a total ripoff Virgin Mobile's
Stash card is. Take as a contrast my personal bank account, which I'm changing soon to something even better...

I don't get any rewards, but the debit card is just $12 a year. No per transaction fees. And I only had to spend $25 to open my bank account, which has no monthly fees, no minimums, etc.

On the other hand, you have Virgin Mobile's Stash card. Which costs $6 a month...if you have a Virgin Mobile account! Otherwise it's $10 a month! Anyway, to add insult to injury, you can also opt for a per-swipe cost plan...at $1 per item bought! I use my debit card waaaaaaay too much for the first, and the Stash card costs as much in two months as my debit card costs in a year! And I'm complaining about my debit card costing, since another local bank offers a debit card for free ($100 minimum deposit).

Adding even more insult to injury is Virgin Mobile's "Rewards" program. Where they start you off with 200 points, if you spend $60 to put $50 onto your card. How much are these points worth? Zippo, until you spend $300 (your initial $50 plus another $250, plus per-transaction or monthly fees) using the card. At which point you have 500 reward points and can get...gasp...25 minutes of airtime for your phone! Let's see...$310 spend...minimum...for $4.50 in rewards. But wait...you paid them $10 to start out with...so they're still making money off of you!

It gets worse...you just get a point for every dollar you spend after those first 200 points in bonuses. So you're gonna hafta spend $500 (!) plus transaction and monthly fees (!!!) to get another $4.50 in airtime. And I'm betting that you're going to have to pay either the $5.95 monthly charge or $5+ in transaction charges to put $500 of spend on your card.

But wait...this isn't out of character for Virgin Mobile after all! *shrugs* Just don't get pulled in my this whopper that you actually gain something from using the Stash card.

I've Got Virgin Mobile Now...

...so if you're activating a phone do me a favor and say 8304569332 sent you, if nobody else wants you kickback.

But anyway my K7 Rave came in today so I'm messing around with it. When the battery runs totally down I'll post a review...honest!...and everyone will know how theis $10 phone fares.

OK. SO I'm shamelessly begging another bit of support from everyone. Here's what I have to give in return:

RadioShack is offering the UTStarComm Slice for $19.99 plus tax Black Friday (the day after thanksgiving). I wasn't too keen on this phone with its $50 price, but for $20 it is a steal. Considering it has a color screen and mp3 ringtones, as well as 1xRTT web access. And yes, for $20 I'm forgiving the hard-to-press keypad and glitzy LED status light.

So yes, there is now a truly good deal on a Virgin Mobile phone that can take advantage of most of the service's features (as opposed to the Rave, which can't do web access and such stuff like that). And if you get the phone because I talked about it (though you'll have to hurry that day because the phones will likely sell out quite quickly) maybe help me by sending me a kickback...since it doesn't cost anything.

Later, people...

Tracfone Cards For Sale - Delivery Within 24 Hours!

Just to let everyone know, I have ten Tracfone cards for sale, available right now through my Tracfone Airtime page. You can use PayPal, but Google Checkout actually works better for me...and probably you, too.

You see, the person I usually sell the airtime cards to backed out on that part of the deal. So I have ten airtime cards for the world at large to consume at a price that's much lower than you'd pay at Wal-Mart...but everyone already knows that.

But I'm just letting everyone know so everyone can take advantage of this offer. Hope this helps! But keep in mind that I only have ten cards so buy now...

I bought...

Today I bought the Kyocera K7 Rave on Virgin Mobile. Thte main reason is that I want a phone that has really cheap text and I may be able to get kickbacks etc. and thus get free minutes...

Which means that I'll have Virgin Mobile and the phone pretty soon and I'll post a review here! Also, everyone now has another way to support this site: if you want to activate a Virgin Mobile phone tell them I sent you. I'll have my number up here when I activate.

What Virgin Mobile Phone To Get?

Several people want to know what Virgin Mobile phone to get, judging from their comments on my recent posts. And they want good phones.

To which I reply that the Audiovox 8610 isn't a good phone. It's limited in features and overpriced...since you can get the refurbished 8915 (Snapper) for the same price. The Snapper is easily a much better phone than the plain-Jane Vox and since it's on this much of a sale I'd get it.

If you don't want to pay $40 for a phone, the Kyocera Oystr is good too, though sometimes it takes a second for menu commands to execute. But it's a solid phone for $20.

If you want thin, you may actually be able to put up with the Slice and its price tag, inordinate as far as Virgin Mobile phones go. Its wierd keypad is probably there just because the phone is so thin, as is the battery life. The user interface isn't great, but then again it's the same as any other Audiovox's so it's a "might-as-well" type of thing.

For cheapie phones, you can get them in abundance. The Kyocera K10 is color. The K7 Rave is really, really cheap. And the Nokia Shorty is just plain good.

If you're willing to shell out for a more expensive phone, my choice would be the Kyocera Cyclops or the Slider Sonic, depending on whether you want a slider\MP3 player or a phone with a 1.3 megapixel camera. Both are good buys.

Notice that I still left out the Switch_Back in my once-over of the phones. That's because $130 is too much to pay for just a phone with a QWERTY keyboard in it. At least in my opinion.

Hope this helps anyone going VM. If anyone gets a phone, tell Virgin Mobile...never mind, I don't have one of their phones yet. Guess that's my next purchase. :)

Tracfone and Virgin Mobile News...And They're Both Good! And other News...

First off, some news from Tracfone. And a lot of it...to make up for the fact that I haven't posted here in quite awhile.

1. The Motorola c261 is now $60 plus shipping and tax (and tax on shipping, naturally) on Tracfone.com. Let the price wars begin, and the consumer benefit! :) I may eventually have to pick one of these up, just to get another thin phone and one with pretty much full GSM coverage.

2. The Nokia 2600, which is a nice phone in my opinion, at least for just voice and text, is now $30 + tax\shipping\tax on shipping on Tracfone's website, down from $40, down from $50. If you don't like the Motorola c155 (I don't either) and are willing to pay $30 for a Tracfone this is a good bet.

3. The two-60-minute-cards promo is still going on in both CDMA and GSM areas. GSM has reveted to the Motorola c155 as their "free phone" (bleh but oh well; some people like a color Moto over a b\w Nokia). But CDMA is still plugging away with the excellent Nokia 2126. How excellent is it? I just ordered 6...that's how excellent :).

4. Refer-a-friend might be up again! Email me if anyone wants a referral. If it does indeed work, I'll start selling ESN minutes again. Yay for everyone! See for yourself...the refer-a-friend form is at http://www.tracfone.com/ota_sell_a_friend.jsp . Enjoy!

Now for Virgin Mobile news...

1. I reckon the battery life, with low to moderate use, for the UTStarComm Slice to be around 3 days. Apathetic for CDMA...until you compare it with the LG 3280, which lasts twice as long. But then again, bar phones keep their displays on longer than flips with no caller ID screen. But then again, PCS frequency only phones (aka the Slice & co.) *should* use less battery power...which leads me to conclude that this phone's battery life suffers from a case of a too-small battery...which can easily be explained by the phone's thinness. But anyway, I think I'll pass on laying out $50 on this phone right now...I don't text a ton so Virgin has not too much to offer to me...:)

2. Two phones are officially out now, the Slice and the Cyclops, both online.
2a. The Slice is...um...the Slice...I already reviewed it. And it's $50 online...not horrible for a phone that's actually thinner than the Motorola SLVR (trust me; I checked the specs and won a bet on those specs) but then again its keypad is darn hard to press.
2b. The Cyclops, by Kyocera, is $100 and Virgin Mobile's second Kyocera flip. More importantly, it's Virgin Mobile's first 1.3 Megapixel camera phone. Other than this nifty bit of trivia, its vertical outer display, and its quite moderate price tag (considering everyone else's 1.3 megapixel camera phone costs that much with a contract!) there isn't much news here. Except that the phone is moderately thin, too.

