Tracfone Stuff

Okay, I was just foolin' yesterday about Virgin Mobile. Maybe it was a little too close to home but yesterday was April Fools' ;).

Anyway, Tracfone now has a different "twofer" deal on CDMA stuff...which includes the ooooold Nokia 2285. Personally, I'd go for the GSM deal rather than CDMA, as the 2285 is a very old phone, but hey, it's there...

New Virgin Mobile Phone and Service Plan - Not For Everyone

I got the scoop from a person who will as of yet remain anonymous about a new phone and service which Virgin Mobile will release in the ery near future...

As to the service, minutes will now be charged in half-minute intervals, at 13 cents for 0:01-0:30 and 9 cents for 0:31 to 1:00, increasing margins for Virgin Mobile by nearly 20% yet providing the average customer with a false sens of less expensive calling. The monthly plans will have similar changes, with all plans going to the half-minute schedule, but with only 60% more half-minutes than minutes. Night and weekend calls will be billed per 40 seconds rather than half minutes. Also in this fee structure is a "nickel and dime" plan which allows Virgin to count all phone usage and bill 5 cents a minute for it. So don't hold your new Virgin phone too much...

As to the phone, it is a joint venture between Kyocera and UTStarCom, or rather Kyocera and Audiovox...Audiovox disowned the phone some time ago and changed its name for that very purpose. Anyway, the phone, which Kyocera now calls the KX1337d, will be called the CRAPY on Virgin's own network. It has already been recalled on several carriers after only two weeks' stint due to phone failure rates. The phone will have a price point of $29.99, including $2.50 worth of credit. The new rate plans will be required on this phone.

This phone, supposed to be a flip, has the distinction of being the first phone where the Virgin Mobile logo is prominently placed on every possible surface of the phone, including the screen, which has a Virgin Mobile-shaped mat around it. The screen is 16 color, but more colors are not needed as the user interface, which takes several seconds to respond to commands from the rather spongy keypad, is all shades of yellow and red. Polyphonic ringtones are suppored, but there are only two ringers preloaded on the phone, plus one messaging alert. All other 'tones will have to be downloaded from Virgin's new XS (Xtra Small) service, designed to fit the phone's small, nonstandard, 109x109 pixel display, which as I said is matted so give up if you want wallpapers.

The phone has a camera, which is rated at 1.3 megapixels but actually uses a QCIF (176x144) sensor and uses the antiquated nearest-neighbor method to interpolate to 1.3 megapixels. Pictures tend to be undersaturated to the point of greyness, yet are blown out into shades of yellow and red on the phone's display. Oh, and the caller ID display, which was going to be on this phone, was removed per Virgin's instructions and replaces with the Virgin logo. Speakerphone is available, but battery life will suffer...estimated standby time is 18 hours with a new battery or 20 minutes talk time. With a software upgrade the standby time should be increased to 20 hours.

Sorry, it's late. Gotta go to bed. Happy April 1st everyone! I think I'll go for the Marbl, before it's taken offline in favor of the CRAPY, which is rumored to be financially a profit for Virgin Mobile, at a wholesale of $17.92 per unit...

Marbl 400!

Okay, yes, this is the 400th post on Go4Prepaid...yeah I've come a long way...now to keep things going, and to get to 500 posts...

But why Marbl in the post title? Because, if I get another $10 or so in ad money this month, I'll buy a Marbl, review it and have it as a phone on the sweepstakes (yeah I said sweepstakes) I'm going to have for my 500th post. Which, I promise, won't be that far off.

But anyway this month's ad clicks go toward a Marbl to review, to see whether it's better than the Oystr or the K132 that it's very, very similar to. Stay tuned!

Audiovox 8910...The Saga Continues!

Yeah, I got my love-hate-relationship Audiovox 8910 back from custody by an overzealous school administration today, after their having it for five full days. To my horror, not because of them of course, the 2 key on it now requires a bit more prodding, no pun intended, to work. Which is really anoying since the letters "a", "b" and "c" are all used a lot on texting, and all my immediate family's phone numbers have 2's in them. So much for being a great phone...ech...

,,,and yes, I will make an exchange for another phone, hopefully a more decent one. Kyocera Candid anyone? How about a nice barely-used Razr v3c that I can flash to CricKet when I go to Colorado (MIT said no...this time...) for college. If I can only get the phone for the 40% Pocket discount on "B-stock" phones...but I digress...

CDMA & GSM

For those of you who hae no idea of what CDMA and GSM are, I don't blame you; I'll bet most people are simply confused by all the technical jargon. But here's the quick rundown, plus some links to places where you can read more about the two technologies...and yes I've said this before but anyway...

CDMA: Code Division Multiple Access. Used by Verizon, Sprint, Alltel and a lot of little rural carriers, as well as "unlimited carriers" like MetroPCS and CricKet. CDMA has better coverage in the US and better cell site capacity, but isn't used worldwide like GSM is and is harder to use across multiple carriers...

GSM: Global System for Mobile, based on TDMA (Time Division Multiple Access). Used by Cingular\AT&T, T-Mobile and a lower number of minor carriers. This technologies makes use of SIM cards so it's easier to change your service or phone (just pop out the card and pop it into another phone, with some reservations). And it's a worldwide standard in that it is used in many more countries than CDMA...so you can use GSM "world phones" (the Razr is one) internationally. But network capacity isn't as large as CDMA, and a whole new technology (WCDMA) is required to get high-speed data (on CDMA it's just another upgrade).

Personally, I'm a CDMA guy, but GSM is nice since you can just buy one phone that will work with all the GSM providers in the world...but anyway for more information take a look at these sites:

http://reviews.cnet.com/4520-11282_7-6437119-1.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_mobile_phone_standards

And if you're wondering what "cell breathing" is (not as much of a problem on CDMA now as it was several years ago, since 99% of CDMA networks are upgraded to a better technology...)

http://searchmobilecomputing.techtarget.com/sDefinition/0,,sid40_gci820970,00.html

If you have questions or comments, comment and I'll see what I can do...

Trac Note

Just to let everyone know (I should have said this elsewhere\sooner\all that) but all Tracfone promotional codes, past, present and future, are one-time-use per phone. Sorry for having confusion on that point. I'd post more info on something (dunno what though) but I've been doing play practice all day and it's suppertime here.,,and I go back to play practice in a little less than an hour and a half...

EDIT: MOST promotional codes are one-time-use. But I suppose there are some (57676 for example) that can be used multiple times, subject to a few restrictions of which I ahve no idea. Thanks for the correction people!

Net10 News

Looks like Net10 has some good deals on their site at the moment. Besides putting online pages for the LG and Motorola phones that Tracfone will soon get (good) and taking away the 1-year card (bad) Net10 has made available some sweet specials that may well make it a nice carrier for a person who is on the upper end of minute use for prepaid...

Here are the good deals (all of them come preloaded with 300 minutes and 60 days of service):

Nokia 1100 (refurbsished) - $20
Nokia 1600 (refurbished, color phone) - $30
Motorola v171 (refurbished) - $40
Motorola c139 (new, blech) - $40
Motorola c155 (new) - $40

Everything else isn't a particularly good deal, costing $80 (Motorola v171, v170) or $90 (Motorola c261, v176) but the other phones are nice buys if you just want to talk and text...

PagePlus Updates

A few updates on the leading Verizon prepaid that nobody has heard of: PagePlus...

1. The 50 cent monthly fee is waived until June! Yay cheaper minutes!
2. The $50 card now gives you 500 minutes and the $80 card clocks in at 1000 (!) minutes. You can buy the latter at BabbleBug.com...or will be able to buy them once BabbleBug gets the new-rate cards. Yes, that's 10 cents a minute for $12.50 a month and 8 cents a minute for $20 a month. Tasty!
3. A few new phones are out. At BabbleBug the Motorola t720 ($40) and Audiovox 8600 ($50) are available. On PagePlus's own site, you can get the Motorola c343 bar phone for $20, the LG vx4400 flip for $40 and the Audiovox 8910 camera phone for $60. All phones come with $10 (71 minutes) of airtime, which is nice too, considering that Tracfone and Virgin Mobile normally come with 20 minutes or less...

Yes, PagePlus has just gotten a little bit better, folks...

New Tracfones!

Sorry everyone. Mobile-wise lately I've been relatively out of it. Too much stuff going on. As it stands this post will be a short (albeit informative) one.

First off, as an aside, I'll be getting the Sanyo Katana from Total Call Mobile (yes I know it's expensive but yeah) soon and will be of course reviewing it here. I hope to get the black one, because in my opinion all the other colors are just as plasticky (that's why this phone is on prepaid and you don't see the metallic Razr) but black is a little more refined...

