Monday, September 26, 2005
CheapPhoneCards and STi LG 1200
If you can't afford the $84.95 that the LG 5225 costs, CheapPhoneCards does have the older (black and white) LG 1200 phone for $59. Payme25 takes $11.80 off and $5.75 shipping takes the price to $52.95. The price includes a wall charger and a $10 card. Personally I'd save up for the LG 5225 which you can get for free but if you don't want a color screen and just can't part with $85 at a time for a phone then here is an option.
CheapPhoneCards Code
I've learned that the refill5 coupon code for 5% off cell phone refill cards has now expired. The new code, for the same discount, is "cheap" (no quotes).
Sunday, September 25, 2005
Tracfone Promo Code
For those of you buying a Tracfone 1-year card within the next couple of days, I have two pieces of advice for you.
1. Look on eBay and you may be able to find one for $75. If you don't want to look, go to stefnsteve.com and get one for $80.
2. Instead of using the widely seen 150-minute bonus code for the 1-year card, use the 200-minute code, 59647, instead.
The code expires the 30th so you don't have much time...
1. Look on eBay and you may be able to find one for $75. If you don't want to look, go to stefnsteve.com and get one for $80.
2. Instead of using the widely seen 150-minute bonus code for the 1-year card, use the 200-minute code, 59647, instead.
The code expires the 30th so you don't have much time...
Saturday, September 24, 2005
More eBay Deals
I kept on surfing eBay and here are some other deals I found:
Tracfone 200 Minute Card, $42.50 (normally $50, 15% off)
The big deal here is that this is the PIN from a real card, not a limited-use bunch of ESN minutes. You can get the ESN minutes for less, but you can't double them or add promotions to them.
eBay Link
Tracfone 100 Minute Card , $24.50 (normally $30, 18% off)
Same thing special as the 200 minute card.
eBay Link
Net10 3000 minute card, $210 (normally $300, 30% off)
The guy also offers (not right now) the card buy-it-now for $240, a 1800 minute card buy-it-now for $150, and a 3000 minute card and the Motorola v171 phone with the bids at $305 right now and free shipping. The cards are thus 8 cents a minute, and if you get the 3000-minute you're paying $20 a month for 250 minutes a month. Not bad at all.
eBay Link
Virgin Mobile $50 card, $45 (10% off)
This is a little bit better than the deal at CheapPhoneCards with refill5
eBay Link
Tracfone 200 Minute Card, $42.50 (normally $50, 15% off)
The big deal here is that this is the PIN from a real card, not a limited-use bunch of ESN minutes. You can get the ESN minutes for less, but you can't double them or add promotions to them.
eBay Link
Tracfone 100 Minute Card , $24.50 (normally $30, 18% off)
Same thing special as the 200 minute card.
eBay Link
Net10 3000 minute card, $210 (normally $300, 30% off)
The guy also offers (not right now) the card buy-it-now for $240, a 1800 minute card buy-it-now for $150, and a 3000 minute card and the Motorola v171 phone with the bids at $305 right now and free shipping. The cards are thus 8 cents a minute, and if you get the 3000-minute you're paying $20 a month for 250 minutes a month. Not bad at all.
eBay Link
Virgin Mobile $50 card, $45 (10% off)
This is a little bit better than the deal at CheapPhoneCards with refill5
eBay Link
$50 T-Mobile Card for $41
I was just surfing eBay and came upon this: a guy offering a $50 T-Mobile To Go refill card, or rather PIN, for $41. That's 18% off the normal price!
CheapPhoneCards is a good place to find cards for below retail all the time, but they would charge $45.13 for this card (witht he refill5 coupon code). Yes, you get about $1.29 worth or reward points with it but that's still $43.84 net. So you're saving a pretty significant amount by buying from this guy.
eBay Link
I just asked the seller and he accepts PayPal so if anyone has a T-Mobile To Go phone this is a pretty good deal.
CheapPhoneCards is a good place to find cards for below retail all the time, but they would charge $45.13 for this card (witht he refill5 coupon code). Yes, you get about $1.29 worth or reward points with it but that's still $43.84 net. So you're saving a pretty significant amount by buying from this guy.
eBay Link
I just asked the seller and he accepts PayPal so if anyone has a T-Mobile To Go phone this is a pretty good deal.
New Cingular GoPhone Deals
I ran across this yesterday when surfing the 'net. Cingular has updated their GoPhone special list (which, I think, includes shipping costs and a $10 card for each phone) to two refurbished phones and one new phone.
The great old standby, the Nokia 6010, is sold refurbished for $30 ($29.99 but who cares about a penny?). This phone has great reception, a fine list of features and is also easy to unlock, so for $30 you effectively have a cell phone for any GSM carrier (T-Mobile, Cingular, regional carriers) that you want (except for Tracfone\Net10).
The second phone (leftmost on the page) that they offfer for $29.99 is a refurbished LG C1300. This phone is nice and small but doesn't have too many features. Personally, I find the int
The great old standby, the Nokia 6010, is sold refurbished for $30 ($29.99 but who cares about a penny?). This phone has great reception, a fine list of features and is also easy to unlock, so for $30 you effectively have a cell phone for any GSM carrier (T-Mobile, Cingular, regional carriers) that you want (except for Tracfone\Net10).
The second phone (leftmost on the page) that they offfer for $29.99 is a refurbished LG C1300. This phone is nice and small but doesn't have too many features. Personally, I find the int
Info about How Cell Phones Work
I ujust saw (and read) this article at phonescoop.com. As an introduction to how cell systems work (and then some) it's a great resource.
PhoneScoop Article
PhoneScoop Article
Tuesday, September 13, 2005
LG 5225 & STi Mobile
Note: This is an old review. Things have changed at STi Mobile...