3. Phone prices are falling again! I may have to buy something of Virgin Mobile's, especially if they don't have tax in my area, just to have an active Sprint phone...or a phone with good text rates...or some other such excuse...here are the deals:

• Kyocera Oystr - $20 - This cheapie flip with a fair-sized screen is $10 cheaper online than it is at Wal-Mart...even with included ground shipping
• UTStarComm Slice - $50 - I just mention this again since it's out of stock! Whoa, what a demand!
• Audiovox "Vox" 8610 - $40 - They call this a special deal? Okay, this phone of auld is $10 less than in stores, but still it's a passer-upper for the moment.
• Nokia "Shorty" 2115i - $15 - Want a cheap Virgin Mobile phone that just works? Don't mind having a black-and-white screen? This phone has the primo-ness for the job at a nice price :)
• Kyocera K10 "Royale" - $15 or $20 w\$20 of airtime - Wow, they must really be trying to get rid of this phone. Which is okay, sine it's not an outstanding phone in any specific area, beside the fact that it's web-enabled. But hey, the price is pretty much right...especially if you like the concept of a "free phone".
• Audiovox 8915 "Snapper" - $80 or $40 refurbished - New, the price on this phone isn't something to write home about. True, it is well below $100 and it's a camera phone, but that's no biggie. What's really big is that the phone's price is cut neatly in half...yes...in half...by the fact that it's refurbished, if you buy refurbished. Meaning that for the same price as the Vox 8610, or twice the price of the Oyster, you get a halfway decent camera phone with flash, speakerphone and caller ID display. Halfway decent meaning it's made by Audiovox, but that's forgiveable considering the price...less than I paid for a flip phone with no caller ID screen, let alone a camera, the LG 3280.
• Kyocera Slider Sonic - $100 - Considering that you get not only a phone but a cameraphone, MP3 player (based on MiniSD cards) and videocamera\video phone all in one slider form factor for this amount of cash, I'd have to say that this little number is a good buy, even if it's getting a little old. Heck, it's what they're selling on Amp'd, basically, for the same price...after a mail in rebate!
• Kyocera Butt_Ugly...er...Switch_Back - $130 - Sorry, but I still think this phone looks dorky. But I suppose a miniature keyboard has its uses if you're really, really into texting and want to burn up your Penny Texting's 1000 monthly texts in the first ten days of the month with an ease unknown to man. But the phone still looks horrible.
• Kyocera K7 "Rave" - $10 - Yes, you saw right. $10 shipped will get you a utilitarian, dated pass into the world of Virgin Mobile. Forget a color screen, polyphonic ringtones, vibration alert, web...but then again if you just want to talk and text and maybe use your phone as a flashlight (the K7 has one) this may be all the phone you need, at a glove box friendly price...but for the fact that Sprint PCS isn't exactly your glovebox provider...ech...back to the drawing board...

4. Anyone heard of Audio SMS? Me neither, but the Kyocra Cyclops and, soon, the Switch_Back, will be able to do it. Think of it as SMS, except with voice, except free for now for the first hundred messages per month (10 cents per message after that). Free until July '07, that is. But it's a neat concept, and a fair reason to get that $100 phone that Virgin just came out with. Hey, Audio SMS is a gimmick, and gimmicks are fun, right?

5. Ever heard of Suger Mama? Where you spend a bit of your time on wacky surveys via text or web to get free airtime for Virgin Mobile? Well, it's getting better slowly...and it's a nifty way to get a minute or two here and there. Not saying that it's efficient over a dialup connection, but it's interesting. There is a cap on how many minutes you get per month (35 I think) but that's okay. It's an interesting thing to do anyway...seems like Virgin Mobile is focused on being the "interesting" prepaid.

6. Virgin Mobile just did a slight overhaul on their refer-a-friend program. Now, the maximum number of friends you can refer per year is 12 (up from 10) but you only get $10 on the first one ($20 for each one thereafter). The catch is that your friend needs to add $15 to his\her account within 45 days of activation for you to get the minutes. But hey, you can get $20 off of just $25 for the Kyocera Rave and some airtime...which is darn good the way I look at it!

Those are all the Virgin Mobile announcements I have right now...but I have a few other noteworthy things to say:

1. Amp'd has released their own version of the Motorola Razr v3m. For $200 after a $100 mail-in rebate if you're going for prepaid. Which isn't that bad really. Especially since it is, in fact, the Razr.

2. A few friends are on Virgin Mobile. On has the Kyocera K10 Royale. One has the Oystr. Both are just kids; one is 13, one is 12. I know, I know, this should be in the Virgin Mobile section, but bear with me...

The friend with the Oystr used an astounding (to me) $9.80 in the past five days. Right...that's practically $2 a day on cell service. 40 minutes in the last five days. 30 texts.

The friend with the Royale used up the 50-for-$2 text option I enabled for him...in one day! *scratches head* Kids these days. If I remember right, his phone got topped up to about $33 on the 1st of the month. Now it's $5.76. That's $27 used over five days!

The moral of the story: for every person like me who barely uses any minutes, there are kiddos out there who should be on a different plan...WAY different. I'm going to see if I can help these two out...with all the money they're pretty much throwing away on the phones they could do stuff in Boy Scouts...lots of stuff...they're both new entrants into it (I'm an Eagle Scout). Anyway, I see here the moral of keeping track of your prepaid stuff.

Well that's all for now. Hope everyone's enjoyed reading this. If you have, click some ads and help me pay for phones and, eventually, a senior-class trip to Washington D.C. this spring (no kidding...it costs like $1800...$1400 of which I don't have yet!)

Of Tracfones...The New Ones...And More Tracfones...The New Ones

I've been planning to write this article for a looooong time, but now is first time I've been able to get enough totally homework-free time to do it. But anyway, here's my perspective on what Tracfone is doing and where it's going.

The recent introduction of such phones as the Motorola c261, Motorola v176 and LG 3280 has markedly changed Tracfone's focus, at least in my opinion.By introducing these three phones, they've come back into direct competition with more feature-rich carriers, and their pricing structure is also changing (going lower, it looks like) to actually offer a viable alternative, albeit with tons more coverage, to single-network prepaids.

Why are the Motorola c261, v176 and LG 3280 so great? Let's start with the first phone. Offered now for $50 at a Wal-Mart near you (if you're in an area that has CDMA phones as opposed to GSM), it's pretty darn innovative. You can also get it online now.

For starters, it's the first color CDMA flip phone on Tracfone. Second, it's the first non-Nokia, non-Motorola phone Tracfone has had in a loooooooong time. Third, there is a hundredths place on the airtime balance display...which means Tracfone can now offer more fine-grained services (like pay-per-KB web access).

Fourth, and this isn't known by many people since it's buried in one of the higher-order (out of 144!) code info pages on the phone, MMS and web browsing (which look to be respectively 1 unit per message both ways and 0,5 units per minute) already have billing structures set in place. Waiting only for a firmware upgrade or such on the phone to reveal them in their full glory. That's right...I said firmware upgrade; the phone has OTA (Over The Air) firmware upgrade capability.

Furthermore, the phone has a function, though not enabled yet, for buying airtime directly from the phone (also in code pages are the various values for airtime...which are normal). And there's the new airtime adding function, that has a seperate step for entering promotional codes...yay ease of use!