Anyway, the subject of this post: Tracfone is coming out with some new phones soon! Thanks for posting the tip, Chris; I wouldn't have noticed for awhile on Tracfone's site...heck, the Nokia 1112 still isn't out online...gues they're waiting for Nokia 1100s to sell out.

Anyway, there are three new models coming out soon. And yes, they're all GSM. :( I know it's sad for people who actually want a great signal everywhere, but for thos epeople (including me) the LG 3280 is okay for what it does...

Speaking of CDMA, the Nokia 2126 refurbished phone deal is now gone. If you want that "twofer" deal you now have to use the Nokia 1100 option.

Anyway, two of the three phone models are (whether this is a surprise or not I'll leave up to whoever wants, as it looks like LG is now a Tracfone manufacturer over Nokia) made by LG. And the third one is made by Motorola. What are the models?

1. Motorola w370
2. LG 1500 aka C1500
3. LG CG225

First off, the Moto:

This phone looks nice and sleek, and will be Tracfone's thinnest flip to my knowledge, at a svelte 0.75 inches. Okay, it's no Razr, not even a Krzr, but it's a bit thinner than the LG phones that Tracfone also says are coming soon so hey...oh and yes it is designed to be like the Krzr so maybe, just maybe, people will mistake this phone for the Krzr (but probably not).

The phone is like its cameraphone sibling the w375 in...well...pretty much everything! There's no Bluetooth on the Tracfone model (of course!) but otherwise it has the same features as the w375, sans camera. Which include an okay-sized screen on the inside and wierd message-waiting indicatiors on the outside (though they do look cool...but I'd rather have a real external display). And the phone has web browsing (ka-ching for Tracfone...limited and not free for the moment) too, plus a two-way speakerphone...which pretty much rounds out this phone. My price prediction? $50-$70...I'd be surprised if it was cheaper, less so if it was more expensive, but it should hit around that range alongside the Motorola v176...or maybe not alongside it...maybe more expensive with its slim profile...

Next up, the LG C1500...er...1500 (this isn't such a short post after all)

Note that this phone has been discontinued by Cingular. Whereas the Motorola hasn't been released by anyone. Which means that this is a slightly older phone already, but that's okay; you don't really need a whizbang phone to take advantage of what little Tracfone ahs to offer. What the phone does have to offer is a half-duplex speakerphone, web access (or at least it should have...unless Tracfone took it out of the firmware for some wierd reason), an external caller ID display (with a color background, which is interesting, but not a real color screen, which is actually a good thing for battery life and visibility). The screen is smaller than the Motorola, and the phone is thicker, but it does have that external display (the first GSM Tracfone to have one, and the first color flip of any Tracfone breed for this feature actually). So I'm guessing it may sell in the $50-$80 range.

Lastly, but not least, the LG CG225...

Which has been continued by Cingular...er...AT&T recently but looks to be a pretty nice phone, considering it's a Tracfone. It is basic, with no color external caller ID display, and no real whizbang features, but it does raise the bar on Tracfone (rather than Razing The Bar on Cingular). It looks good in the black casing, it has a camera that is probably quite decent for its resolution (VGA), it has an external display, it has a speakerphone, it has web...what more can you want from a Tracfone at this point? Pretty much zip, so I'm thinking that this phone will also raise the bar in price...maybe $80-$100, and it'll probably stay there too. As opposed to the Motorola c261, which has halved its price in the year or so it has been out (it has been that long!?!).

Well, there you have it: Tracfone is coming out with some new phones. If anyone wants reviews on them, they have only to click on some ads and I'll be happy to oblige. Heck, if enough ads are clicked, I may give away the phones after I've reviewed them!

New Tracfone Promo Code!

I just looked on Tracfone's website and there's a new promo code out, 55094. It adds 100 minutes to the normally 400 minute1-year card, for a grand total of a cool 500 minutes. So if you want Tracfone service for cheap both minute-wise ($8.33 a month) and minute wise (20 cents a minute, less if Tracfone ever gets the double-minute card up and running) here it is, it looks like...

New Tracfone Promo Code!

I just looked on Tracfone's website and there's a new promo code out, 55094. It adds 100 minutes to the normally 400 minute1-year card, for a grand total of a cool 500 minutes. So if you want Tracfone service for cheap both minute-wise ($8.33 a month) and minute wise (20 cents a minute, less if Tracfone ever gets the double-minute card up and running) here it is, it looks like...

Review: UTStarCom 7025\120

Please note that I didn't really test this phone on any carrier, as it was inactive, but test calls to Sprint seemed to serve my purposes fairly well. Andyes, this is the replacement for the UTStarCom 7000, so expect to see it on Movida etc. soon if not already...

First off, I have to say that this phone is nice and thin. It's no Razr but it is quite thin, maybe even uncomfortably thin for some. But that means thatyou have a budget phone that you can slip into your pocket easily, as longas you're fine with the extendable stub antenna sticking out, as this phone, like all other Audiovox\UTStarCom flips I know of, has an extendable stub antenna. But anyway the phone is small.

Then again, the feature set is also small. You can talk, text, use the phone book, do the typical voice and organization features and (if you can find them) play a game or two. No web, no caller ID screen (just a two-color light on the outside). But then again some people don't need much, and for those people this phone delivers...

With ringtones that are actually quite fine and quite loud, courtesy the phone's external speaker. And yes, the phone does have speakerphone functionality, which works fine. The phone screen may be small, but the UI is clear enough, so you can get along with the small screen for doing what the phone is made for doing. Oh, and vibrate alert is strong enough...

Let me take a break here and say that if you want to compare the7025 with the 7000 there isn't really any comparison. The 7000 just seems alot older, lessrefined, first-gen, etc. while the 7025 is actually a budget phone that, whilegeneric-branded, is truly not bad at all.

Anyway, everyone is probably wondering about call quality. Please note that my house is in a relatively strong Sprint service area, but then again I have to hand it to the 7025 fr delivering some sharp calls to *2 and 611 when I called them, and the extendable antenna should keep those calls sharp for awhile.

Battery life? Well, I'm not sure when I charged the phone, but it has been working for at leastfour and a half days, maybe longer, including some areas with no signal. So I'm thinking this phone's batterylife is around that of the LG 3280, which is saying a lot...looks like UTStarCom doesn't really make junk phones...at least not now...

In sum, the UTStarComm 7025, from my experience, is a solid phone, though its feature set isn't the most desireable out there. Then again, if you don't need anything more than voice and text, and don't need caller ID on your phone, this phone is perfect for anybody who wants something slim and, to my knowledge, good at doing what it does.

UTStarComm 7025 Review - Coming Soon!

Somebody gave me a perfect-condition UTStarComm 7025 on Sprint (so technically it's the CDM-150). I'll be posting a review of it soon, probably tomorrow. So check back here soon! Also, I'll be getting the Motorola t720 and Audiovox 8600 in fairly soon, though I can't promise a speedy review as there are lots of things I have to finish up near the end of this month (I'm the main role in A Man of All Seasons at my school...sstill ahve to memorize a truckload of lines over the rest of Spring Break). But the reviews will come...

Feeling Entrepreneurial?

Some people already know this, but I made a nice chunk of money in the last few months by buying Tracfones (the $19.99 deals) and reselling them. Now Tracfone won't let me do that anymore. But I already am hooked up with distributors so if someone wants to "follow in my footsteps" it'd be a zero-risk, high-reward type of situation. If anyone is interested, email me...and we're talking thousands, even tens of thousands of dollars, as the reward here...

Okay, Take 2 - The Site Is Really Up!

Sorry everyone...the site wasn't quite up when I said it was up last night, due to the way the domain name is working now :/. But now it should be fine. Hope this helps everyone!

Go4Prepaid.info - It's back up!

Sorry for the way-too-long period where everyone's trek to www.go4prepaid.info led to a cold, dark place of no prepaid cell phone goodness. Thanks be to God that the domain is up again, so everyone can resume their normal habits of web surfing while still reaching all the prepaid goodness of Go4Prepaid.

Hope this helps everyone! Sorry that the elongated hiccup (the host my host was reselling folded) happened but now go4prepaid.info once again leads here. Enjoy!

TracFun Update

Just to let everyone know, I added an airtime card for my mom's phone to me (a 60-minute card) and it extended her expiration date by 90 days. So the new card values are really here now, and promo codes work great. I added via the web and, if anything, promo codes have gotten a tad better. Granted, they're one-time-use only but I was able to double the airtime relative to the card's face value with promo code 51283. Then again, rumor has it that most of these promo codes are going to expire on the 15th...who knows?

But anyway, the new Tracfone revolution is revving up...and it's great for everyone!

*228 and "Forever Plan"...and Unlimited Expiration To Boot!

Two things I forgot to mention about Tracfone...