OK. After about a week and a half of testing, and a lot of work in between, here's my hands-on review of STi Mobile, one of the cheapest prepaid carriers out there.
Let me start by saying how much it's going to cost me: -$4.05. Yes, that's a negative sign. You see, I got the phone for $84.95 using the coupon code payme25 (20% off) at CheapPhoneCards (go to it from the sidebar on the right). The package also included a $10 card. One major thing payme25 also does is gives you an invoice that looks like you've paid the whole amount, so my up-to-$89 rebate will give me the full $89 amount.
But wait, it gets better! I got 15 CheapPhoneCards "reward points" for signing up with CheapPhonecards, 84 for this purchase, 100 for correcting a T-Mobile description, and 100 apiece for referring two other people to buy from the site (full disclaimer: the link on this site is a referral link, but it works just the same as any other link). With those 399 points I got a another $10 card...for free...with 94 points to spare!
But still wait...it gets EVEN BETTER! They offered me (at no extra cost) a car charger, a leather case for the phone, and a "universal" (2.5mm) headset. I had to remind them to send the stuff, but it should be here tomorrow.
OK. So enough with raving about the super deal I got. The phone is the LG vl5225 that Sprint gave for free (plus activation fee) with a 2-year contract up until they redid their website because of the Sprint-Nextel merger. As said before, I'm really and truly getting it for better than free (other people have had good experiences with the rebates). It's a color flip phone with the biggest screen on any phone I've owned (second prize goes to my Nokia 3560 running on Beyond Wireless; if I didn't cover them I'll cover them sometime later). It also has an external screen, which is nice, large and black-and-white. The external screen normally shows the time, date, signal strength, battery bars and other such status information, or the number of someone calling (STi has Caller ID), or how long the call you just ended was.
Interestingly, LG cut a few wierd corners to get a color flip with an external screen this cheap, albeit OK corners to cut. The backlight is shared by both the internal and external screens, which I guess affects battery life somewhat, but I can live with that since you can use the phone, closed or open, as a stopgap flashlight if needed. Also, there is one speaker for the ringer and the earpice, the happy byproduct of which being a one-way speakerphone (don't talk, just listen) and a nice, loud earpiece. The only thing bad about it is when you set the speakerphone on High (or rather turn speakerphone on when the earpiece volume is set to High) or when you set the ringer on High, clipping occurs. Not a hugely bad deal though.
The phone is generically programmed, leaving you with 12 or so seconds of the LG logo on both screens at startup, plus the rollerblader startup animation, and only one logo physically on the phone. The good thing about this is the phone isn't crippled by Sprint's firmware (which doesn't like people hooking cables to their phones) and doesn't have the Sprint logos plastered all over it (I don't care for either Sprint logo, the old or the new). The bad thing is you have a huge front area of shiny black plastic on the phone that, in addition to looking smashingly good when clean, attracts fingerprints\finger oil\other such stuff like a magnet.
The phone isn't small, but it isn't as big as even a Nextel i836 either, or a Moto v60 for that matter. As a consequence of its fair size though all of your buttons are nice and large. You get, besides your number keys and 5-way D-pad, two selection keys, a back key and talk end end\power keys, plus a volume control rocker on the side of the phone, which will also scroll through menu choices or turn the backlight on when the phone is closed.
The phone supports text messaging and web browsing, as well as J2ME apps (they take awhile to load though but run smoothly once there). The problem is that all the java stuff either need Net access or are trial versions, but I'll talk about why this is a problem later. The phone also includes, built in with the OS, a tip calculator, a regular calculator and a world clock.
OK. Here's where I gripe about the OS. The thing takes 18 seconds from the time you start pressing the power button to the time the phone is ready to use, although in this time the phone also searches for and 99% of the time finds a home signal so no extra waiting involved there. It also takes 6.5 seconds to turn off. All of my Nokia phones that I've had (3595, 3560, 1221, 5165) turn of instantly.
Also, I all too often press the left selection key in a menu, thinking it's the OK key, when in fact it just brings up an option as to whether I want a list view or the poor-frame-rate scrolling icon view. The OK function is assigned to the OK button, not wheree I'm used to having it...or is it just Nokia me? Then there's the right selection button, which no longer functions as the Back button. Hooray for me (NOT!), that button has its own specific place. Ah well.
A few more (admittedly minor) gripes. The backlight appears on the outside to have a shift toward pink, and it partially washes out the external display, but I can live with that. You also have to be reasonably careful with the charger cord, because bumping it in battery charge mode will make the phone turn off, then turn back on, possibly in regular mode. And the speakerphone is one-way, so no talking back when you're in that mode.
Overall, this phone is pretty solid, physically and feature-wise, but I wouldn't be willing to buy it if it had no rebate.
Now to the service. As stated on the website there are two plans. I opted for Plan 2 because I don't make international calls. Right now all they have is voice and Caller ID but both things work well and cheaply. Oh, and they have Sprint voicemail. More on that in a second.
As advertised I paid 12 cents a minute weekdays, 10 cents nights and weekends (starting at 9). Actially I'm paying a lot less because of the aforementioned deals and the fact that, with the discount CheapPhoneCards gives on STi cards (3%) and the refill5 coupon I can get a $10 card for $9.22...thus more like 11 cents a minute weekdays and 9.2 cents nights and weekends.
As with all modern plans, you're only charged if someone (or someone's voicemail) picks up on the other end. Busy signals and no-answers are free. So is calling the refill line (*555), Sprint customer service (*2), STi Mobile Support (611) and, of course, 911. Your balance (in money and in hours and minutes) is announced at the beginning of each outgoing call, with any answer before the announcement is done interrupting the announcement (which, IMO, is fine).