Personally, the LG 3280 beats the pants off the GSM equivalent (Motorola v170). Everybody go CDMA! :) I like the idea of having a Verizon contract phone without the contract, which this phone basically is...a slightly modified version of the LG vx3300 (like the Nokia 2126 vs. the Nokia 2128i). Viva la SingleRate! Heck, texts are now 0.3 units both ways...er 0.30 units...on this phone, which is just as good as the new SingleRate phones. And Tracfones don't charge you for incoming texts until you open them up...so say bye to evil incoming spam message charges...the Erase function is your friend!

OK. Now to the Motorolas that wre introduced on the high end...

The Motorola c261 is, in a nutshell, amazing for Tracfone. First off, it's a really thin phone...well, not like the UTStarComm Slice, but then again this phone has a heckuva lot more coverage than just Sprint's network. And this Moto has a camera. And Cingular (or T-Mobile) postpaid coverage! Yes, I may be a bit over-excited, but it shows a change of focus when Tracfone gets on the bandwagon of such features.

What features? Well, web and picture messaging of course! Picture messages, taken by the phone's 640x480 camera (which is surprisingly OK, from the pix I've seen), are one unit to send or receive...so if a picture is truly worth a thousand words you're getting a good deal here...even though while you're sending\receiving picture messages Tracfone is zapping you at half a unit for every minute it takes. You see, the phone also has web access, charged by the minute, at half a unit per minute (so does the Motorola v176 actually...what I would call not quite feature-equivalent to the LG 3280 lol). Though right now it's limited. Ech...I get limited web for free on T-Mobile. But it will change\might have changed already to full access. Woohoo! Also, the Moto c261 has Bluetooth for the soul brave enough to unlock it...though nobody has been able to do that yet.

All in all, you get a lot for the $60 plus tax that the phone costs at Wal-Mart now ($80 is its online price...or $130 with a double-minute card, plus tax and shipping and tax on shipping). With this phone Tracfone has started a move toward new things as far as prepaid goes; it looks like everybody wanta a camera\web phone now and thus Tracfone must oblige to get a bit more income...and a bit more they'll surely get. When the Motorola c257\c261 showed up on PhoneScoop as being slated for Tracfone release, everyone thought that Tracfone would get the cameraless c257...everyone was pleasantly surprised and Tracfone got itself updated!

I for one am looking forward to how this innovation plan will unfold...it can mean naught but good to everyone, at least from here on out...nothing worse an happen really now that refer-a-friend is gone...and it'd be great to get the program back.

But anyway, I jsut love how Tracfone is marching forward...anybody with me?

"They have 7 p.m. Nights!!!"

SOmeone posted a comment that VIrgin Mobile is the only carrier that has 7 p.m. nights. Sorry, but whoever said that is wrong. Dead wrong. A few other carriers have the feature, such as STi Mobile's Plan 3. Look around before saying that X carrier has Y exclusive feature.

By the way, I suppose you could say the Slice is growing on me. I'm still unimpressed by its user interface, but it's thin and is holding up well. My final review will come out when I finally manage to run its battery totally down.

UTStarComm Slice

First off, I'm glad that I have good relations with the guys in the local Wal-Mart connection center, where I got this phone for $48.74 plus tax...I had intended to return the phone after I reviewed it...and now I definately am going to return it.

You see, it is 0.3 inches thick. Yes, that's right, three tenths of an inch in thickness; I think PhoneScoop has their thickness measurement wrong because my handyman dad used a fine-grained ruler...and got around 5\16 of an inch as the thickness. It's a thin phone by any stretch of the imagination, and I think I'll probably carry it around for the next few days just to see how many people say "ooh and aah" at it. That's the pro to it. And that's basically the only pro to it. I still can't get over how thin the phone is...but at the same time I'm disgusted enough with it to take the phone back anyway. You might say that this phone is the poor man's SLVR, but I think you have to be dirt-eating poor to sacrifice as much as you do when you get the Slice. The phone is light too, but I think it feels cheap. But maybe I'm biased.

True, the phone is thin and black and has a keypad backlit to, at first glance, look like the fabled chemical-etched, metallic Razr keypad...but as soon as you touch the phone you know it ain't so. The keypad is decidedly plastic, and is pretty darn hard to press. Furthermore, the keys are close enough together that you might actually press two when you're supposed to be pressing just one. Why couldn't they use the real estate below the screen to give some more space for the keypad? No, wait, the Virgin Mobile logo is there...never mind.

The phone doesn't flex or anything like that under pressure, but yet it still has that cheap feel about it, despite UTStarComm's best intentions. The whole phone, matte or glossy, is a fingerprint magnet, except for the wierd keypad mentioned before. Yes, the phone has the right proportions for talking into, but for some reason I still don't like its whole aspect.

Maybe it's because of the relatively small screen. Then again, I shouldn't expect much for $50, but the screen just seems a bit smaller when it's bounded on all sides by shiny black plastic, and Audiovox doesn't, in my opinion, make good use of screen real estate. It has that generic feel to it, though with a Virgin Mobile twist...that characteristic teeny-bopper feel that limits you to four installed, loud-as-possible wallpapers and four preinstalled ringtones, three of them obnoxious voice ringtones. Ech. There's also a red\electro-blue LED on the front of the phone that is conspicuous when off and flashes when a call or text comes in. I'm left scratching my head why they put it there.

Speaking of ringtones, the phone does have a reasonably good speaker and speakerphone. And reception os OK, but doesn't stand out from the pack at all...though it does connect calls a wee bit faster than my LG 225. So if you're wanting a phone just for voice, this may do the job, but you'll have a heck of a time putting in numbers with the over-stiff keypad. The phone also packs vibrate alert into its small case, and the vibe alert is strong enough, but it isn't synched to the music or any such fun.

The phone has text messaging, and even has a progress display for when you're sending the message. But the user interface seems dreadful to me...not enough soopthing gradients or something...or maybe I'm just spoiled. Also, there's web. But I know people that could grow beards waiting for the pages to load in the Openwave browser. I was going to test how fast the 1xRTT data was on the phone by visiting such sites as GMail, but then decided against it...things went way too slowly for me to do that.

I don't know about battery life yet, as I just got the phone tonight, but I do know that the charger is pretty darn huge, compared with the models that ship with the likes of LG and Motorola phones. Maybe I'm picky, but this sideways wall-wart is a bit on the obese side, just as the Slice is emaciatedly thin.

Maybe I'm overreacting to the phone's keypad and stark user interface, but I come off with a felling that, even though this phone is paper-cut-inducing thin and cheap to boot, I'd rather go with something a bit thicker in exchange for better features and such.

My final verdict is that this phone, if you want a fashion icon on the cheap, may be fine for calling and maybe a text or two...and maybe, must maybe, for web in a pinch. But the keypad is a pain in the neck, and when you can get the Kyocera K10 with nearly the same features, bu for the size, for 30% of the price this phone seems like a pretty bad ripoff. Heck, you can get a flip phone, the Kyocera Oyster, for 40% of this phone's price, shipped to your door...and it's a flip phone!

But then again, to be fair, some people think that thin is in beyond all reason and for them this is a cheap way to go thin. Also, I need to test out battery life; if the phone turns out to last a long time I may change my opinions. But right now I'm mildly disgusted with this new entry onto the Virgin Mobile scene...if only because of the keypad and the fact that the calculator is only seven digits and goes down to only two decimal places (yes, I'm a math nerd)! But anyway, don't buy this phone from online...buy it from a place where you can return it if you want to buy it at all. And I'll have the rest of the review up fairly soon, meaning battery life and conclusions with battery life in mind! I've yet to put the $50 phone through its full paces, and so you'll see more info on it soon.

Virgin Mobile - Phone Deals

Not that I'm a fan of Virgin Mobile's pretty high rates, or their limited Sprint service (pretty much every prepaid now has better coverage than Sprint prepaids)...but some people just might want their $10-for-1000 texts deal or whatever...which leads me into what phone deals Virgin Mobile has right now online...