I just updated the PRLs (preferred roaming lists) for my mom's, dad's and my own Tracfones. Just so everyone knows, all Tracfones use the same PRL if they're CDMA, whether they're SingleRate (LG 3280) or not (everything else for the moment). The PRL looks to be what's known as "America's Choice I", still having roaming areas in which Tracfones charge 2x the airtime they usually charge. But I'm thinking this area is getting smaller, and on the LG it doesn't matter anyway, and probably gives you a tad MORE coverage than the typical Verizon plan...just a guess...and no, in case anyone was wondering, Tracfone doesn't seem to use ERIs...

But anyway right now is a good time to take your CDMA Tracfone (LG 3280, Nokia 2285, Nokia 2126, Nokia 5180, Motorola v60, Motorola c343, Motorola v120) and call *228. When Verizon picks up (or your other home carrier...you want to do this when you're in your home area and the PRL update will be good for other carriers besides Verizon, though Verizon is what I'm mainly talking about here) press 1 to program your phone (again the procedure will be different on non-Verizon-powered Tracfones). After about a minute your phone will be reprogrammed, and it may restart itself (the Nokias didn't; the LG did for me). After that, be satisfied in the knowledge that your phone is up-to-date, roaming wise.

Now the other thing: Tracfone's "Forever Plan" as people like to call it. What is this plan? To put it simply: 30 extra units on all refills but the first one when you activate your Tracfone. Probably doesn't apply to the double-minute, zero-minute card but for everything else that's another nice reason to activate a new Tracfone. A little ways through the activation process this notice will pop up to let you know...

Which brings up something interesting: does this apply to the 30-minute card? Who knows...Tracfone probably wouldn't undercut themselves that much, making the card much more attractive than it's double-cost companion, at a mere 17 or so cents per minute. Then again, with the double minute plan the $10 card would rack up 90 minutes, versus the $20 card's 150...no wait, the $10 card is still ahead there, price-per-minute-wise. Odd, that. They probably won't let you have the extra airtime on the 30-minute card, but who knows? If they do I'm buying a new Tracfone ;). With double minutes and such it looks more and more inexpensive...

Yes, I said new Tracfone...ones that are already activated don't get the promo, though I suppose you could call Tracfone up and ask them to apply it...

But one more thing...aside form an exhortation to click some ads and support this site...Tracfone airtime is now infinitely stackable! Yes, that's right: you can now add as many airtime cards as you want, and the expiration date looks like it will extend sometime into the nether oblivion. So if you want to pick up four 60-minute cards and daisychaim them to make a 1-year, 240-minute, $80 card, have at it! Or 360-minute card if you get the 30-minute promotion. Of course, you'd get more minutes with the $100 400 (or 430) minute card (as I pointed out a day or two ago an interesting flip from when cost per month was why you'd buy the 1-year card)...unless you are on the 30 extra minute plan but not the double plan...but the cost per month is a dollar or two lower ($20 over the year...more if you snag some airtime cards off of eBay or Tracfone's own phone store...on eBay they're going for $16 apiece) than the 1-year card so hey...

Again, all I can say is things are interesting for Tracfone these days. Wonder if they'll release some new phones, maybe the Nokia 2366i or something crazy like that...only time will tell...

More TracFun, with Net10 Thrown In

It's real...

Tracfone now has on the Buy Airtime seciton of their site the new airtime cards (double-minute, 30-minute and 200-minute) as well as 90-day expirations for the other cards and 400 minutes for the 1-year card. There's a totally new card design too, which looks interesting...

The design is also there with net10. Except the minutes are in different values, of course. But the Net10 lineup has been shaken up a good bit, to make it a tad more expensive per month, starting at $15 instead of $12.50. But the maximum airtime purchase is now $100 instead of $180...but anyway...

$15 - 150 minutes and 30 days of service
$30 - 300 minutes and 60 days of service
$60 - 600 minutes and 90 days of service
$100 - 1000 minutes and 180 days of service

The only really new card (aside form the design) is the $15 card. But it's pretty interesting to watch and see what Tracfone will do next.

T-Mo To Go - Now with Cheaper Phones!

I looked on T-Mobile To Go's phone selection page yesterday and found out that the prices on some of their phones have gone down. Personally, no wonder...you can get a KRZR for $230 shipped through Buy It Now on eBay, and a SIM with 150 minutes on it for $10 or so more. But anyway...

$30 - Nokia 6030 (No change)
$50 - Nokia 6101 (now that's cheap for a cameraphone on prepaid, a good one too!)
$80 - Samsung t319 (I think there's no change here)
$200 - Motorola Razr (about time T-Mobile cheapened things up...you can get this plus a SIM on eBay unlocked for around $150)
$400 - Sidekick 3 (as you'd expect)

Also, DealKing.com is offering $5 cash back on T-Mobile To Go purchases, a nice bit added onto the fun. I may have to get te Nokia 6101, since it's such an inexpensive cameraphone...

Boost...Cheaper Than Ever!

Boost Mobile has apparently reduced the prices on their phones, which is good. not that their network has gotten any better, nor have their prices. But they have added a feature or two, and their phones are, as I said, cheaper...

New features? Well, for 15 cents per "message", Boost has this wierd hybrid walkie-talkie\picture messaging feature, if you're using the i855 or i875 (and I'll bet i885) phones. In my opinion, it's a gimmick. Who knows\cares?

They also have a new combo social networking\GPS system called Boost Loopt. Just take a look at the site to see more info on the service.

Also, the premium plans have changed. The $30 plan is just unlimited walkie-talkie and 10-cent cellular calling. $50 gives you 400 minutes on top of that. $70 gives another 200 minutes, plus unlimited starts-at-7 nights and weekends. $10 more on any plan gets unlimited web and text. *shrugs*. I suppose it's okay, feature-wise...but I'm not really jazzed about it...

Now to phone prices...

i885 (highest-end iDEN non-smartphone, high-res camera) - $300
i855 (low-end cameraphone) - $150
i835 (the iDEN phone that's actually relatively thin, in black, white and green) - $100
i455 (just your average flip with color internal and b\w external display, now in wierd black) - $50
i415 (the cheap but okay color bar phone) - $30

Yeah, prices have gone down to levels that are reasonable compared with other prepaid providers...generally...at least compared with previous pricing...just thought people might want to know...

TracFun Update

From BabbleBug (want a reliable source? Try the people who sell the airtime( I heard today that Tracfone is indeed changing their airtime lineup drastically...hmm...where to start...

 

Well, what about the 90-day expirations? Well, the rumor is true; it's just that Tracfone hasn't updated their systems yet so don't add your airtime quite yet...but all the 60-day cards will now last 90 days...

 

Second, the double-minute and $80, 400-minute cards are now gone...

 

Because Tracfone is putting out a new $40 card with 200 minutes, thus introducing a lower price point for 20-cent-a-minute airtime. And Tracfone is introduccing a double-minute card for $50.

 

About this card: it has no minutes on it, but it has no expiration either. So after the single $50 purchase Tracfone becomes very economical, suddenly. The double-minute proposition used to be a very expensive one, at $130 a year (including 400 minutes). Now it's a good bit cheaper, and that's a really good thing. :)

 

And the 1-year card now has 400 minutes standard. So now the 1-year card is actually cheaper per minute, rather than per month, compared with the $20 card...

 

And a new $10 card, which has 30 minutes on it and 45 dcays of service. Which is nice, as that's exactly half the minutes and expiration of the $20 card.

 

All of this means that the average Joe gets more for his money on Tracfone generally, and once you pay for the double-minute card (which lasts for the life of the phone) you can get 10-cent rates on a phone that works practically everywhere (CDMA) or has web access of sorts (GSM). In short, Tracfone just got a bit more atTractive.

 

Though I must say that this will likely be the beginning of the end of promotion codes. Promo codes were for savvy users, and now the double-minute card will probably fill that niche. Plus, the new card denominations (the $10 and $40 cards) provide a convenient way to end-of-life promotion codes for at least some of the airtime. Who knows...they may keep going with promo codes for awhile, which would be great. But I wouldn't count on it...

 

But then again, Tracfone's rates with the card are very good so why fool with promo codes when you can get 10 cent minutes and 3 cent text messages practically everywhere in the US for...well, okay $50 plus $50 (LG 3280 plus double-minute card) is expensive but it's worth it in my opinion.

 

It's a bright day for Tracfone when they put this stuff out. I'm just looking forward to innovative new phones, or at least something in the way of new phones, like for example the Nokia 1112 being available online. But yeah, I'm pretty happy about Tracfone right about now.

TracFun 3-1

Just so everyone knows, yes I'm wondering about the 90-day expiration thingamabob also. Who knows...I just passed on basically what I got...

But anyway Tracfone changed up their website today. Most of the changes were on the CDMA side (a grand total of two) but there was also an update on the GSM side...