OK. Now about voicemail: retriving it from your phone costs 10 cents a minute PLUS airtime. So 20-22 cents a minute. It's cheaper than normal minutes for lots of prepaid carriers but still more expensive than it should be. The solution: check your voicemail from another phone and don't pay anything. The one problem with this is you can only set up your voicemail from the phone itself, which takes about 6 minutes, but I can live with that. Another neat thing about voicemail is that numeric paging works on STi Mobile and pages show up on your phone as nicely formatted "call me back" text messages that arrive a few minutes after the page is left.
The other cost that you'll encounter is a $4.95 fee on activation, changing of rate plans, changing numbers, or changing phones. All but the first are highly unlikely, so I can live with this charge too, especially since STi gave me an extra $1 at the start of my service.
STi Mobile will have Call Waiting, Text Messaging, Web Browsing and 3-Way Calling, but yes that means that none of it is here yet. I can wait though. I'm betting that, along with their release of new phones before mid-November (when the LG's rebate is no longer active), they will implement these new features. By new phones a rep I talked to before buying my phone suggested Sanyos, Nokias and Kyoceras (and maybe others).
as you might have guessed, STi Mobile works off the Sprint network. Roaming doesn't work (you can't make or take calls while roaming; you just get whoever's error message) but at least around here Sprint coverage is strong and the phone keeps a signal well. Voice quality is for the most part excellent, even on one or sometimes no signal bars, probably due to Sprint (and because of this STi) being on the lower-interference 1900MHz PCS band. One wierd thing about STi is you can't activate on a Sprint affiliate's network (US Unwired, Ubiquitel, etc., which are coverage-wise Sprint home area but are in fact different companies) but this is getting to be less of a big deal as Sprint is buying out these companies.
To sum it all up, for right now, STi is not for people that want to do texting or other stuff, but for voice users who have Sprint in their area STi is by far the cheapest out there, considering that with refill5 minutes are at most 11.06 cents and your phone ends up being free.
If you have any questions about STi, I may be able to answer them; just email me.
OK. After about a week and a half of testing, and a lot of work in between, here's my hands-on review of STi Mobile, one of the cheapest prepaid carriers out there.
Let me start by saying how much it's going to cost me: -$4.05. Yes, that's a negative sign. You see, I got the phone for $84.95 using the coupon code payme25 (20% off) at CheapPhoneCards (go to it from the sidebar on the right). The package also included a $10 card. One major thing payme25 also does is gives you an invoice that looks like you've paid the whole amount, so my up-to-$89 rebate will give me the full $89 amount.
But wait, it gets better! I got 15 CheapPhoneCards "reward points" for signing up with CheapPhonecards, 84 for this purchase, 100 for correcting a T-Mobile description, and 100 apiece for referring two other people to buy from the site (full disclaimer: the link on this site is a referral link, but it works just the same as any other link). With those 399 points I got a another $10 card...for free...with 94 points to spare!
But still wait...it gets EVEN BETTER! They offered me (at no extra cost) a car charger, a leather case for the phone, and a "universal" (2.5mm) headset. I had to remind them to send the stuff, but it should be here tomorrow.
OK. So enough with raving about the super deal I got. The phone is the LG vl5225 that Sprint gave for free (plus activation fee) with a 2-year contract up until they redid their website because of the Sprint-Nextel merger. As said before, I'm really and truly getting it for better than free (other people have had good experiences with the rebates). It's a color flip phone with the biggest screen on any phone I've owned (second prize goes to my Nokia 3560 running on Beyond Wireless; if I didn't cover them I'll cover them sometime later). It also has an external screen, which is nice, large and black-and-white. The external screen normally shows the time, date, signal strength, battery bars and other such status information, or the number of someone calling (STi has Caller ID), or how long the call you just ended was.
Interestingly, LG cut a few wierd corners to get a color flip with an external screen this cheap, albeit OK corners to cut. The backlight is shared by both the internal and external screens, which I guess affects battery life somewhat, but I can live with that since you can use the phone, closed or open, as a stopgap flashlight if needed. Also, there is one speaker for the ringer and the earpice, the happy byproduct of which being a one-way speakerphone (don't talk, just listen) and a nice, loud earpiece. The only thing bad about it is when you set the speakerphone on High (or rather turn speakerphone on when the earpiece volume is set to High) or when you set the ringer on High, clipping occurs. Not a hugely bad deal though.
The phone is generically programmed, leaving you with 12 or so seconds of the LG logo on both screens at startup, plus the rollerblader startup animation, and only one logo physically on the phone. The good thing about this is the phone isn't crippled by Sprint's firmware (which doesn't like people hooking cables to their phones) and doesn't have the Sprint logos plastered all over it (I don't care for either Sprint logo, the old or the new). The bad thing is you have a huge front area of shiny black plastic on the phone that, in addition to looking smashingly good when clean, attracts fingerprints\finger oil\other such stuff like a magnet.
The phone isn't small, but it isn't as big as even a Nextel i836 either, or a Moto v60 for that matter. As a consequence of its fair size though all of your buttons are nice and large. You get, besides your number keys and 5-way D-pad, two selection keys, a back key and talk end end\power keys, plus a volume control rocker on the side of the phone, which will also scroll through menu choices or turn the backlight on when the phone is closed.
The phone supports text messaging and web browsing, as well as J2ME apps (they take awhile to load though but run smoothly once there). The problem is that all the java stuff either need Net access or are trial versions, but I'll talk about why this is a problem later. The phone also includes, built in with the OS, a tip calculator, a regular calculator and a world clock.
OK. Here's where I gripe about the OS. The thing takes 18 seconds from the time you start pressing the power button to the time the phone is ready to use, although in this time the phone also searches for and 99% of the time finds a home signal so no extra waiting involved there. It also takes 6.5 seconds to turn off. All of my Nokia phones that I've had (3595, 3560, 1221, 5165) turn of instantly.