*For $25 you can either get a Nokia Shorty or a Kyocera Slider...with $25 in airtime on it! The Slider is out of stock...but I'd rather have the Shorty...plus the Slider is refurbished
*For $80 you can get the Audiovox Snapper. Not that you'd want it, but then again some people just have to have cameraphones and this is the only camera flip for Virgin Mobile in a normal form factor available online...and it is okay in price.
*The Kyocera Oyster is now a mere $20. Not bad for a flip phone! Except that it doesn't have a caller ID display...but then again neither does the LG 3280 and the two phones are quite similar in target...and the 3280 is $30 more expensive. But then again, you get a lot more coverage for the 3280.
*The Kyocera K10 Royale is...gasp...$15...including shipping! Sheesh...they must want to really get rid of this phone! But hey, it is a pretty old bar phone so I can see their rationale. Heck, if you want a color phone of any sort to delve into prepaid with this would be it...at least in my opinion...if you were on a shoestring budget that is. It's also my opinion that the Nokia 2126 deal currently available with Tracfone is a heckuva lot better than anything Virgin Mobile has to offer, beating up the Nokia Shorty, at about the same price.
*The Hunch_Back...er...Switch_Back is still $130...not that anybody'd want to buy such a hunka junk anyway...sorry but the phone looks butt ugly!
*The Kyocera Slider Sonic is now $100...with $20 in airtime included! If you want a fast-looking phone, viva la Sonic! Not that I'd personally sell my soul back to Sprint service...let alone 18-cent-a-minute Sprint service, but then again this is a reasonably nice phone\mp3 player combo that is reasonably cheap. I mean, I don't see any other prepaid selling mp3 phones for $80 effectively.

More For Sale!

Just to let everyone know, I now have Motorola c155s, unlocked and unbranded, for sale, at $25 shipped apiece! Which is pretty darn cheap, considering that the phone is color and has web access and other such fun. Also, the T-Mobile SIM has a lot more airtime on it...for an even better price! Take a look!

Super Duper TMo Deal

In short, you get a $50 card for $35. Which is 30% off! And if you call T-Mobile Customer Service you can "stack" two of these refills to make a $100 refill. Which gets you 1000 minutes and a year of service for $70! Needless to say, that's really, really good. Have fun! I think I'll get two of these as well.

Clarifications for Tracfone

1. Just because you don't have a local number on your Tracfone doesn't mean you have to pay long distance to call from your Tracfone to other phones that are local...long distance on all Tracfones is free!

2. Just because you're roaming doesn't mean you're getting charged extra for a call; all GSM phones, plus the LG 3280, are "SingleRate" which means both home and roaming calls cost one unit per minute.

3. If you want to get T-Mobile's selection of phones rather than Cingular's in a GSM area on Treacfone, substitute GSM5 for GSM4 in the URL of the Tracfone orders website.

Local Number? Roaming?

To answer a question just posted here, you won't get a local number is Tracfone, in its coverage map area, does not list phones of your technology (GSM or CDMA). If, for example, you have a GSM phone (like I did) in an area that Tracfone doesn't have down as being GSM (only CDMA phones show up on the coverage map view), you will not be able to activate phones using that zip and, unless another, GSM-enabled zip near you has numbers local to your zip, you won't get a local number.

About roaming, CDMA Tracfones are programmed with specific "system IDs" (SIDs for short) in which the phone will register as in home service. Everywhere else, whether your phone is still on the network it was activated on (usually Verizon) the phone will say it's roaming and charge as such (this is the big advantage of the LG 3280: roaming costs nothing extra!). I'm a little bit more fuzzy about GSM roaming, but I'm pretty sure that the phone will only say it's roaming if it's actually on a different provider's towers than the one it was activated with. Not that it matters anyway though; while roaming features and rates are the exact same for SingleRate GSM phones.

Tracfone Refer-A-Friend - What Cometh Of It?

Sorry, but I don't know the answer to this question. However, general belief is that, in a month or so, maybe a month in a half, but in time for December\Christmas, Tracfone will put out some new form of refer-a-friend. It will likely have more restrictions than the previous one, but such is life. At least they'll likely make rates better. BUt that's basically all I know.

Clearing Up Confusion...LG 3280 Roaming

Just to let everyone know, from personal experience (I have this phone) and from peering into the phone's prepaid parameters, the LG 3280 is definately a SingleRate phone, except with a CDMA twist. It's SingleRate in that, even if you're roaming, you're still charged at one unit per minute of airtime used. And yes, I've tested this. And text is 0.3 units, like with the newer GSM SingleRate phones (Motorola c139, v176, c261).

The CDMA twist is that, if your outgoing call isn't longer than 15 seconds, you won't be deducted airtime for it. Incoming calls, though, cost from second one. But anyway, just clearing things up. If I've helped anyone, click an ad or two for me. :)

At the Risk of Getting Sued...You've Got Questions, I've Got Answers

Someone in a comment asked whetehr you could unlock the Nokia 6030 from T-Mobile and put it onto Cingular. So far, all reports I've heard give a resounding "Yes". You should just be able to unlock it with a normal unlock code generator, but I would do a Google search just to make sure.

And yes, you can use a postpaid Cingular SIM in any prepaid Cingular phone, or t'other way around, with no modification of any sort.

Hope this helps anyone having questions!

Target Deals

Only at stores, rumore has it that they're giving away Nokia 6030s if you buy a $100 card on T-Mobile To Go. If Target was in my area, I would already have bought this deal, but alas they aren't. If anyone does have Target in their area, this is a great deal!

My 3280 is Activated!

Just to let you guys know, my LG 3280 is now activated! I will put a review up after I have fully drained the battery, which will be a hard thing to do on a flip with no external display, mostly in standby :).

GoPhone Pricing

I just checked Cingular's GoPhone website and their offerings are slimming down to subpar (in my opinion) or rancorously expensive handsets for their Pay As You Go offering. For example, you can't get the Nokia 6030 refurbishe ($35 now) on Pay As You Go; it's either $70 new or with Pick Your Plan. The Motorola c139 is $30, with Pay As You Go...and that's too much in my opinion. Other than these few things, the lineup remains the same...except that I'm pretty sure both Pantech handsets, the flip and the bar phone, have been hiked by $10 inb price. And the c300 flip looks like it's only available now to Pick Your Plan! Sheesh...

Tracfone...The Deals Just Got Better!

I just checked Tracfone's website and their deals for phones are still there (which is really, really good) with two new deals...one of which is out of stock right now but simply rocks.

This deal is that you can get a Motorola c261 and a double-minute card for just the price of the double-minute card...plus taxc and shipping and tax on shipping but hey...you have a $80 phone there! Counting the phone at face value ($80) and factoring in shipping and tax, it's like you're getting the double-minute card for $60 or so. Which is 10 cents a minute! Why ten cents? Because the promo code 50809, valid until the end of November, applies not only to 1-year cards (giving them 450 minutes) but also to double-minute cards! Which makes this a pretty good deal, albeit an expensive one up front. But you do get a nice, thin camera phone with it. I'm strongly tempted to take advantage of this deal, but then again I just got the LG 3280...

Yes, I said I just got the LG 3280! My local Wal-Mart had them for $49.98 plus tax, and now the Tracfone website has them for $49.99 plus tax and shipping too (that's the other deal Tracfone's online store has now). I actually got the phone yesterday, but haven't activated it yet...I'll do that Monday; hopefully they'll have some semblance of a refer-a-friend program up by then.