...though Tracfone's site currently registers as "under maitenance" whatever that might mean, so the deals could change again...

On the CDMA side, Tracfone reinstated the refurb Nokia 2126 deal, as in the one with two 60-minute cards for the price of one, plus the 2126. This is a pretty hot ite, so grab it while it's still there\if it's still there.

Also, Tracfone put the Nokia 2285 up as available for $10, like the 1100 on GSM. Not that the 2285 is a wonderphone or anything, but it's another option, though it's one I'd miss out on.

As far as GSM goes, the Motorola c261 is now $40 instead of $50. In other words, it's half the price it was when it came out some months ago. But hey, it's an okay cameraphone though Tracfone minutes are expensive, so I'd consider it a fair buy at that price.

Virgin Mobile Changes Their Phone Lineup

Virgin Mobile today revamped their phone lineup.

The Audiovox Snapper is still $60, the Kyocera Slider Sonic is still $100 and the Kyocera Switch_Back is still $100. The Nokia Shorty and the Kyocera K10 Royale are still "free" with $20 starter airtime. The Audiovox 8610 is still "free" with $25 starter airtime. And the Kyocera K9 is still $10. The black UTStarComm Slice is still $50 and the Kyocera Oystr is still $20...

Note that I said "black Slice" though. Yes, now the red UTStarComm Slice is available online for the same price as the black Slice. Previously it had only been available at BestBuy, I think only on their website.

There's also this new phone that Virgin Mobile calls the "Marbl". It looks to be the replacement for the Oystr, with a price of $30. However, the phone looks waaaay too close for comfort to the Kyocera K132 "Shadow" except with a grey color scheme...if I get enough ad money here I'll grab it and see if it is indeed that phone and if it's any better (or worse) on Virgin's platform.

Oh, and the Kyocera Cyclops is down to a cool $80, making it the cheapest 1.3 megapixel camera phone I know of. Then again, I'm not really looking at the 13 megapixel cameraphone market. Personally, I'll pass on the Cyclops, as 25 cents per message is a lot for picture messages.

One last, non-web thing: the Oystr is now available in different colors. The normally-white shell is now available in wierd pastel shades of green and pink, at the same price as the white model of course. Not that this redeems the poor quality of this phone (geesh...aren't all Kyoceras that way?) but it's interesting nonetheless.

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

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

Pocket: A Saga Involving Audiovoxes and Motorolas

To continue my Pocket saga...

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Hope this helps...

Audiovox 8910

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Tracfone 60 minute cards for cheap

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

Mmmm...SearchChips

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

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

Nokia 6061

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

RadioShack Nokia 2126 Deal!

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

But on to prepaid wireless...

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

Virgin Mobile Deals Online

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

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

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

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

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

LG 3280 FAQ Number Ten Zillion

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

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

But about the 3280...

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

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

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

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

Hope this helps!

Tracfone Airtime Promo

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

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

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

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

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

Trac Announcements

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Sorry...I'm not dead...

Sorry aout the long silence. I should actually be working on a composition paper right now for school...due today...but I might as well announce that I am still alive and well, despite the fact that this blog hasn't been updated in several days. Trust me, I will get the Nokia 6061 review up here. Just not quite yet...maybe tonight...

Worthwhile comment...

I just wrote a comment on the Pocket\Kyocera\etc. post. It's a tad personal, but I'd say take a look at it. Thanks to everyone for making this site what it is!

How to get the 3280...

Want theLG 3280? Just put in zip 78624 for Tracfone's online store. The 3280 will come up. You can activate it wherever, but that zip will let you have it...

Hope this helps...the 6061 review won't be out tonight...sorry...but it will be out soon...as will a review for the Audiovox 8910 I now have on Pocket...

Airtime, Pocket and K132...and My 16th Birthday is Tomorrow!

First off, because I've been signed on with some huge distributors, I'm not selling Tracfone airtime here anymore, at least for the forseeable future. However, all I did was go to Tracfone's website and bought their free-phone-with-airtime-card deals, so someone else can pick up there and I'll be glad to link to them.

Second, I just got Pocket (www.pocket.com) unlimited cellular service last night. Sort of a birthday present. But anyway they seem okay, other than the fact that SMS shortcodes don't work, and the fact that the Kyocera K132 is a lousy phone.

Which brings me to a quick mini-review of the Kyocera K132 Shadow, somewhat akin to the Kyocera KX9d (Oystr) except with better styling and a worse UI...

Firswt off, the phone looks nice. That's about its only claim to fame, but its angular, relatively thin design and dark blue soft-touch finish is clessy. The annoying thing though is there isn't even a status light on the outside, just the speakerphone grille, which incidentally is passable in quality and loudness.

When you open up the phone, it's not quite as pretty, but it still looks okay. Until you turn it on. At which point the smallish screen is white for a few second, then slowly boots up to a home screen that reminds me of something out of 2004 or maybe a little earlier. In other words, Kyocera's UI on this phone defines "backward".

Yet so does the UI's speed, which is odd considering that there aren't many shiny graphics to push around. On top of this, the phone has two types of ringtones: ones you can use and ones you can't for no apparent reason. Wierd.

What about call quality? Well, it's okay enough if you're in an area that has very good signal. But when you *should* have okay signal, it's a toss-up whether the phone will break up or not. Yay internal antennas...I really think the phone can be blamed for bad reception at my house rather than the network.

As to battery life, I don't really know, as I've only had the phone for about 18 hours. It seems to hold a charge fairly well, but I can't really tell as I haven't had enough time to tell whether it'll work for long periods of time or not.

But I'm not going to keep it. It's just not the kind of phone that I want to use to do all of my talking on, which it's supposed to be since it's on an unlimited plan. Heck, uts angularness makes it slightly uncomfortable to hold. Ah well...

Turning to something else, my birthday is tomorrow! My sixteenth birthday, that is. I hope I have a good one! I should have the review of the Nokia 061 up either today or tomorrow...see everyone then!

Good Vibes: Nokia 2366i

I thought I mentioned this... but anyway the Nokia 2366i has a vibration function that is quite good. Unless you have loose clothing, but hey, all phones have that problem. But yeah, vibraation of this phone is nice and strong.

Coming Soon: Nokia 6061 Review

Courtesy BabbleBug, I just got a Cingular (GoPhone) Nokia 6061 in the mail today to review. I'll post in a few days about my experiences with the phone...

What's In Store\What's Happening

You may be wondering what I'm doing, seeing as how I haven't posted in a few days. Not that there's really anything to post about, other than Tracfone's refer-a-friend system being down again.

But anyway, probably the next big thing I'll post up here will be a review of the Nokia 6061 (thanks BabbleBug!) and PagePlus service on the Nokia 2366i (thanks BabbleBug) if I can ever get the ESN rightly assigned to PagePlus instead of INPulse on that phone.

Just letting everyone know that I'm alive and well...didn't post yesterday or the day before because I was ordering an unreal number of Tracfones :)

iPhone, Obopay, ESN Minutes and Phone Reviews!

First off, the biggest news but the smallest impact to here: the iPhone is out. And it's called the iPhone. And despite its being on the junktackylar Cingular network I'm gonna get it around the time it comes out. A sort of present to myself for when I go to college, I'm thinking. Then again, it might not be all it's cracked up to be and I'll pass it by. But anyway that thing's one heckuva phone, with one heckuva price tag...but then again you get a lot of stuff with it. But I won't dwell on this phone, since you can only get it with a contract and probably have to pay $70+ a month for the regular service and a data plan etc. Which ain't prepaid in the least. So now i'm kindof waiting for a cheapie iPhone knockoff (2.5" widescreen instead of 3.5", thicker, only 1GB of flash memory, only 1.3MP camera) on prepaid. lol...

Now for the second thing, which has less to do with super hot breaking news but more to do with this site...

I was surfing HowardForums.com (something I do fairly regularly) and came acros a banner ad for this wierd little thing called Obopay (www.obopay.com). Basically it's a money account, a la PayPal, that you can use with your cell phone, either via SMS shortcodes, WAP or if you're using Cingular, Amp'd or Helio, via a program on your phone. Adding money to your account is free for now, as is taking money out of your account, either via bank transfer or by using the supplied Obopay prepaid MasterCard (yay, a reloadable card that is actually inexpensive to use!). The only thing that really costs is sending money from one Obopay user (which can be anyone with a cell phone...maybe...need to check about shortbodes) to another user, which is only 10 cents per transaction so it's not that bad.