Also, I all too often press the left selection key in a menu, thinking it's the OK key, when in fact it just brings up an option as to whether I want a list view or the poor-frame-rate scrolling icon view. The OK function is assigned to the OK button, not wheree I'm used to having it...or is it just Nokia me? Then there's the right selection button, which no longer functions as the Back button. Hooray for me (NOT!), that button has its own specific place. Ah well.
A few more (admittedly minor) gripes. The backlight appears on the outside to have a shift toward pink, and it partially washes out the external display, but I can live with that. You also have to be reasonably careful with the charger cord, because bumping it in battery charge mode will make the phone turn off, then turn back on, possibly in regular mode. And the speakerphone is one-way, so no talking back when you're in that mode.
Overall, this phone is pretty solid, physically and feature-wise, but I wouldn't be willing to buy it if it had no rebate.
Now to the service. As stated on the website there are two plans. I opted for Plan 2 because I don't make international calls. Right now all they have is voice and Caller ID but both things work well and cheaply. Oh, and they have Sprint voicemail. More on that in a second.
As advertised I paid 12 cents a minute weekdays, 10 cents nights and weekends (starting at 9). Actially I'm paying a lot less because of the aforementioned deals and the fact that, with the discount CheapPhoneCards gives on STi cards (3%) and the refill5 coupon I can get a $10 card for $9.22...thus more like 11 cents a minute weekdays and 9.2 cents nights and weekends.
As with all modern plans, you're only charged if someone (or someone's voicemail) picks up on the other end. Busy signals and no-answers are free. So is calling the refill line (*555), Sprint customer service (*2), STi Mobile Support (611) and, of course, 911. Your balance (in money and in hours and minutes) is announced at the beginning of each outgoing call, with any answer before the announcement is done interrupting the announcement (which, IMO, is fine).
OK. Now about voicemail: retriving it from your phone costs 10 cents a minute PLUS airtime. So 20-22 cents a minute. It's cheaper than normal minutes for lots of prepaid carriers but still more expensive than it should be. The solution: check your voicemail from another phone and don't pay anything. The one problem with this is you can only set up your voicemail from the phone itself, which takes about 6 minutes, but I can live with that. Another neat thing about voicemail is that numeric paging works on STi Mobile and pages show up on your phone as nicely formatted "call me back" text messages that arrive a few minutes after the page is left.
The other cost that you'll encounter is a $4.95 fee on activation, changing of rate plans, changing numbers, or changing phones. All but the first are highly unlikely, so I can live with this charge too, especially since STi gave me an extra $1 at the start of my service.
STi Mobile will have Call Waiting, Text Messaging, Web Browsing and 3-Way Calling, but yes that means that none of it is here yet. I can wait though. I'm betting that, along with their release of new phones before mid-November (when the LG's rebate is no longer active), they will implement these new features. By new phones a rep I talked to before buying my phone suggested Sanyos, Nokias and Kyoceras (and maybe others).
as you might have guessed, STi Mobile works off the Sprint network. Roaming doesn't work (you can't make or take calls while roaming; you just get whoever's error message) but at least around here Sprint coverage is strong and the phone keeps a signal well. Voice quality is for the most part excellent, even on one or sometimes no signal bars, probably due to Sprint (and because of this STi) being on the lower-interference 1900MHz PCS band. One wierd thing about STi is you can't activate on a Sprint affiliate's network (US Unwired, Ubiquitel, etc., which are coverage-wise Sprint home area but are in fact different companies) but this is getting to be less of a big deal as Sprint is buying out these companies.
To sum it all up, for right now, STi is not for people that want to do texting or other stuff, but for voice users who have Sprint in their area STi is by far the cheapest out there, considering that with refill5 minutes are at most 11.06 cents and your phone ends up being free.
If you have any questions about STi, I may be able to answer them; just email me.
Short Note on PagePlus Cellular
I may have said this before, but there is a company called PagePlus Cellular that offers service off of Verizon's home network for a fairly reasonable price, varying from 10 to 14 cents a minute, with 10 cents being had on an $80 card and 14 cents on a $10 card. Cards expire in 4 months. One small problem is roaming off Verizon's towers is $1.99 a minute. The other nit to pick is 50 cents a month is deducted from your balance. The third nit is text messages are fairlyexpensive, at 8 cents per message to send and receive..
The one special thing about PagePlus is that you can, with a web-enabled phone, access the mobile internet at zero cost as long as your phone is active and on the Verizon-towers network (comparable in size to Sprint's or T-Mobile's home network). It's fairly fast too, since everywhere Verizon has towers it has 1xRTT access, so expect speeds of 50-70 kbps.
The one special thing about PagePlus is that you can, with a web-enabled phone, access the mobile internet at zero cost as long as your phone is active and on the Verizon-towers network (comparable in size to Sprint's or T-Mobile's home network). It's fairly fast too, since everywhere Verizon has towers it has 1xRTT access, so expect speeds of 50-70 kbps.
Sunday, August 28, 2005
Great place to buy prepaid phone cards!
If you want to buy an STi Mobile phone, or refills for one, or refills for just about every long distance and cellular calling card out there, CheapPhoneCards has what you need. Plus you get points for buying stuff and referring others to buy stuff so you can free phone cards and even phones.
CheapPhoneCards
P.S. You can now get an Oxygen prepaid (Cingular network) phone from CheapPhoneCards. If Cingular is much better than Sprint in your area and you can stand the phone or get another GSM phone this is an OK option, now that they have $10\30-day cards that are marked down 15% by CheapPhoneCards.