And don't worry; I'll be reviewing the first single-rate CDMA Tracfone, the first color CDMA Tracfone flip, the first LG Tracfone, the first Tracfone with hundredths of units on the display, the first non-Nokia, non-Motorola Tracfone in maybe five years (all the same phone), the LG 3280, in the near future. Stay tunes, and maybe click a few ads so I can get back the cost of this phone. Or maybe buy some of my other phones...

But anyway, the things above don't even tell all the info about this phone...so please stay tunes! Because, in my opinion, this is one pretty sweet piece of polyphonic plastic. Though not a cameraphone or anything, it's still really neat. Again, come back soon for my full review on why I'm so very infatuated with it!

STi and T-Mobile

Just a little bit of househeeping:

Effective now, or rather about a week ago, STi activations get new, slightly better plans. They're still annoying to me, but they are better. The 10 cent per day plan is now 10 cents flat per minute, instead of 10\12. And the 7.9 cent per minute plan is now 25, instead of 39, center per day. Also, the "you have $xx.xx and xx minutes" reminder at the beginning of each call is gone (yay). You can listen to it by dialing *555 from your STi phone.


Also, PosaTec.com has $50 T-Mobile refills for $44.99. Nice as it is, especially when you remember that, by calling T-Mobile To Go customer service, you can "stack" two $50 refills into one $100 refill. Which gets you a $100 refill for $89.98...a cool 10%\$10 off. Granted, CheapPhoneCards has the same card, without the whole stacking bit, for $92.22 or so, and you get $2.63 or so in reward points for the purchase, but if you want your airtime for less outright you can use PosaTec.

Hmmm...interesting how I'm selling both an STi Mobile phone and a T-Mobile To Go SIM card right now... :)

Lllllliquidation!

OK. I'm getting the LG 3280 and that will become my primary line of service. And since the phone costs an extravagent $50 plus tax (and I need money for a senior trip in a few months...and I have too many phones) I'm selling most of my cell phones. Take a look at them on the "For Sale" page (see the righthand link bar). They're priced cheaper, to my knowledge, than anything on eBay, my object being not having to sell them there. So please, if you think you could turn a profit on them by eBaying them, be my guest. And if you just want the phones, which are in good if not near-perfect condition, to use for yourself, that's great too. Anyway, take a look at the phones for sale.

One promise: if I sell all the phones there by the end of the month, I'll buy the Motorola c261 and review it, for the enjoyment of all.

LG 3280...Available!

Yes. It's here, with pictures coutresy Eric...thanks Eric...that show that this puppy is indeed the first CDMA SingleRate Tracfone (click here for the other picture, showing the front of the phone; Blogger idn' working correctly)! Granted, text messages cost to receive, but hey, things rock when roaming is all free. If my Wal-Mart has this phone, which is $50 or so retail, it's mine! I will post a review of it soon, as soon as I can get my grubby paws on it. Even with the dissolution of the old refer-a-friend program, this will likely be a nice, cheap phone for me. And it's on Verizon in my area (though Verizon is PCS-band here) with a local number!

Rest assured, if I get this, I will provide a thorough review on it to everyone here. Stay tuned!

By the way, the 60-minute cards are likely backordered further than I thought. But I'll honor anybody's purchases if they're made before I get the cards. And if anyone wants to sell their 60-minute cards that they got with the recent Tracfone deals, I'll help them! Email me!

Sold Out and Standing Offer

Just to let everyone know, I just sold out of 60-minute cards. One eBay buyer bought all six of them, at $14 apiece! However, I just ordered another bunch of phones (Nokia 2126s). So I should have another batch of 60-minute cards in about this time next week. But don't wait...preorder the card(s) today so that they won't get bought up again before anyone can get some!

Also, if anyone can\knows who can reflash Nokia 1100s and\or Nokia 2600s, I'll gladly pay $5 plus whatever I pay for shipping per phone to get that done. Same with Motorola c155s.

60 minute cards in!

Just got the Tracfone Nokia 1100s I ordered. If anyone wants the 60-minute airtime cards that came with them, they're for sale in my airtime store now for $12.50 apiece. Which is $1.50 cheaper than I'm selling them for on eBay ($14). So get 'em while you can!

QuickBlip: Rapid Refill

Just to let everyone know (including the person who commented on this), all new Tracfones, from the Motorola v120 (which is oooold) on through to all the phones that Tracfone currently sells except the mystery Nokia 5180, have the ability to do Tracfone Rapid Refill (where you put in your PIN and promo code on the phone and they text you the minutes; no more dealing with the website to add airtime), with the exaeption of TDMA phones, which aren't sold anymore anyway. And most are enabled to do it. Which means that the LG 3280 will naturally be able to do it too.

Tracfone Internatinal Long Distance - Free!

Tracfone now has calling-card style international long distance...for free! As in it doesn't cost any more to use it from your Tracfone than normal. Which, I have to say, is great for the few of us (not me) that use that sort of thing. Here are the steps to do a Tracfone ILD call:

1. Call 1.800.706.3839 from your Tracfone (making it an address book or speed dial entry are two good things to do).

2. Press 1 for English or 2 for Spanish. You will hear dialing instructions, which you can skip over by proceeding on to...

3. Dial 011 + country code + city code + phone number. FOr Canada, just dial 1 + city code + number.

That's it. You now have international long distance that doesn't cost anything above your normal Tracfone minutes! Though they're still a bit expensive...unless you want a 60-minute card from me or get one of the current Tracfone deals (see the previous posts). By the way, until tomorrow, when I get them, they're $12 instead of $12.50 (since they're preorders).

Here are the countries you can call to with this service (the table is copied directly from a Tracfone email forwarded to me; the second columns of each table are the country codes):

Andorra 376 Argentina 54 Australia 61 Austria 43 Bangladesh - Chittagong 880 Bangladesh - Dhaka 880 Bangladesh - Sylhet 880 Belgium 32 Brazil - Belo Horizonte 55 Brazil - Brasilia 55 Brazil - Fortaleza 55 Brazil - Recife 55 Brazil - Rio de Janeiro 55 Brazil - Salvador 55 Brazil - Sao Paulo 55 Bulgaria 359 Canada 1 Canada - Cellular 1 Chile 56 China 86 China - Cellular 86 Colombia - Armenia 57 Colombia - Barranquilla 57 Colombia - Bogota 57 Colombia - Bucaramanga 57 Colombia - Cali 57 Colombia - Cartagena 57 Colombia - Medellin 57 Colombia - Pereira 57 Cyprus 357 Czech Republic 420 Denmark 45 Estonia 372 Finland 358 France 33 Germany 49 Gibraltar 350 Greece 30 Hong Kong 852

DESTINATION COUNTRY CODE Hong Kong - Cellular 852 Hungary 36 Indonesia - Surabaya 62 Ireland 353 Israel 972 Italy 39 Japan 81 Malaysia 60 Malaysia - Cellular 60 Mexico 52 Mexico - Cellular 52 Monaco 377 Netherlands 31 New Zealand 64 Norway 47 Peru 51 Poland 48 Portugal 351 Russia - Moscow 7 Russia - St. Petersburg 7 San Marino 378 San Marino - Cellular 378 Singapore 65 Singapore - Cellular 65 South Korea 82 Spain 34 Sweden 46 Switzerland 41 Taiwan 886 Taiwan - Cellular 886 Thailand 66 Turkey - Istanbul 90 United Kingdom 44 Venezuela

Note that most countries bill incoming calls on cell phones as free, and outgoing calls to cell phones as more expensive than usual. Hence, you may or may not see "cellular" on the list of countries for whatever country. If you don't, you can't call cell phones in that country with Tracfone's ILD scheme.

And that's about it. Enjoy!

SingleRate?!?