But wait, it gets even better! If you sign up right now you get a $5 bonus, so basically your first 50 money sends are free. Nifty. But don't sign up yet, because I have an even better deal for you. If you (or I in this case) refer someone else to Obopay, the referer also gets $5. So I'm willing to make a deal: whoever signs up for Obopay through me (just email me and I'll send you an invitation) will get $2.50 off the next airtime purchase from me. Yeah, it's not $5, but hey, it's a fair amount. I could even send you the $2.50 via Obopay if you wanted...

Though I haven't signed up yet...if someone already has Obopay here I'll happy to be your referred-person. But anyway I should be able to sign up later on today...

OK, now to the next thing...

Due to a really good deal I'm working out with a huge airtime seller that's buying my airtime, I'm not going to be selling 60-minute cards here anymore. However, it seems like Tracfone's refer-a-friend program is back up again, so I'm substituting ESN minutes for 60-minute cards, at the same price! Plus you have the Obopay discount...

But anyway I'm not sure whether refer-a-friend will work correctly, so just send me your ESN and be prepared to pay for minutes if you want them. If they go through I'll ask for payment. If they don't I naturally won't.

One last thing: don't get too excited about having ESN minutes right now, as it will be about a week before I get phones in and setart doing this. But in the mean time get ready, because if this works correctly things are getting cheaper on the Tracfone front :). When I get the phones in I'll update the minutes store page to reflect that...

OK, last but not least...

The phone review section is up!

Go to the Go4Prepaid landing (www.go4prepaid.info) and you'll find that the Phone Reviews section no longer says "Coming Soon". You can now peruse the fifteen-some-odd reviews I have there of various phones and services. Hope everyone likes them! It took me a couple hourse to set up this part of the site and I hope it's worth it to everyone here...

Why My Parents Use Tracfone

Why don't my parents use PagePlus or U Prepaid?

1. Neither have local nuimbers, and U Prepaid doesn't have local service, in my area. We're on an el cheapo landline so we need local numbers. And you can't port into PagePlus. On U Prepaid they'd have to double-dial, which they'd be hard-pressed to do.

2. Trac on VZW coverage is much better, in terms of cheap roaming, than PagePlus.In our area VZW isn't all that strong, so there might be some roaming neede every once in awhile, and nobody wants to pay a ton for roaming.

3. Due to my knowing how to work Tracfone's service, my mom and dad get cheap minutes on Tracfone. Or they can easily get them...it's their choice and PagePlus is neither ultra-cheap nor easy to get, comparatively.

4. PagePlus had no attractive phones until the Nokia 2366i. The Nokia 2126 is a great phone. 'nuff said.

Review: UTStarComm CDM7000 and Movida Unlimited Service

Here's the phone review that catches me up to what I said I'd do awhile ago...now to put all these reviews into a dedicated reviews section on the site...ah well...but anyway...

First I'll start with a review of Movida's Unlimited service. As everyone probably knows already, Movida runs off of Sprint PCS and doesn't have the hottest rates in town for its normal plans, but has an interesting twist to the "hybrid" plans that nobody else that I know of as far as Sprint hybrids go is doing: rollover minutes.

Okay, that's not such a huge deal but when everyone else isn't doing it the fact that Movida is sets it apart from the crowd. So basically as long was you keep your expiration up to date, which costs at least $30 a month and includes unlimited nights and weekends starting at 9, you can use that $30 on 25-cent anytime minutes or 10-cent text messages whenever you want. Which is sorta neat. As an added bonus, if you spend $50 a month the rate drops to 20 cents a minute. Of course, that's still not a great rate, but they're pretty much giving you the UTStarComm 7000\7025 (I'm reviewing the 7000 hrere, the 7025 is similar but I'll talk about it soon) with a month of service so things aren't quite so bad.

But I have a few nits to pick about the service, whose phones come preprogrammed to "habla Espanol" (which is fine; I could change the language setting relatively easily). First off, it's a bit expensive for what you get minute-wise, but then again it seems like all Sprint-based hybrids are that way. Second, all shortcode SMS doesn't work on Movida...no Facebook texts for me :(. Third, free weekends are nice but I honestly don't talk to anyone much after 9 p.m. on the phone and don't particularly want to have to change my calling habits to get enough out of the service to justify the extra cost of this feature. Then again, some people do all of their talking after 9 p.m. but I simply don't do much talking at any part of the day, and most of the time it is during the day. Last, customer service takes a long time to come online, or at least they did when I activated the phone about a month ago...which is of course annoying...

Okay, that was the service. Now to the phone...

Which was surprisingly good for how people had reviewed it over on PhoneScoop. Signal-wise I have no complaints, though I was surprised when I idly unscrewed the antenna and it could suddenly be lifted out of its socket...guess that's just for the capability of having bigger antennas...

But reception, as said, was good. Battery life wasn't as good, averaging to my reckoning about three days of light usage on a charge, but the battery life isn't horrible either. Though I can't figure out why the life is so low when the phone doesn't have an external screen...maybe it's the flashing UTSTarComm logo on the front...

Inside the phone, you find something that reminds you of gram'ma: a pixelated, small screen with a user interface that isn't so hot. But you also find a fairly large keypad that's abundant in tactile feedback, good for text messaging despite the fact that the screen is small resolution-wise and size-wise.

The phone isn't particularly beautiful (like the Nokia 2366i for example) but it isn't horribly ugly either. It's also on the thin side...sort of...and has a loud speakerphone, though the handset volume without the speakerphone isn't so loud...yeah I'm being random here but I'm just talking about odds and ends...

And of course you get polyphonic ringtones, as well as hybrid polyphonic\PureVoice (lo-fi real audio) ringers, plus if I remember correctly a PureVoice-only ringer or two. Which is interesting, but that's about it.

And that pretty much sums up the phone and service. Both work, both are cheap to start out with through prepaidWireless.com, who lent me this phone for review, but neither have any particularly noteworthy features that render them a "must buy" combo.

MEID What?

When I mentioned that the Nokia 2366i uses an MEID, I was met with a resounding "Huh?". So here's some clarification, as I head to bed, without the UTStarComm CDM7000\Movida Unlimited review completed (will probably do tomorrow morning).

Basically, an MEID (Mobile Equipment Identifier) is an ESN (Electronic Serial Number) for CDMA phones (Verizon and Sprint, plus every good unlimited carrier in the U.S. out there), except better. Well, longer...which means that we aren't going to run out of them like we would run out of ESNs. Also, an MEID is the same length as an IMEI (the GSM answer to the ESN countdown problem) so you can easily have dual-model CDMA\GSM phones. Niiiice.

If you're still achine for knowledge, here are a few sites that say what I just said, except with a little more info...

http://www.phonescoop.com/glossary/term.php?gid=254

http://rfdesign.com/mag/radio_goodbye_esn_hello/

Nokia 2366i

Behold, the long-awaited review...okay, not really long-awaited by announcement but someone probably wants to know about this phone and has been wanting to know for quite awhile...of the Nokia 2366i! I've had the phone for two weeks now, and it's a nice phone in my opinion. I'll outline why below...though I haven't so much as activated it. Which merely means that I used 611 to test call quality...

Which is really good. Though it seems a little buzzy on the highest-volume speakerphone setting and a little metallic (compression-style) on the highest volume on handset mode. But then again I was calling 611. Oh, and the volume for non-speakerphone is nice and loud...if you're hard of hearing the highest volume level should still be plenty loud enough for you, if you're holding the phone up to your ear...loud and clear...can't expect less from Nokia anyway. The speakerphone, active only when the phone is shut and played through the handset speaker, is pretty loud, too, though not ear-splittingly Nextel loud. But it's fine most of the time.

What about signal? Well, next to my trusty LG 3280 in my house both phones get two bars. I call 611. The LG connects at the same time as the Nokia, or close to it, though it rings first by a few seconds, so the Nokia actually may be connecting slower...which is fine because it doesn't take forever to make the call in any event. But anyway the Nokia, with its angular antenna just slightly longer than the LG's, picks up a nice, clean signal while the LG cuts out twice, though these cut-outs are barely noticeable. Not saying that the LG is a great phone to compare with or anything, but the Nokia bests it.

So I compared the 2366i with my dad's trusty Nokia 2126, again with both phones at my desk on Verizon. Both showed a similar signal (2366i: 2\5 bars, 2126: 3\7). I test-called three times. It was a tossup as to who connected first. But both didn't cut out at all. To my ears, however, the 2366i souns a tad more lush than the 2126. So for signal the 2366i is quite solid. Wierd how it's not available as a contact phone...it's INPulse (or PagePlus) only.

Hmmm...maybe it's because I didn't see any way that you could get onto the web withthe phone. Which fits it even better to PagePlus and, incidentally, Tracfone. Boy I wish this phone was on Tracfone. They could sell it for $70 and I'd proably help both of my parents get it...

