The Worst Place to Buy a Mobile Phone? - Comments Page 2

I called Radio Shack about the price of samsung galaxy s iii. The $99 price is only with contract with one of the big 3 carriers.

EDITOR'S NOTE: That's correct. Any phone purchased without a carrier contract will cost hundreds of dollars more.

In Canada I have been with a number of providers. I bought my LG smart phone from Amazon. The best service I have seen and least expensive is Pay as you Go from 7-11. Twenty five cents a minute, text is ten cents each or $15 a month unlimited, and data is $10 a month. 7-11 Canada uses the Rogers network, which is great. Downside is the phone quits in the USA. My wife and I have USA burner phones for that.

I wish I had read this before I bought my phone from T-Mobile store last year while in Chicago. My old phone broke so I bought a smart phone which was supposed to have a rebate and which never happened but I am stuck with a 2-year contract and the full price of the phone is added into the plan for like 20 months. I have been a T-mobile user for many years but this will be my last contract I am pretty sure. Dealing with these companies has become a nightmare for many. Thank you for your very informative site and newsletter.

I still love my palm centro. :-). Got it reprogrammed to boost mobile for $20 and I have an unlimited plan, including international land-lines (which I use every week to call family). Phone breaks? $20 replacement on ebay. Can't beat it.

My wife and I decided to "Upgrade" our Samsung Galaxy phones which we usually do at a Verizon Store. Normally free of charge, we found we would have to pay $199 @ for two with NO data and NO net service. The high dollar "Smart Phones" were free but you had to pay the $30 per month 4G Fee. We were told to go to Target for a better deal on our no frills phones, which we did.
We got two Samsung Convoy phones for about $40 each, When we got our Verizon Bill they had charged us ANOTHER $40 each for an "UPGRADE CHARGE". I called Verizon to tell them we had renewed our contracts for two years but they told us that because we bought from Target and not Verizon we were charged the fee. The best they would do was drop one of the phone fees when I complained. Probably because our home phone is also with Verizon.
I hate to think what we will have to do the next time we need new phones.

No problems for this UK PAYG phone user. I think I'm getting my money's worth: I have topped up the PAYG with only about £30 total($40?) in last five years or so!
And I recently bought this used-but-perfectly-working Nokia 6303i for £30 from a eBay-UK seller.
I usually only do texts using free sms online; and I call family members' VirginMobile phones from our VirginMedia house-phone: their cheap evening+weekend calls package covers calls to all landlines and any VirginMobile.
Other calls from this mobile(cell-phone) are mostly free to VirginMobile. Otherwise it has to be a real emergency: like when the car broke down in 2008, or was it 2007?
So, all my mobile needs covered for say £20/year?
If you don't do idle chat; why pay for a monthly tariff? Especially when, having paid the monthly fee, you're likely to be encouraged to carry on using the phone to make use of all those "paid-for" minutes.... yak-yak-yak!
The worst deals I've seen in UK are in mail-order catalogues; and their online equivalents. These are often at full-mrsp; include last year's more expensive tariffs, and are paid for on the "never-never" (hire-purchase) at 30% per annum interest. With instant price comparisons so easy these days; it is amazing how many folk still buy electrical and electronic goods through these rip-off companies!

What is meant by "locked" and "unlocked" phones?

Thank you for the info!
Very interesting reading and a few good laughs.

Dear Bob Rankin,
I have been reading your web news letter for years. I recently open a news letter that had a picture box with some steps to download a picture handler. I am assuming it is the "Adobe flash player", but the their is no mention of just what it is I am downloading. I think you should bother to at least tell us what virus we are down loading. I have "Windows 8" and I thing you should also be telling me and people like me to use a right click, then select the "Open in a Bowser" Menu option. This will turn on the "Adobe Flash Player" in the "Windows 8" launch by the "IE 10" App Icon. You should try to warn us at least before we waist our time down loading "Adobe flash player" we already have installed. Web surfing in "Windows 8" has two separate "IE 10's": 1) one if launched from the "IE" app on the "Start Menu Page" 2)another one if launched from the "Desktop Page". the first one has no flash players and no way to install one either. (God knows I have tried!) The second one on the "Desktop Page" works just like my "IE 9" on my "Windows 7" Laptop, accept without the slow-ness. Happy Computing!

WOW!!! This topic certainly generated a large response. Good article, Bob.

When, I started using wireless phone service, again ... I went to AT&T/BellSouth. I had their service before and was pleased with it. I am still using this service, one main reason, my phone, Long Distance and wireless service are "combined" into one bill. For me, this is a good solution and works well with my budget.

The last 2 upgrades that I have had, I have gone to Walmart. Walmart's price, beat the online price for the phones, that I purchased. Plus, I didn't have to wait days, because of mailing. I got my phone, while in the store. While, I can setup and activate my own phone, it was a pleasure to have the Walmart personnel do this for me.

In my mind, those that are not as "technical", it really would be best, to have another person do it, for them. Even Walmart has personnel that is knowledgeable about wireless phone sales, setups and activations. Yes, there is caution in everything you purchase ... But, when you do some good research, for your needs, the results can be very beneficial and rewarding.

I bought a Samsung Rush from Radio Shack to use on Boost network, which is a prepaid monthly plan. They offered a 2yr warranty that covers everything for 17.99.

Why do you and others never discuss Straighttalk?

EDITOR'S NOTE: It's a vast conspiracy. THEY (you know who THEY are, right?) frown upon it, and WE quake in fear. Actually, that's not the reason. The reason is that Straight Talk is actually owned and operated by Tracfone. And as I mentioned in the article, Tracfone does not offer 4G service.