I jsut looked, and it appears as though all the refurb Tracfones, even CDMA, are SIngleRate! !?! I'm not quite sure what this means, but it sounds good. The SingleRate moniker is promoted more with the old Nokia 2285 and 5180 than with the new 2126s, but that's just another reason for me to get some 2126s to try 'em out!

Tracfone Deals...They's Grrrreat!

Just letting everyone know that, though Tracfone is probably doing a nasty overhaul to its refer-a-friend program, they have some absolutely sweet deals on airtime\phones right now! Furthermore, they have deals wregarding CDMA phones!

On the GSM side, there are two "hot deals". One of them is on fire, the other is not. But anyway, with either you get a "free" Nokia 1100. Refurbished, of course. With one, you buy a 1-year card. With the other...you guessed it...you buy a 60-minute card and get another one free! I'm going to start selling 60-minute cards soon off of this nice little bundle. Yes, they'll be $12.50, but eBay sellers usually charge $15+. I'll get in the first six cards Monday. I'm taking preorders...email me!

On CDMA, the real fun begins. Tracfone has had an all-too-long track record of having one, just one, CDMA phone available: the Nokia 2126. This is a nice phone, yes, but there's no variety; with GSM you have your choice between six (!) phones, spanning the range between $19.99 and $79.99. Anyway, you now have a choice!

But first, the hottest deal of 'em all, at least in my opinion...the Nokia 2126 is being offered free, a la Nokia 1100 on GSM, with two 60-minute cards, for $20! Everyone should know\does know that this phone is simply fabulous for reception etc. as far as CDMA\analog service goes. Okay, it's not the Nokia 6015, but it works quite well. Even refurbed, I daresay it alone is worth the price of the bundle. Once I sell off the coming bunch of airtime cards, I'm in for a bunch of these, if they're still around.

Next on the website is a one-year deal, this time for the Motorola c343. Not the the c343 is a great phone or anything, but if you're a Motorola fan\freak, here's your chance, though it's a rather expensive one.

Then there's the normal Nokia 2126, new, unobtrusively sitting there for $29.99, plus tax and shipping (everything, in fact, has tax and $4.95 shipping and tax on that shipping added to it). Great phone. But it's eclipsed by the refurb deal.

Now, on to the older phones. Yes, we're talking old now. Exhibit A is the Nokia 2285, which comes free with a 120-minute card. Yep, it appears as though Tracfone is trying its utmost to clear out stock on old phones. And the 2285 isn't too bad. Though, again, it'll only sell after the Nokia 2126 deal goes out. I'm betting it will eventually be given out in a similar deal. The perk of this phone is that it has a pretty big screen with a blue backlight...and an extendable antenna!

And last, and maybe least, is the Nokia 5180. Yes, that Nokia 5180. The one you used, what, five years ago? Well, it comes free with a 60-minute card. But it will have to come free with two, and be the only one to do so, before I get it. Sorry, but that's one old phone. But hey, if you need analog this phone will outlast all the others, by virtue of its ginormous battery. Plus, it's CDMA, with an extendable antenna if I remember rightly. Nice way to soup up your geek factor.

In closing, Tracfone now has some pretty nice "let's clear these puppies out" deals on right now, likely to get ready for the LG 3280 and the Nokia 1112. Go on and take advantage of them. And remember: I'll have 60-minute cards in Monday. And if you pre-order today (Friday), I'll take the price from $12.50 to $11.75! If you preorder Saturdy or Sunday it'll be $12. Email me!

Motorola c155 Review...Finally!

Sorry. I have, for literally over a month, been wanting to write this review. And now I'm going to do it:

The Motorola c155 is But one side note is that the c155 doesn't randomly go to 0 minutes rightly a few model numbers higher than its newer brother the Motorola c139; it has a feew features the $20 new phone doesn't. Like polyphonic ringtones. And a screen that doesn't totally black out when the backlight turns off.

Okay, those are the only two advantages over the newer phone, which also gets better battery life and looks better (the c155 looks, frankly, like a bigheaded alien, a true grandpappy phone...sorry people but it doesn't have the least touch of style). But then again, the c155 doesn't have the problem of suddenly losing all its minutes and setting the expiration back to 01\01\2001!

Another okay thing about the c155 is design, quite distinct from good looks. The buttons are easy enough to press but not too easy. Which is definately nice. Battery life seems to be okay, though battery life for refurbished phones seems to be a good bit less than life for new phones. But anyhow the phone has a standby time of several days. Which is fine. Also, the phone has an interesting chat over SMS function, which can be found on other phones but is generally rare. Coupled with the ease of button presses and free incoming (and cheap outgoing) SMS you'd think that this would be the ideal texting phone. Then you remember that the phone has a teeny screen and Motorola's wierd-as-it-gets iTAP text input systemk, and you'll think again.

Worst of all, the phone has the worst shortcoming a phone of this calibre could have: bad reception. Granted, I was on a fringe area, but it was downright horrifying the amount of garbled words and even outright, dead, staticy silence I experienced...with two bars of signal if I remember correctly! I'm 99% sure any of my other phones would've fared much better in this arena. But then again I have to give Cingular some of the credit...er...discredit for the abysmal network quality I experienced.

So, in a nutsell, the Motorola c155 is an okay phone for everything except calling. This may seem surprising, but I'd much rather have the monophonic, black-and-white, older, cheaper Nokia 1100 than thi phone. Especially with the wierdo styling of the c155. But anyway, that's the end of my review\rant. If anyone has anything to add, comment here! I like feedback!

Tracfone Promo!

Tracfone is putting some more good phone deals online again. Namely the Nokia 1100 refurb phone with two 60 minute cards for $19.99 per bundle. Not as great now since refer-a-friend ain't up and free shipping expired as of yesterday, but it's still okay. The 60-minute cards that I'm going to get with the three 1100 bundles I just ordered are all spoken for, but I'll sell any cards anyone else gets through this promo, for the benefit of all. Email me if you want to do that...

Tracfone Motorola v176...Interesting

I just looked on eBay idly, wondering whether there were any good deals on Tracfones with minutes. Well, there were some okay deals, but I'm not planning on getting any just yet...

However, I did notice on one auction, where a guy was talking about a Motorola v176 with 2000 minutes preloaded, that the v176 has web access, and that it, like the Motorola c261, decrements web access at 0.5 units per minute. Sweet.

Tracfone Refer-a-Friend...GONE!?!

From Tracfone's website:

Thank you for your interest in TRACFONE Refer-A-Friend! At this time, we are making improvements to the program, and new enrollments and referrals are not being accepted. However, if you recently visited this page and then referred someone to TRACFONE through this program, and he or she becomes a new TRACFONE subscriber by following the steps in the program and no later than October 15, 2006, you will each still receive the benefits. Please refer below to the terms and conditions if you have questions about the TRACFONE Refer-A-Friend program.

We are working to build a new and improved Refer-A-Friend program, with better tools to service you and your friends.

Thanks again for your support of TRACFONE - customers like you are so important to helping us grow, and we're committed to providing a great Refer-A-Friend program to reward you for sharing the TRACFONE story with your friends and contacts.

TRACFONE Wireless, Inc.

Need I say any more?

PrepaidWireless.com - Buy Anything Get $10 Free In Airtime

I was just contacted by one of the buys over at PrepaidWireless.com. They have a promo running (till the end of the year maybe?) where, after your first order, they give you $10 in reward points for your next order. Yes, that's right. Even if you buy some cheapie card you get $10 to buy another cheapie card. Sound pretty good to me. Especially considering their selection, which includes both phones (MovilListo and Mojo Mobile come to mind) and prepaid wireless cards. Another interesting thing they sell is TelCel (a Mexican communications giant) airtime.

Just letting everyone know...