But anyway, the phone is nice, but feature-limited. Texting is there, and works quite well, as far as I've messed with it. The two things about good text messaging are a good keypad and a large enough screen. The 2366i has both. The keypad is nice and big, and looks good, with the typical Nokia panache that features a "digital" font on the buttons. The keys don't stick out or anything, but they provide nice tactile feedback.

But on to the screen...

Suffice to say that it looks to me to be the biggest screen on any phone I've had thusfar. Not as big as, say, a Razr screen, but it's plenty big enough to see what you're doing and then some. It seems nice and high-res, too.

Which reminds me of the outside of the phone. It also harbors a screen, which is about half the size of the display on the Nokia 2126. Which is plenty big enough for an external screen on a phone; all the readouts on the screen are very legible. But that's probably due to the fact that Nokia decided to make the screen a kewl ("cool" doesn't do it justice) blue-on-black.

Anyone notice that everything about this phone is really nicely done? Me too. Speaming more of the outside of the phone, and the inside too, the styling is pretty much flawless. The whole thing is beautiful. Small, too, despite a nice screen and keypad. As said, the famously large antenna is simply large compared with the phone; it's the same size as my LG 3280's antenna. Which, by the way, is about as thick as the Nokia, maybe a tad thinner as it tapers down toward the bottom of the phone, but is, in my opinion, not nearly as pretty as the 2366i, which is both narrower and shorter than the 3280, both open and closed, due a lot to the Nokia's squarer design that makes it quite the cool phone. But I said that already.

Let me take a break from ranting about how cool this phone is and tell what I do not like about the phone...then I'll get back onto the last few features that are neat...

First off, a minor nitpick. The outer rocker button (you know, the up\down volume button) isn't exactly snappy. It's made out of black plastic like a lot of the phone body, but there's little tactile feedback when using it. But there is visual feedback on whatever screen you're using, so this can be forgiven.

Second, another minor nitpick. MP3 ringtones (ech, spoiled that secret...nevermind about the rest of the features...I'll cover them in scrutinizing them here) take a few seconds to kick in, at least in the Gallery browser. But when they do start playing they're crystal clear, and they're Nokia-smooth.

Third, a somewhat more major, but expected, annoyance: the phone has limited Bluetooth. Wait...the phone has Bluetooth?!? Yeah, you do get a lot for $50...but Verizon blocked off everything to do with Bluetooth except the most famous part: headset\handsfree capability. Which means that I can't whip out my Palm T|X (which unfortunately has power button problems right now...and I need to call Palm up again to get them to tell me how to send it off to repair it) and send even more luscious MP3 ringtones to the 2366i. Neither can I use the 2366i as a modem. I can't even use my Palm to serve as a 4" screen on which to view and write text messages. Dang. Somebody hack this, please.

Fourth, and most annoying, is that the phone's user interface is slow for the most part and not as easy to use as I'd like. I dunno whether it's because I grew up on Nokia bar phones (well, sort of...from probably mid-2001 through September 2005 that's all I had used) or whether it's just because of what they are, but I think Nokia makes really, really good user interfaces on their phones. User interfaces that work well, and work quickly. Then the flip phones came. The user interface, with added screen space, strangely became slightly less easy to use, at least to my reckoning, but still nice and all that. Now the 2366i...it has this slightly less-than-greatest UI but to boot you don't get instant response when, say, you hit the OK button to go to the main menu of the phone. You hear the button beep instantly, but it takes about a second to actually change to the menu screen. Okay, maybe not a second but no less than half a second. Which is annoying to me, because I've seen so many Nokia phones that have done this right. :( Yet another erason to hack and see what one can do to speed up the darn thing. You can't let such a posh phone as this go to waste just because the UI has a lag to it, an inexplicable lag at that. Or is it Verizon\The Man stickin' it to you? You be the judge...

One last thing, and this isn't a critique but rather a compliment I forgot to pay the 2366i earlier: the battery lasts a long time on it. At least long for CDMA and a phone with an external display, though the display turns off after a few seconds of inactivity. But anyway I must've taken the phone off the charger either on the 1st or the 2nd of the month and it's still alive on the 7th. Granted, this is 99% standby time but that's still nice in view of other phones' 4-day battery lives, or less. I mean, this phone, with a bigger screen, mp3 ringtones, Bluetooth (though for most of those days I didn't have Bluetooth turned on...I don't have a BT headset) and an external display, equals the more basic LG 3280 in battery life. Impressive.

Which reminds me of one last nit to pick: the dang phone makes all things new a bit too much. Besides the different UI (at least from what we're used too) the phone no longer uses the near-universal Nokia power connector. Which means my hundred-and-fifty-some-odd (I'm not kidding...anybody want 'em?) brick-style home chargers, and my smaller travel chargers, and the two car chargers that I can use (one I got with the Motorola c261, one my mom has had for awhile) won't charge this phone. !?! Did Nokia have to break all the great old hardware when they graduated this phone up to the MEID system?

Yeah, Nokia is using MEIDs now. Rock on, Nokia. Take that, But anyway, my closing comments...

I like this phone for what it is: a bang-for-your-buck, good-looking (especially compared with the current INPulse Pantech camera phone...ECH!), Bluetooth-headset-capable flip by the company that's well-known for making crackerjack phones. However, the crippled Bluetooth (thanks, Verizon...oy), nonstandard (or is it becoming a standard now? Who knows?) connector and slow user interface hold it back from it being a phone that I wouldn't part with even if I did have to use it on INPulse (that God for PagePlus...sic them on the evil 99 cent daily fee of INPulse). But those are the phone's only weak spots, leaving you with a really nice phone for $50, perfect for activating on PagePlus and at the same time feature-rich enough that nobody will know you're using something prepaid, let alone PagePlus, whose newest phone if I remember correctly is about three years old now. As I said before, if Tracfone released this as a SingleRate device I'd move up to it in a flash from my LG 3280, and would likely have my parents do the same...even if the phone did cost a bit more than Verizon is offering it for.

But anyway I like this phone...

One thing to ponder though, as Nokia looks to be getting out of the CDMA business entirely ;,(. This seems to be their swan song in that side of the industry, and it's a heckuva swan song, a song that basically says "Qualcomm, look at the people who got their hands on this phone...look at how everyone's going to miss us when we're gone when they've got this baby to remember...". Ah well...maybe Nokia will update the firmware on this phone somehow (over the air? It's possible) and make it an ultra phone that will bring Qualcomm back to the table with them as the phone sells out and Nokia won't make any more and customers flock to GSM for their Nokia fix...okay I'm just thinking wishfully but again this is a nice phone.

News Flash: Good Deal

First off, the deal, that I may have put up before but now have more information on:

PrepaidWireless.com is giving away a $10 off $25 coupon, basically, to anyone who signs up with them right now. Which means you can get a $25 refill for $15...40% off. A little birdie tells me that this promo is going to end around February 28th, so it's best to take advantage of the offer and sign up now to get the bonus. If you do sign up now, you'll be able to keep the $10 bonus until you need it.

Another way to use the $10 bonus is to subsidize the cost of the Movida UTStarComm 7000, so it's $40 instead of $50. It comes with a month of service included, a $30 value (actually, it's $30 in airtime on the phone, but Movida is pushing their "Unlimited" plan which starts at $30 per month). So the phone is effectively $10. But I would actually wait a few days; PrepaidWireless will be coming out with the better-rated, slightly better, and of course newer, 7025. Which will, I'm told, be sold at the same price as the 7000, which is a good thing. Which might mean that the 7000 will be offered at an even further discount to clear out inventories...

Speaking of the 7000, I'll likely put up a review of that phone today, along with my impressions of the Movida service. As an added bonus, I'll also put up a review of the Nokia 2366i, the cheap INPulse\PagePlus bluetooth flip with style. Hopefully. Then again, I have to finish some work for PrepaidWireless.com (I work with them, not for them, though...this site is still Go4Prepaid and not Go4PrepaidWireless.com), write an essay for Civilizations class (not due tomorow, but that's when school starts after a long yet too-short Christmas break), complete a few scholarship applications and in general have too many things on my plate. But I *should* be able to get the reviews up.

Quick Notes...

I just arrived back at my home, from a week-and-a-few-days trip to Florida for Christmas. Hopefully, during the upcoming three-day weekends, I'll be able to do a lot of various things with this site and other stuff...

For starters...

The LG 3280 does indeed (for the upteenth time!) have free, or rather same cost, roaming...SingleRate is SingleRate, yay everyone! Plus coverage is just as good, network-wise, with the SingleRate CDMA as with older, cost-more-if-you-roam models. Also, don't worry about flipping open your phone when it rings...you have to accept the call (by pressing a button) before it starts charging airtime. Though you *can* set up the phone to simply answer when you flip it open.