CheapPhoneCards
P.S. You can now get an Oxygen prepaid (Cingular network) phone from CheapPhoneCards. If Cingular is much better than Sprint in your area and you can stand the phone or get another GSM phone this is an OK option, now that they have $10\30-day cards that are marked down 15% by CheapPhoneCards.
Friday, August 12, 2005
Virgin Mobile Promo
Here's another promotion, this time only on Amazon.com.
With any of the phones they sell on their site (Nokia Shorty, Audiovox Vox and Audiovox V7, Kyocera K10) you not only get free shipping and no tax, but also you get a free $20 topup card if you add it to your cart and remember to put in the promo code. Below is an example (I used the Audiovox Vox because it's kind of hard to get to via their site, not because it's a great phone or anything):
http://snipurl.com/vmdeal
In addition to this topup promotional, the phones sell for the same or less than on VirginMobileUSA.com.
Kyocera K10 Royale - $49 vs. $50 on VMUSA
Nokia Shorty - $40 at both places
Audiovox V7 Flasher - $100 at both places (cheap prepaid camera phone)
Audiovox Vox - $70 vs. $90 at VMUSA (you save $20!)
Plus you get the $20 top-up card. So if you got the Vox you'd be saving $40 over purchases elsewhere. With the other phones it's $20, which is still nothing to sneeze at.
With any of the phones they sell on their site (Nokia Shorty, Audiovox Vox and Audiovox V7, Kyocera K10) you not only get free shipping and no tax, but also you get a free $20 topup card if you add it to your cart and remember to put in the promo code. Below is an example (I used the Audiovox Vox because it's kind of hard to get to via their site, not because it's a great phone or anything):
http://snipurl.com/vmdeal
In addition to this topup promotional, the phones sell for the same or less than on VirginMobileUSA.com.
Kyocera K10 Royale - $49 vs. $50 on VMUSA
Nokia Shorty - $40 at both places
Audiovox V7 Flasher - $100 at both places (cheap prepaid camera phone)
Audiovox Vox - $70 vs. $90 at VMUSA (you save $20!)
Plus you get the $20 top-up card. So if you got the Vox you'd be saving $40 over purchases elsewhere. With the other phones it's $20, which is still nothing to sneeze at.
TMo Promo
T-Mobile has a promotional going on right now where you get a $25 card with any of their prepaid phones...for free!
If you're wanting to buy the Sidekick II or Motorola v330 there's a better option though. Amazon.com is selling the Sidekick for $300 out the door (free shipping, no tax) and with a $50 rebate from T-Mobile you end up paying $250 for it, $30 less than you'd pay for the device on TMo's website so you have $5 extra even if you turn around and buy a $25 card with the money you saved.
An even better deal is with the Motorola v330, which sells on there for $160. With a rebate it's $110, $40 less than the price on their site, $15 less even if you turn around and buy the $125 card.
If you're wanting to buy the Sidekick II or Motorola v330 there's a better option though. Amazon.com is selling the Sidekick for $300 out the door (free shipping, no tax) and with a $50 rebate from T-Mobile you end up paying $250 for it, $30 less than you'd pay for the device on TMo's website so you have $5 extra even if you turn around and buy a $25 card with the money you saved.
An even better deal is with the Motorola v330, which sells on there for $160. With a rebate it's $110, $40 less than the price on their site, $15 less even if you turn around and buy the $125 card.
Friday, August 05, 2005
New Trac Promo
Here's what I missed yesterday. Tracfone has a promo code now (50775) that wuill give you an extra 150 minutes on a 1-year card.
Thursday, August 04, 2005
STI Mobile, Tracfone Promo and Cingular GoPhone
OK. I lied in the title. STi Mobile will be last on my list of things I'll discuss and Cingular GoPhone will be first.
The big news with GoPhone is that you can get a refurbished (aka good as new though usually white-boxed) Nokia 3120 for $30 and I'm pretty sure free shipping. This phone is small and solid (I've finally found out exactly which phone model was, or rather were since there two of them, sitting on a table at a Cub Scout summer camp) and has quite a few good features. It's a Nokia GSM phone so you can unlock them for free at certain places that someone else will have to comment and tell because I don't remember. So for $30 you have a capable phone that runs on Cingular's network if you want it to, or (with a $10 sim card) T-Mobile's network if you don't.
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The second item is that of a new Tracfone promotional code. I was going to post a code that would give you 100 extra minutes (aka double minutes) on a 150-minute, 10year card, but Tracfone's website hid the code from me when I went back to see what it was. Here's a better code though: 100 extra minutes on a 100-minute card: 55249. If you have a double-minute card, the 100-minute card would get you 300 minutes, so 10 cents a minute on $30 or however much discounted from a however much discounted store online (if you don't count the cost of teh card). I've covered double-minute promos before for 200, 400 and 40-minute cards. As with the 100 card, you can triple these minutes by either buying the double-minute card or paying $15 for one month of the double-minute prepay plan. So...
$65 + $15 = $80 for 400 x 3 = 1200 minutes; 6.66 cents a minute on a 400-minute card
$30 + $15 = $45 for 100 x 3 = 300 minutes; 15 cents a minute on a 100 minute card
$30 for 100 x 2 = 200 minutes; 15 cents a minute on a 100 minute card
$38 + $15 = $53 for 200 x 3 = 600 minutes; 8.83 cents a minute on a 200 minute card
$13 + $15 = $28 for 40 x 3 = 120 minutes; 23.33 cents a minute on a 40 minute card
$13 for 40 x 2 = 80 minutes; 16.25 cents a minute on a 40 minute card
As you can see, whether double minutes is owrth it depends on the value of the card. Without the double minutes, the 400 minute card with the promo is 8.125 cents a minute. The 200 minute card is 9.5 cents a minute without the double-minute plan. It all depends on what you want to pay for what you get...