Virgin Mobile Stuff

Well, Virgin Mobile, with their lackluster rates, does have one thing going for them besides what JD Power called great customer service (I think it was JD Power...didn't really pay attention to it that much...) Cheap Phones.

Yes, they've nicked the pricing of their older phones once again. Want a "free" phone in the contract sense of the word? You've got it, buddy. Take your pick...

For $20 you get the Kyocera K10 Royale (which does have web access but is...um...a Kyocera) with $20 in airtime. Note that this isn't an airtime card but if you want to go Virgin Mobile this is a good way to do so without getting ripped off.

But a better way is by buying the Kyocera Slider for $25, including $25 in airtime. It's, yes, an oooooold phone, but hey, it slides. Right, I know, nothing special here either. On to exhibit number three...

...a free Nokia Shorty! Well, $25 with $25 in airtime anyway. Nice to see the little phone again, though it, like the K10 and the SLider, are pretty darn likely clearance items that Virgin is selling cheap because they want to get rid of the phones...

...because they're going to introduce some new ones! DrPrepaid mentions two phones, a Kyocera flip with some sort of voice messaging function (Squawker I think is what it's called; didn't bother to re-check as it seems like a lotta hype with a name like that) with a camera and, more interesting, a SLVR-lookalike on the lower end, the Audiovox...er...UTSTarcom Slice. Which looks quite nice, thank you very much. Especially when compared to the abominable Hunch_Back...er...Switch_Back. These two phones, due out before the end of this year, will augment the Kyocera Oyster in the phone lineup. Yay. Viva la non-outdatedness.

Tracfone...

First off, the LG 3280 is a bit more interesting than I first thought. It's actually a derivitave, says PhoneScoop, of the LG vx3300, which is only a few months old, rather than the grey-haired vx3200. Which is nice. Especially when, from Googleing it, it appears to have 0.3 unit text messaging both ways. Hey, I can stand cheaper text on CDMA...of course, Tracfone probably did this to unify more their product lines but it's good anyway.

Second, I have for sale right now my last bunch of ESN minutes and last two bunches of code minutes for awhile, as Tracfone doesn't have any promos to speak of online currently. So I'd see if they're still available right now, or you may be out of luck until...who knows... Tracfone may revamp their lineup with some good deals Friday, but then again they may not and it will take me a week to get more phones\ESN minutes\code minutes in. Just saying...and by the way as an added bonus if you want some code minutes I have one batch available right now, as in I can get it within 24 hours of request. Which is nice...for 10 cents a minute especially...

Third, and last, is that I noticed a week or two ago that Wal-Mart is now selling the Nokia 2126 for around $30 ($29.98 I think) rather than $19.98 plus tax. Dang. Still a good phone though and I'll wager worth every penny of that $29.98, maybe more, but don't tell Tracfone that or they'll raise the price again :). Of course, they probably already know that everyone knows the 2126 is a quite solid phone.

And that's all the Tracfone news I have right now...until I get a shiny new LG 3280 of course...but then again there may be some news before that, like when it actually comes out!

But wait...one more thing...refer-a-friend is still there, on Tracfone's homepage. It's just a lot smaller, a text link, rather than a big banner. That's OK with me...

Tracfone Minutes

Just to let everyone know, I not have no more ESN minutes to sell for the time being. All I have left is one bunch of code minutes right now aqnd one bunch of code minutes that will be in stock maybe four days from now. And they'll probably go fast. So pick one up now! As an added bonus, I'll take 50 cents off if you pay via PayPal, or you can get both bunches for $26 ($2 off) via either PayPal or Google Checkout!

PrepaidWireless.com - Buy Anything Get $10 Free In Airtime

I was just contacted by one of the buys over at PrepaidWireless.com. They have a promo running (till the end of the year maybe?) where, after your first order, they give you $10 in reward points for your next order. Yes, that's right. Even if you buy some cheapie card you get $10 to buy another cheapie card. Sound pretty good to me. Especially considering their selection, which includes both phones (MovilListo and Mojo Mobile come to mind) and prepaid wireless cards. Another interesting thing they sell is TelCel (a Mexican communications giant) airtime.

Just letting everyone know...

Oh Please...

Sorry everyone. I've been on a Boy Scout campout until this morning. I will update my minutes page and everything starting right now...no false advertising, just absence...

No More 60 minute cards

I aoplogize, but I'm out of 60-minute cards and I'm not getting any more in any time soon, as it appears. Sorry for any inconvenience. I will update the minutes page to reflect this.

Treacfone New Stuff...Phone and Activation Step

Well, Tracfone has just updated their phone lineup for GSM, as far as promos, and now they're taking more drastic measures...

In the activation process you can now port your number from an old Tracfone. Sweet. One less call to customer service for people who want a newer phone but not a new number. Of course, this will result in any referral program stuff being void, but hey, is your old number worth $12? If so, this is great.

And now for even bigger news since...wel...the introduction of the motorola c261. Maybe even bigger...

You see, Tracfone just put the LG 3280 on their website as coming soon. So what?It's LG, that's what! Tracfone, for the past four or so years, maybe more, has only carried nokia and Motorola phones. And now CDMA users have a fairly capable flip phone, which is a pretty big deal since the last CDMA flip was the Motorola v60, which has been out of stock for...um...somewhere around a year.

Not to say that the LG 3280 is anything extraordinarily new or advanced. It's just a no-caller-ID-screen, color, grey flip phone with a speakerphone. Basically the same as the LG 3200 that Verizon has had for about two years now. But hey, it's a color flip phone and will likely be cheap on Tracfone so I'm not complaining.

I'll likely get this phone sometime soon, as I want to get a CDMA Tracfone for myself. When I do get it I'll review it.

Tracfone Specials Change

After a month or so of having some (Nokia 2600) or other (Moto c155) refurb phone available for $20 with an unbelievable two 60-minute cards included, Tracfone has finally sold out of all its extra stock of these phones (apparently) and is just selling off the refurb Moto v170s with 1-year cards. Not such a great deal. But hey, I have four unactivated phones of different sorts (3 Motos, one Nokia) and a few 60-minute cards so don't worry; you can still buy minutes from me though Tracfone's prices have gone up comparatively.

Also, Refer-A-Friend isn't shown on the homepage of Tracfone anymore, but it still works. See my post about it to get the link to it.

TuYo!

I just today called TuYo Mobile (1-877-GET-TUYO) to claim not one but two totally free SIM cards (each has $10 worth of credit on it) for their service...nice...

Especially since

1) TuYo runs on T-Mobile's network, including roaming (I caught my Nokia 3120 on Cellular One here!)
2) TuYo's plans are nice and inexpensive for voice, with long expirations (10 cents a minute plus 10 cents to connect for low-volume users; cards as low as $10 expire in 90 days)
3) Text messages are 5 cents to send and 2 cents to receive (so you can receive twice as many texts as you send and it'll still equal out to less than 10 cents per message to send\free to receive, which is getting rarer anyway); MMS is 25 cents to send and a mere 5 cents to receive
4) The customer service rep I talked to said that normal, priced-per-day-or-per-meg internet is in the works! (This is a biggie for me because I now have a Palm TX which I can use in conjunction with my Bluetooth-enabled Siemens s56 to access internet anywhere, provided I have service that'll let me do it)

So I'd say get one or two of these SIMs while you can! It's a pretty nice deal.

Google Checkout Now Functional!

Just letting everyone know that Google Checkout is now functional, which means that I can now take credit card orders on my Tracfone airtime. Enjoy! And yes, the page has moved to my own webhost, instead of Google's. But anyway, hope this helps everyone who prefers to pay via credit card than via bank account. As an added bonus, there will be no extra credit card processing fee! Again, enjoy!