And to finish up this post, here are the phones I'm reviewing soon:

UTStarComm CDM7000\Movida (Sprint)
Nokia 2366i
Nokia 6061

Thanks PrepaidWireless.com for the Movida, and BabbleBug (in advance) for the Nokia 6061! As for the 2366i, I got it for a cool $50 or so plus tax at the local Super Wal-Mart in Florida.

More Tracfone Stuff

To follow up on my review yesterday of the Motorola c261, the phone also activated over the air...no code entry required...which seemed pretty slick for Tracfone, but to be expected of such an advanced Tracfone I'd suppose...

Also, regarding the person who commented about typing in an URL and being able to go to it on the c261, I got the 403 Forbidden edrror when I tried to access other sites than Tracfone's own deck that way...

Now, a side note: for some reason (maybe because I had call waiting at second 0 of a call with the person I was calling!) my LG 3280 crashed, as in vibrated for awhile in spurts then stopped and simply locked up. I took out the battery, then put it in again. Lo and behold, all my airtime was gone! A quick call to Tracfone solved this problem. Something interesting about Tracfone: they can now add to your phone, or at least the LG 3280 and probably the c261 and v176, units in increments of single units. No more rounding up to ten units, but hey, it's an upgrade...

Motorola c261 & Tracfone New Features

This phone, due to its being washed (ech!), is now sitting out to dry, but nonetheless I should be able to give a pretty good review of this phone, its features, and Tracfone's new Cingular-powered features of its own...

First off, this phone has the new prepaid features that the LG 3280 incorperates, such as a double-digit airtime counter, a rearranged prepaid menu with airtime adding on top and code entry on the bottom.And of course incoming SMS is 0.3...er...0.30 units each. And now we know why there is a double-digit readout on the airtime display...

...for buying ringtones! Yes, you can buy ringtones and graphics from the convenience of your slick-looking Motorola c261 (especially slick in the matte red I got it in). And the prices aren't horribly expensive...5.97 units per ringtones translates to a maximum of $1.99 per ringtone, with a minimum of $1.19 each if you're looking at 20-cent-per-minute airtime. Sounds pretty good to me, at least compared with $2.99 ringtones on Boost Mobile.

And yes, the phone has web access to get these ringtones, as well as view news stories and play online games and such. Small problems:

1. It's slow...really slow. Motorola doesn't have EDGE on this phone (wait...they don't have EDGE on the Razr or the Pebl either...geez) and the GPRS seems quite sluggish. Either that or the web portal is serving over cousin Vinnie's DSL connection...serving the 50 people who use web on the c261 all at the same time...
2. It's limited. Want to go to Facebook? How about Google? HowardForums? No, no and no. Just Tracfone's own predefined WAP deck. T-Zones on Tracfnes anyone?
3. It costs! Half a unit per minute for any data access, whether it's downloading a ringtone, browsing the news, or sending\receiving an MMS message...on top of the MMS or ringtone charges!

And MMS costs 1 unit per message either way. Not my idea of dirt cheap, but you take what you can get with Tracfone...even though sending MMS messages is a slow affair...as in it takes a minute or two to send an 80k message. Bleh.

Not to discount the phone, though. It is svelte, as mentioned before. While it's no Slice, it is slim enough, and its rounded edges make it look like a higher-end phone than the Slice, at least in my opinion. The keypad is easy enough to press, and the phone's screen is nice and large, especially for a bar. With a 128x160 resolution, the screen is big enough to offset the kludginess of Motorola's user interface, and texting is quite viable, though iTAP ain't quite what T9 is in terms of ease of use, at least to my reckoning.

Ohyeah, and the phone has a camera in it, a first for a Tracfone. Yes, everyone thought that Tracfone wouldn't come out with the c261, picking instead the cameraless c259 (I think that's the model number). But the jolly green giant of prepaid wireless put through their first camera phone, and its a passable camera phone, too. We're not talking print-quality photos, but on the highest quality setting the photos are quite good enough for casual emailing and pasting online in random places,albeit via the oh-so-slow MMS system, as the phone's rumored Bluetooth is either nonexistent or disabled and I know of no cable that can hook up to this phone.

Side note: the camera is VGA, and the screen is portrait, so you have an annoying conundrum when setting wallpapers: yours with a border or Motorola's without a border? Anyway, pictures look good, and the screen is maybe half again as large vertically as that of the Slice, on par with the average contract flip phone. Small problem with the screen: it solarizes very easily when viewing photos, at least if you're holding the phone normally. Horizontally, wierdly enough, the images are fine...except they're of course rotated 90 degrees...

Now to the important parts about any phone that's supposed to be used as a phone: reception and battery life. Reception-wise the phone is great, as far as receiving calls goes. Cingular's network works well with this phone in that respect. Transmission? Not so much, but I'm thinking that the problem is more network-related than due to the phone itself: Cingular "razes the bar" once again! I actually had to switch phones (used my dad's Verizon-powered Trac Nokia 2126) when talking to someone due to my cutting out on his end, even though I had a signal that was quite good.

Battery life is okay, though merely okay. Three or four days seems to be hwo long it lasts with light to normal usage, which would be on the good side for CDMA but is merely fair for GSM. If you're looking for great battery life, look at the LG 3280 or something like that, not at the most feature0laden phone that Tracfone offers.

In my opinion, this phone is a big step forward for Tracfone, being as how it puts web and MMS on the table as network features and a camera as a phone feature. The phone's onboard apps and games are nice, too. But there's no reason to get this phone over another Tracfone unless you want the camera and the ability to get ripped off...er, download ringtones and graphics and view news storeies...if you want GSM and just usually talk and text the Nokia 2600 is still a great choice. If you want more coverage while still being SingleRate, the LG 3280 is best. However, if you do want a camera, and an okay one at that, Tracfone now gives you an option, and now it's at a fairly palatable price ($49.99 plus tax currently from their site for a black one, and you can get a red phone, which looks really nice...trust me, I own one :)...from Wal-Mart's site for around the same price). Heck, maybe BabbleBug still has one in stock...e-mail me if you're interested and I'll ask.

Tracfone Referrals - Back Up!

Remember the Tracfone backdoor that I used to get refer-a-friend emails sent? Well, it's working again! So anyone who wants can look back to that post, follow the instructions, and get back into the refer-a-friend game! Viva la chance! And if you don't have a phone to refer the other phone, drop me an email and I'd be glad to shoot a refer-a-friend email your way! Hope this helps everyone!

Kyocera K7 "Rave"

People have been wanting a review of this phone for awhile, and now I'll give it. Hope this helps someone out there...though the phone has been surmounted by, at last check, the K9...

First off, this is a very old phone, as cell phones go. That's not a bad thing necessarily, but you aren't going to get the new features you'd have on newer phones, such as full web access and suchlike.

However, this phone does have polyphonic ringtones and an LED flashlight, as well as a relatively large black-and-white screen with a user interface clear enough that you can use the phone fairly well, for what it does.

The typical "tools" are on the phone (calculator, etc.) plus the flashlight, which is reasonably bright. The phone is definately basic, but it's okay for people who will only talk and text a little anyway.

With regard to texting, the phone's keypad is okay for the pursuit, though Kyocera's T9-clone input system is another thing to learn...

For voice quality, suffice to say that it's pretty good. Which it should be, considering this is a PCS-only phone on a PCS-only network. But then again the phone isn't incredibly loud. No speakerphone, either.

As far as battery life goes, I'm really not sure about how long it lasts (a friend now has the phone). But battery life, courtesy the phone's refurbished-ness, seems quite short. As in a few days on standby. That's what's not to like about a refurbished phone, but what can you honestly expect for $10? You have to have something that gives...

But other than battery life, the phone is solid for what you'd use a $10 phone for: taling and texting. Hope this miniature review has helped someone.

By the way, if you want to help out the site and are going to activate a Virgin Mobile phone, put in 830-456-2634 as the person's phone number who referred you. That way, I get a "kickback" from Virgin Mobile. And as an added bonus, for every $10 I get in kickbacks (the first person I refer gets me $10, everyone else gets $20) I'll lay away $5 to buy something from Virgin Mobile to the tune of phones, so I'll have something else to review. Again, hope this review helped!

P.S. More reviews are coming soon...

UTStarComm CDM7000 & Movida Unlimited Service
Motorola c261 & Tracfone's New GSWM Services
Nokia 2366i (see below)

One note about the Nokia 2366i: I'm not activating it...for myself, at least. But if anyone wants it I'll gladly sell it for $70 shipped activated on PagePlus...or Verizon INPulse, whichever you want. But anyway if anyone wants the phone emailo me, and I'll send it on when I'm finished with my review!

Sold Out...Again!

Well, I got the rest of my airtime cars in today...and am selling one on eBay and the rest to a bulk buyer. So I'm sold out again! But I'll probably have some more cards back in stock in a couple of weeks...