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And the last hot topic: STi Mobile. These guys run off of Sprint's home network (no roaming), similar to Virgin Mobile. Their rates are 12 cents weekday, 10 cents nights and weekends or 18 cents all the time with free long distance to bunches of countries. This already-good plan gets better because minutes never expire, and even better because you can get either a black-and-white flip phone or a color flip phone forfree after a rebate...as long as you buy a $50 card along with it. At least that's what the site says.
Actually, if you go to cheapphonecards.com, you can get the phone for free with the rebate with only a $10 card! $4.95 of this card goes to activation. The rest goes to between 42 and 50 minutes (depending on when you use them). The best part of this is that there is a 12% coupon on the phone that will make it (card included) a little less than $4 after the $89 rebate...including shipping! STi doesn't have text messaging yet, but they're working on it and it should be available this month.
So for $4 you get a color flip phone with an external display and $5.05 in airtime that never expires as long as you make one call every 60 days. Per-minute rates are very low, and text messaging is coming soon...very soon. And you get 92 or 93 cheapphonecards.com rewards points (plus 15 for registering on their site), which gets you about $3 in the rewards account. When you get enough points (you get 1 point for every dollar spent on cheapphonecards.com) you can buy your whole order with just reward points! (35 points per dollar) Nifty, since you can rack up those points by buying STi refills from cheapphonecards when you need them (you just need to buy the $10 refill; the price is the same across the board) and eventually get a free 83-100 minutes of airtime. Sweet, huh? So if you're counting the rewards money in you're getting the phone for less than $1...whoa...
The big news with GoPhone is that you can get a refurbished (aka good as new though usually white-boxed) Nokia 3120 for $30 and I'm pretty sure free shipping. This phone is small and solid (I've finally found out exactly which phone model was, or rather were since there two of them, sitting on a table at a Cub Scout summer camp) and has quite a few good features. It's a Nokia GSM phone so you can unlock them for free at certain places that someone else will have to comment and tell because I don't remember. So for $30 you have a capable phone that runs on Cingular's network if you want it to, or (with a $10 sim card) T-Mobile's network if you don't.
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The second item is that of a new Tracfone promotional code. I was going to post a code that would give you 100 extra minutes (aka double minutes) on a 150-minute, 10year card, but Tracfone's website hid the code from me when I went back to see what it was. Here's a better code though: 100 extra minutes on a 100-minute card: 55249. If you have a double-minute card, the 100-minute card would get you 300 minutes, so 10 cents a minute on $30 or however much discounted from a however much discounted store online (if you don't count the cost of teh card). I've covered double-minute promos before for 200, 400 and 40-minute cards. As with the 100 card, you can triple these minutes by either buying the double-minute card or paying $15 for one month of the double-minute prepay plan. So...
$65 + $15 = $80 for 400 x 3 = 1200 minutes; 6.66 cents a minute on a 400-minute card
$30 + $15 = $45 for 100 x 3 = 300 minutes; 15 cents a minute on a 100 minute card
$30 for 100 x 2 = 200 minutes; 15 cents a minute on a 100 minute card
$38 + $15 = $53 for 200 x 3 = 600 minutes; 8.83 cents a minute on a 200 minute card
$13 + $15 = $28 for 40 x 3 = 120 minutes; 23.33 cents a minute on a 40 minute card
$13 for 40 x 2 = 80 minutes; 16.25 cents a minute on a 40 minute card
As you can see, whether double minutes is owrth it depends on the value of the card. Without the double minutes, the 400 minute card with the promo is 8.125 cents a minute. The 200 minute card is 9.5 cents a minute without the double-minute plan. It all depends on what you want to pay for what you get...
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And the last hot topic: STi Mobile. These guys run off of Sprint's home network (no roaming), similar to Virgin Mobile. Their rates are 12 cents weekday, 10 cents nights and weekends or 18 cents all the time with free long distance to bunches of countries. This already-good plan gets better because minutes never expire, and even better because you can get either a black-and-white flip phone or a color flip phone forfree after a rebate...as long as you buy a $50 card along with it. At least that's what the site says.
Actually, if you go to cheapphonecards.com, you can get the phone for free with the rebate with only a $10 card! $4.95 of this card goes to activation. The rest goes to between 42 and 50 minutes (depending on when you use them). The best part of this is that there is a 12% coupon on the phone that will make it (card included) a little less than $4 after the $89 rebate...including shipping! STi doesn't have text messaging yet, but they're working on it and it should be available this month.
So for $4 you get a color flip phone with an external display and $5.05 in airtime that never expires as long as you make one call every 60 days. Per-minute rates are very low, and text messaging is coming soon...very soon. And you get 92 or 93 cheapphonecards.com rewards points (plus 15 for registering on their site), which gets you about $3 in the rewards account. When you get enough points (you get 1 point for every dollar spent on cheapphonecards.com) you can buy your whole order with just reward points! (35 points per dollar) Nifty, since you can rack up those points by buying STi refills from cheapphonecards when you need them (you just need to buy the $10 refill; the price is the same across the board) and eventually get a free 83-100 minutes of airtime. Sweet, huh? So if you're counting the rewards money in you're getting the phone for less than $1...whoa...
Saturday, July 30, 2005
Happy Camper and Tracfone Promo
I just copy-and-pasted it from a post I made on a Tracfone Yahoo Group but here it is:
To start out, I'm a pretty happy camper with Trac now. Ihave 118 units on a Nokia 1221 which runs off the best network around here and has a local number too! It took a few hours to activate (it's running off a local provider so I guess that's OK) and it's cleaning up the voicemail from the previous user of the number but I can stand that.
When I added my refer-a-friend minutes (which gave me a cool 60 extra days too) I got a promotion box saying I could add minutes or days in increments of 30 for $5.