New CheapPhoneCards Coupon

Well, it looks like the new 5% off coupon is....save8. Just letting everyone know...

Tracfone...Where's The Refer-a-Friend?!?

I was just looking on Tracfone's wensote tonight to activate yet another phone, and I discovered to my horror that the refer-a-friend link was no longer there! Wierd.

No matter though. Probably just a site redesign. You can get at a refer-a-friend page here:

tracfone.com/sell_a_friend.jsp

Just as a teaser for the upcoming Motorola c155 review, this phone would be great if it weren't for two big flaws: styling and, more importantly, reception. More on that when I can write about it...as it is it's past my bedtime already :)

Amp'd Has Got It Right

Just as a pre-note, DealKing.com can get you $15 off Amp'd phones, plus it talks about 1000 free minutes if you put in the coupon code "KFREE" at checkout...wow. That's why their site is hotlinked in this post's title.

So what's so great that Amp'd has been doing lately? Well, adding hybrid plans of course. Now you can, if you pay prepaid price for your phone ($100 for the Kyocera Jet or Angel after a $100 mailin rebate or $150 for the Motorola Hollywood after the same) you can get a pretty darn good deal on minutes (500 for $30 a month for example) without a contract. That's nice. And that's about it, but for the sweet thing that normal prepaid might have going on. And by the way I'd get this if my zip code were allowed by their site :(

Boost - New Phones, Higher Prices

Well, I just checked Boost Mobile's website. They've updated their lineup of phones...sort of. Everything's actually the same really. Just different colors and maybe higher prices.

For starters, there are two new versions of the i835, the i835w and the i835g. W stands for white. G stands for...um...girlie I think. But anyway they're there and...wonder of wonders...they don't cost any more than the normal i835! But it seems to me that, with everyone else selling some color flip phone with caller ID on the outside for a good bit less than $100...that Boost is doing the exact right thing if they want to keep custoemrs away! I mean gosh, $130 is too much for a plain old color flip, even if it's the thinnest iDEN phone available. Heck, you can get a black, unlocked Razr for $40 more!

For finishers (pardon the awkward phrase) is the "new" i455, which is no more than an i450 with enough black on it to make the part that didn't change color look absolutely ridiculous! No kidding...take a look yourself:

http://www.malsha.com/malshastores/boost.asp

If the main part of the front was also black things would be nice and cool and I'd even think about upgrading my phone via trading it or something like that. But noooooo...

Oh, and did I mention that it's $10 more than the i450? And that the i450 is no longer for sale at Boost's website? That stinks...

Sprint Shoots Themselves In The Boost Foot

In a move to complete the "poisoning" of Boost Mobile to up "subscriber quality" on Sprint\Nextel's cramped iDEN network, Boost just did a hop, skip and a jump BACKWARD as far as their "Premium Plan" goes. My only question is whether existing Boost users will get grandfathered in with their older Premium Plans, or not...if not then that simply...well...blows. I for one am going to put my Boost phone and service up for sale here if Boost does anything else stupid, like raising the Walkie Talkie rate back up to $1.50 a day, which may happen seeing the lowest tier of "Premium Plan". Take a look at the quick rundown of the new monthly plans:

$30 - NO MINUTES (10 cents each extra, same as other plans), Unlimited Walkie Talkie (hmmm...it'd be $30 a month anyway!)
$50 - 400 minutes, Unlimited Walkie Talkie (nights and weekends are GONE from this plan, and aren't present on either of the other two plans!)
$70 - 600 minutes, Unlimited Walkie Talkie (and did I mention that web and text are also gone from being uncluded?)

Yes, web, nights, weekends and text are all no longer included unlimited with the "Premium" plans. Time to start the snoring. But you can get web and text back...for an extra $10 a month! Which is about what normal users pay per month for web, and I wouldn't even factor in text because it's free to receive and unreliable\slow to send. And MMS ain't available unlimited anywhere.

As my friends at school would say, "Go Home Satan!" Perhaps this is being a little harsh, as this debacle has provided me with some juicy blogging material, but I'm thinking SPrint is going to experience a net loss company-wide this coming quarter, especially if they

a) Make plans on Boost even worse, which they probably will do
b) Don't grandfather in the older Boost Premium Plan users
c) Both of the above

*Plays taps for Sprint as its gradual shrinkage to nothing is forseen*

Phones For Sale

OK. So I have too many phone. Way too many phones. And I want to get rid of them. And they're worth something. So...

All phones come with the battery and charger. All prices reflect shipped price. All GSM phones are unlocked. Don't assume they come with anything else unless I say so specifically. Phones are generally in good, though not brand-new, condition. On phones tied to a particular service, service will be inactive on the phones. Email me if you want to negotiate; I have the right to say no though. And now, without further ado:

Nokia 3120, 3595 or 6010 (Cingular, AT&T and T-Mobile branding, respectively, GSM) - $30
Siemens a56 w\MovilListo SIM (not sure if it's active; take it anyway, GSM) - $20
LG 225 (STi Mobile, CDMA on Sprint) w\case, data cable - $50

More phones will be coming. I'm also thinking seriously about selling my T-Mobile To Go Gold Rewards SIM.

And yes, I'll eventually get back to talking about normal cell phone stuff, like the Motorola c155. But not quite yet; I have to call Tracfone and transfer some code minutes and do a few other things first.

Tracfone Promo Codes (or lack thereof)

Well, I tried getting extra minutes on the results of two refer-a-friend minute bunches...and neither 58094, nor 54606, nor any of the other codes that could have been applicable, worked. How depressing...I'll modify my minutes page to reflect the fact that now I'll just be selling batches of 140 code minutes, instead of batches of 200. At least until some new codes come out. :(

At least you can still get the Motorola c155 and 2 60-minute cards deal...

Tracfone Promo...Still Going Strong

Just to let everyone know, the Motorola c155 is still $19.99 refurbished, along with two 60-minute airtime cards, at Tracfone's own web store. Get it while it lasts, which is probably until next Friday or something...I'm surprised with such a great deal lasting till this Friday...but here it is so I'm happy.

UPDATED: Samsung a660, Now on Sale at CheapPhoneCards

Sorry but I've had oodles of homework and work in general lately. As it is, I'm writing this while waiting for the web pages relevant to a Motorola c155 activation load. Otherwise I wouldn't be doing this...I'm really that busy...

But anyway, to let everyone know that I'm alive, CheapPhoneCards (use the link on the right to get to them) has just put the Samsung a660 on their site....for free! Well, $39 with a coupon to help knock a bit off the shipping price, with $40 worth of airtime. Which expires in 90 days. But hey, I can conceiveably use, with just web access and a little bit of talking, use up that $40 anyway in that time so having disappearing airtime syndrome with amounts this small isn't quite the isue that you'd face, say, with $80 in airtime on the LG 125. My only philosophizing is that maybe STi is trying to tier phones to where if you use more minutes you get a nicer "free" phone...which reeks of contract providers but...um...okay...

Speaking of STi Mobile, my LG 225 is still for sale, with the wall charger, case, data cable and $10 worth of airtime...and the car charger if I can find it...for $50 shipped. I hope I'll have some more time for my next post...see y'all then!

UPDATE: I just got sent a 20% off coupon code for this phone, making it, well, cheaper than the airtime it comes with, which is nice. The coupon is "paymecell" (heard of it before? Me too...and of course no quotes). And by the way, the link now in the title is to the DealKing forum posting.

Another side note: I, last week, finally god my $25 T-Mobile To Go refill card! It took a heckuva long time, a lot longer than the promised two business days, but I'm glad to have it. Also, my dealKing cash back is showing up so a $30 check in the mail should, conveniently, not be too far off.