Tracfone Cards - Now Available!

Just to let everyone know, I have a large (42 cards in all) shipment of Tracfone airitme cards in right now. Grab 'em while they last!

Virgin Mobile & Tracfone Airtime

First off, Virgin Mobile now has the Snapper refurb deal back online, as well as the K9, available for a cool $10 + tax. I think the main difference between the K7 and the K9 is that the K9 has MP3 ringtones or something like that...I'd buy one, but it wouldn't get to me in time for Christmas...going on a trip starting Friday (the 22nd).

Second, I'm getting in half my boatload of airtime cards tomorrow :). Grab 'em while they last...they'll all be gone by the middle of next week, if not sooner! In which case you'll have to wait another few weeks before I have some in stock...

Virgin and Tracfone Shake Up Their Lineups

Over the past few days Tracfone and Virgin Mobile have changed their available online deals...Tracfone first...

The biggest news here is that not one but three phones are now $15, down from $20 or $30. These three phones are the Motorola c139, Motorola c155 and Nokia 2600. All are new. My choice, out of personal experience from all three of these phones? The 2600, by far. It's old, but it's good. The c155 seems to ahve reception issues, and its bulbous form factor isn't quite pretty. The c139 only has mono ringtones, though it has great battery life, and there have been many cases of people's units just disappearing on that phone. The Nokia 2600, the GSM, older, equivalent of the 2126, has neither problem. If you need a Tracfone on GSM and want a $15 phone, the Nokia would be it.

One gotcha: $15 doesn't include shipping. Unless you bring your order total above $19.99. But hey, the 2600 is an okay deal even at $20, with the Nokia 2126 at $30 new. Anyway, buying two phones would alleviate the shipping charge. But, in a nutshell, the Nokia 2600 just became a better deal than ever.

As an aside, the Motorola c261 is down to $50 plus tax on Tracfone's website, in black. The v176 is still $60. Interesting...the phone was $80 when it came out! Is Tracfone not getting enough sales on the phone? Or are they trying to push picture messaging and web access to the masses because it's very profitable for them? Not to mention ringtones...

Now to Virgin Mobile...

First, the bad news. The refurb Snapper, which was a mere $40, is now sold out. Maybe, however, they'll reinstate the deal when there are enough refurbs to start shipping again. Personally, I'll stick with my Slice, but then again I got the phone for $20 plus tax. Also, the $10 phone is temporarily no more, though it too might pop up again, in the form of the Kyocera K9 (the K7 was the last deal).

Second, the blah news, or maybe it's good news. But anyway the Audiovox "Vox" 8610 is now a mere $25 plus tax. People don't seem to like this phone, but they seem to dislike the Kyocera Oystr even more, citing batery life concerns (by the way, this phone is $20). Then agsin, the Vox doesn't have web access...it's a toss-up.

Now to the pretty good news. Virgin Mobile now has two "free" phones: the Nokia "Shorty" (2116i) and the Kyocera K10. Okay, they're $20 with $20 in airtime added as a bonus, but it's airtime nonetheless so I'll still call the phones free.

My choice between these two phones? It depends. The Shorty, being made by Nokia, is a very solid phone, and it's very small. But it has only a black-and-white screen, and there's no web access...and the Kyocera K10 has both of these. Just depends on what you want.

By the way, this is the first post on the new Go4Prepaid blog. It should run faster for everyone, and should have more features and such. Hope everyone likes it!

Sold Out!

Sorry everyone, but I'm completely, at least for now, sold out of Tracfone 60-minute cards. I will, however, have some in the Monday after next. Sorry for any inconvenience.

Answer to Slice

Responding to the person who commented on the Slice...

First off, I just don't think that the Slice is a $50 phone. True, it's thin, really, really thin, but that's pretty much its only merit. Not that it needs other merits, but it's so thoroughly average otherwise that its thinness is its only redeeming quality. And due to its thinness, plus the cost-cutting measures involved (and there are some measures involved) you get a phone that seems a tad on the glitzy side, with a keypad that feels none too good. nThe phone may be thinner and lighter even than the SLVR, which is expensive, but you're taking out a lot, and I mean a LOT, of features. Which people may or may not need\want anyway, but the only thing you can compare with the SLVR and the Slice is thickness. The Slice is a cheapie phone, simply put.

About CDMA users settling for expensive handsets and minutes, some people like to have their phone working everywehere, even if it's more expensive. However, CDMA isn't necessarily better coverage-wise, or more expensive, than GSM. Sprint actually has a quite small coverage footprint, somewhere around that of T-Mobile, maybe a little bit more. However T-Mobile now has roaming agreements even on prepaid, and thus you can get their service at 10 cents a minute or less in a lot of places...as in A LOT of places. :)

In this case GSM is cheaper than CDMA, but Cingular GoPhone is WAY more expensive than Virgin Mobile (25 cents a minute vs. 18 or $1 a day for 10 cents a minute + M2M versus roughly 28 cents a day for the same thing minus M2M). This is about the cleanest analogy possible, as comparison between AirVoice and a comparable CDMA carrier would lead into comparison with "indie" carriers like STi Mobile and its league. Heck, Tracfone GSM now charges the exact same per minute as the LG 3280 on Trac CDMA, though GSM does have more features.

Another look at things and you'll find that Virgin Mobile's text rates are becoming the cheapest in the industry. everyone is starting to charge 15 cents per text, which is absolutely annoying to the point of death. Virign is looking like it will stay at 5 cents per message both ways. If you don't get on a texting plan. Which I'm actually doing very, very soon (as soon as I top up). I will then have 2.5 cents per text message, better than anything in the GSM arena, as far as prepaid goes, has to offer, to my knowledge. And what phone am I using for this? The Slice.

In short, I'm not bashing the Slice for being what it is. I'm just bashing it for being what it is an being $50. $40 would be okay in my opinion, but not $50...at that point you're looking at higher-end phones, and even this phone's thinness doesn't quite rank it as higher-end.

By the way, I actually don't like any of the ringtones on the Slice really. All of them are pretty obnoxious, even the normal ring. Same with the backgrounds. But I'm going to live with them since I'm not even going to use this phone for voice calling. The big idea from Virgin mobile here is that people, fed up with the lousy offering of 'tones on this phone, will pay their horribly high rates to download new content that is actually normal and bearable an suchlike. And it's probably going to work, making the net cost of the phone even more ($65 including tax anyone?) for people who actually want to personalize it. Nice business model, Virgin. Ah well.

Well, have to go. Homework. Hope this clarifies things for everyone considering getting the Slice. It's a nice buy for $20 but not for $50.

By the way, I found out why there was a hundredths place in the new Tracs' airitme display...buying ringtones! At least for the Moto c261. Not that I needed another ringtone, but The House of The Rising Sun is still neat to have on a Trac, and the ringtone speaker on the c261 is nice. The only beef I have is the time it takes for things to load on the phone (seems like GPRS Class 0, lol) and thus the airtime it uses in loading things. Ah, but such is life...more on the c261 later.

Nevermind...

I solved my dilemna about the ringtone. Just heard the same progression in Nickel Creek's This Side. Anyhow, I'll be eventually putting up some photos I've taken with the c261. They're okay in quality, for a camera phone, but GPRS is so dang slow (maybe because I'm roaming?) that it's really expensive to send pix messages (0.5 units per minute of web time required + 1 unit per message...gotta love the ripoffs).

Ringtone - Motorola c261

Well, I just had t0 put up on here one of the ringtones on the Motorola c261. Why? Because I know the song from somewhere...and I don't remember where! Comment on this post if you know what the 'tone is. Sorry about the quality of the mp3, but hey, it's that much quicker to download! Anyway, I'll put up a picture from the phone's camera as soon as I find out what the dang ringtone is (it's hotlinked in the title of this post).

Tracfone Cards For Sale - Delivery Within 24 Hours! - Again!

Well, the 60-minute cards are back again. Get them quickly, or you'll not be able to get them at all. Just click on over to the Cheap Tracfone Minutes link to order one, two, or however many (though i don't have very many actually) you want. As usual, they're just $12.50 apiece.

Enjoy!

P.S. I just got a red Motorola c261 yesterday (as part of Black Friday's double-minute card deal; the double-minute card went to my dad). Of course, the review will be forthcoming. Interestingly, it too has a hundredths-place airtime counter. Interesting...and red...:)

Sorry...

I really need to do a variety of things on this site, but I haven't had the time. The podcast, and putting the podcast on iTunes, will likely have to wait till a few days from now. Same for updating my sale page (the ESN minutes are gone, but I think I could get some 60-minute cards for $12.50).

But to help some people out, the LG 3280 has a vibrate mode. Just press and hold * and voila, Manner Mode. :) Do it again to switch back to normal mode.