30 minutes for $5
60 minutes for $10
90 minutes for $15
30 days for $5
60 days for $10
90 days for $15
And any combination thereof such as
60 minutes/60 days for $20 (if there weren't any promos this would be better than just buying a 40-minute card if your due date is soon)
90 minutes/90 days for $30 (not quite the 100 minute card but it lasts longer. However I don't think that the extra days would be that great since the card you just bought would already extend 60 days so better to scale back and get 90 for $25 with 60 days of service)
Has anyone else seen this promo? I don't think it's too bad actually, if you just wanted to get more minutes or more days, although the days wouldn't be too important since you just added an airtime card to get this promo. But the units are pretty cheap (16.66 cents per) so you guys might wat to take advantage of this if it comes past.
HTH
To start out, I'm a pretty happy camper with Trac now. Ihave 118 units on a Nokia 1221 which runs off the best network around here and has a local number too! It took a few hours to activate (it's running off a local provider so I guess that's OK) and it's cleaning up the voicemail from the previous user of the number but I can stand that.
When I added my refer-a-friend minutes (which gave me a cool 60 extra days too) I got a promotion box saying I could add minutes or days in increments of 30 for $5.
30 minutes for $5
60 minutes for $10
90 minutes for $15
30 days for $5
60 days for $10
90 days for $15
And any combination thereof such as
60 minutes/60 days for $20 (if there weren't any promos this would be better than just buying a 40-minute card if your due date is soon)
90 minutes/90 days for $30 (not quite the 100 minute card but it lasts longer. However I don't think that the extra days would be that great since the card you just bought would already extend 60 days so better to scale back and get 90 for $25 with 60 days of service)
Has anyone else seen this promo? I don't think it's too bad actually, if you just wanted to get more minutes or more days, although the days wouldn't be too important since you just added an airtime card to get this promo. But the units are pretty cheap (16.66 cents per) so you guys might wat to take advantage of this if it comes past.
HTH
Thursday, July 28, 2005
Shutting Down...Sort Of
Due to the lack of time on my part, I will no longer be posting one article per day (starting yesterday ;) ). So now I can guiltlessly say that I will post whenever I get around to it. Which will mean sometimes, but not all the time. :)
Tuesday, July 26, 2005
Cingular GoPhone Pay As You Go: Expansive but Expensive, 3\5
Here's one provider we still don't have in our area: Cingular GoPhone. Their truly prepaid Pay As You Go plan only works on Cingular towers so I'd get no signal\Cignal because the only GSM towers around are T-Mobile and CellularOne.
Right now, $50 will buy you a nice, small, color Samsung phone with $10 of airtime included, but as you will see below this doesn't go that far. More money will buy you flip phones, camera phones or whatever you want if you stick the GoPhone SIM into a Cingular or unlocked GSM phone.
The minutes are 25 cents apiece and so are emails and multimedia messages. Text messages are 10 cents apiece. Yes that means to send and receive. Mobile-to-mobile, so I'm told is 10 cents a minute. You can even access the web, at one cent per kilobyte.
You can get cards that range from $15\30-day expiration to $100\6-month expiration, with the $25\90-day card being the least cost per month. However, if you can find an old $20 card (KIC cards work too) they also last 90 days so it's cheaper that way.
I don't know too much about GoPhone, but these are the basics. I hope this helps anyone interested.
NOTE: It's been said that the 52989 promo code on Tracfone may not double the 400-minute card. You may need to use the code 50911.
Right now, $50 will buy you a nice, small, color Samsung phone with $10 of airtime included, but as you will see below this doesn't go that far. More money will buy you flip phones, camera phones or whatever you want if you stick the GoPhone SIM into a Cingular or unlocked GSM phone.
The minutes are 25 cents apiece and so are emails and multimedia messages. Text messages are 10 cents apiece. Yes that means to send and receive. Mobile-to-mobile, so I'm told is 10 cents a minute. You can even access the web, at one cent per kilobyte.
You can get cards that range from $15\30-day expiration to $100\6-month expiration, with the $25\90-day card being the least cost per month. However, if you can find an old $20 card (KIC cards work too) they also last 90 days so it's cheaper that way.
I don't know too much about GoPhone, but these are the basics. I hope this helps anyone interested.
NOTE: It's been said that the 52989 promo code on Tracfone may not double the 400-minute card. You may need to use the code 50911.
Monday, July 25, 2005
The Referral Game
Here's a really quidck explanation of Tracfone referrals, how they work, what they do, and what double referrals can do.
First one guy puts in his Trac's serial number into an online form and sends (via that form) notes to some email addresses telling how great Tracfone is and to join. The person on the other end clicks on the link and activates by it. They get a set of 100 promo minutes and so does the other guy. Which act like regular 100-pack ESN minutes except the referred person doesn't get any extra days on his expiration I think.
Double referrals work similarly, except that both people are unactivated. Thus people can be both the referral than the referrer. It's that simple.
First one guy puts in his Trac's serial number into an online form and sends (via that form) notes to some email addresses telling how great Tracfone is and to join. The person on the other end clicks on the link and activates by it. They get a set of 100 promo minutes and so does the other guy. Which act like regular 100-pack ESN minutes except the referred person doesn't get any extra days on his expiration I think.
Double referrals work similarly, except that both people are unactivated. Thus people can be both the referral than the referrer. It's that simple.
Sunday, July 24, 2005
More TracFun!
Here are some more promo codes I've run across:
53096 - Adds 30 days to your expiration date for any card, so your lowst cost per month can be $4.33 or so with a $13 40-minute card off of eBay (but it would probably be wiser just to get the 40 extra minute promo)
52989 - Doubles the minutes on 200 and 400 minute cards (usuable only once per phone); if you get a 400 card off of eBay for $65 (they're there) the minutes cost an astoundingly low 8.125 cents per! If you get a 200-minute card off of This Site for $38, your minutes will be 9.5 cents a minute! Not bad for less than $50 or less than $75 in airtime investments (T-Mobile $100 cards can be seen sometimes for $80, making for 8 cents a minute, but this is a pretty large cash layout for the price).
59585 - Adds 200 minutes to a 300 minute Double Minute card. On eBay these go for as low as $115, so along with doubling your minutes purchased on cards for one year (but I don't think other sweet promos apply :( ) you also get 500 minutes which makes each minute cost 23 cents. Not bad for a multipurpose 1-year card on a normally atrociously-overpriced carrier.
There are also a few databases of Tracfone promo codes. I got the first code straight from the database, and the other two are also in there. I got them from the first database; the second one lists the same codes you would find in your Tracfone's promotional booklet. The address is:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Tracfone_Users/database
53096 - Adds 30 days to your expiration date for any card, so your lowst cost per month can be $4.33 or so with a $13 40-minute card off of eBay (but it would probably be wiser just to get the 40 extra minute promo)
52989 - Doubles the minutes on 200 and 400 minute cards (usuable only once per phone); if you get a 400 card off of eBay for $65 (they're there) the minutes cost an astoundingly low 8.125 cents per! If you get a 200-minute card off of This Site for $38, your minutes will be 9.5 cents a minute! Not bad for less than $50 or less than $75 in airtime investments (T-Mobile $100 cards can be seen sometimes for $80, making for 8 cents a minute, but this is a pretty large cash layout for the price).
59585 - Adds 200 minutes to a 300 minute Double Minute card. On eBay these go for as low as $115, so along with doubling your minutes purchased on cards for one year (but I don't think other sweet promos apply :( ) you also get 500 minutes which makes each minute cost 23 cents. Not bad for a multipurpose 1-year card on a normally atrociously-overpriced carrier.
There are also a few databases of Tracfone promo codes. I got the first code straight from the database, and the other two are also in there. I got them from the first database; the second one lists the same codes you would find in your Tracfone's promotional booklet. The address is:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Tracfone_Users/database
Saturday, July 23, 2005
Tracfone - More Info
I guess I didn't make things over-clear when talking about Tracfone yesterday. I've figured out that there are actually 4 categories of phones: low-end (Nokia) bars, midrange bars, high-end (or supposedly high-end) Moto bars and Moto flips. Here are the ntworks and their respective phones for each category:
TDMA
Nokia 1221 - Low-end Nokia Bar ($35 or free with some promo or other)
Moto v120t - Midrange Bar ($20, available in stores only)
No high end bar
Moto v60it - Moto Flip ($60 new, $40 refurb, or sometimes free with a promo)
CDMA
Nokia 2285 - Low-end Nokia Bar (same pricing as 1221)
Moto v120c - Midrange Bar (same pricing as TDMA version)
Moto C343 - High-end Bar ($50, available in stores only)
Moto v60ic - Moto Flip (Same pricing as TDMA version)
GSM\SingleRate
Nokia 1100 - Low-end Nokia Bar (same pricing as other low-end bars except less likely to go on cheap freebie promos)
Nokia 2600 - Midrange Bar (First Tracfone color phone, could be called high-end, $50)
Moto C155 - High-end Bar (wierd-feeling selection keys, $60)
Moto V170 - Moto Flip (Trac's only color flip phone, albeit small display, no external display, $80 or maybe slightly less at Wal-Mart)
Also, I got my promos mixed up. Here's what you have buying at full retail with the promo codes in effect:
1-year card - 350 minutes for $90, 26 or so cents a minute
40-minute card - 80 minutes for $20, 25 cents a minute
On eBay 1-year cards are routinely found for about $75 and 40-minute cards for as low as 13 so that's where 22 cents a minute on the 1-year card and 16.25 cents a minute on the 40-minute card. Hope this clears things up a bit. Right now, as you can see, 40-minute cards on eBay are cheaper per minute and per month than most ESN minutes deals so only use ESN minutes when there's nothing better; they can never have promos.
TDMA
Nokia 1221 - Low-end Nokia Bar ($35 or free with some promo or other)
Moto v120t - Midrange Bar ($20, available in stores only)
No high end bar
Moto v60it - Moto Flip ($60 new, $40 refurb, or sometimes free with a promo)
CDMA
Nokia 2285 - Low-end Nokia Bar (same pricing as 1221)
Moto v120c - Midrange Bar (same pricing as TDMA version)
Moto C343 - High-end Bar ($50, available in stores only)
Moto v60ic - Moto Flip (Same pricing as TDMA version)
GSM\SingleRate
Nokia 1100 - Low-end Nokia Bar (same pricing as other low-end bars except less likely to go on cheap freebie promos)
Nokia 2600 - Midrange Bar (First Tracfone color phone, could be called high-end, $50)
Moto C155 - High-end Bar (wierd-feeling selection keys, $60)
Moto V170 - Moto Flip (Trac's only color flip phone, albeit small display, no external display, $80 or maybe slightly less at Wal-Mart)
Also, I got my promos mixed up. Here's what you have buying at full retail with the promo codes in effect:
1-year card - 350 minutes for $90, 26 or so cents a minute
40-minute card - 80 minutes for $20, 25 cents a minute
On eBay 1-year cards are routinely found for about $75 and 40-minute cards for as low as 13 so that's where 22 cents a minute on the 1-year card and 16.25 cents a minute on the 40-minute card. Hope this clears things up a bit. Right now, as you can see, 40-minute cards on eBay are cheaper per minute and per month than most ESN minutes deals so only use ESN minutes when there's nothing better; they can never have promos.
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