July 28, 2005

Time to break down

and get a cell phone. Tmobile looks okay -- I can get unlimited nights and weekends for $40/month, while the same thing with Cingular starts at $60. Anyone know of any better deals than Tmobile's? Anyone use Tmobile and have any complaints or caveats?

6 comments:

MosBen said...

I have Sprint and have been pleased with that. I can call anyone on the network (which they started before stupid Verizon did "In") without using my minutes, and most of the time (except inside my apartment for some odd reason) I get great service.

I hate Verizon, mostly because of their commercials, which might be a bit lame, but I also feel like they're somehow the most evil. I don't really have much evidence, but I'm sure it's there.

Anonymous said...

I've used VirginMobile for a while now, and am pretty happy with it. It uses the Sprint network and you're on a pay-as-you-go plan (there are three to choose from). With the plan I'm on, I add just $20.00 to my phone every 3 months, and all of my unused minutes/dollars roll over every time. On my plan it's 25 cents/minute for the first 10 minutes you talk each day, and then 10 cents/minute for any additional minutes you use in that day. Outgoing text messages are 10 cents each (I think), and incoming text messages are free. Plus, there's no contract. Overall, I've found it's a cheap and easy service for someone who is not constantly on the phone. It's easy to check your balance, and you can add extra dollars at any time if you're running low. My only complaint is that Sprint has very limited service (at least in the L.A. area). I can't make a call from my house, yard, or anywhere on my block, and I've left several messages from other places in L.A., only to have the people on the other end say that my message was completely garbled. But I did have great luck with Sprint in Washington. So I'd say check it out (virginmobile.com) and see what you think. It's a whole lot cheper than $60 or $40 per month.

That said, just yesterday my new LG phone arrived (and, yes, it's on the evil Verizon network). Verizon is costly, but it is the one and only service that works inside my house, so I plan to stick with it for awhile.

MosBen said...

I hate the commercials that the quality of service almost doesn't matter. Of course, there are a few areas in which I am completely unreasonable.

Noumena said...

I should've mentioned that this will be my only phone -- one of my new roommates wants to try going without a landline, he said he's done it for the past year and it worked well. I think I spend more than 7 hours on the phone a month, so $40 for a plan with unlimited nights/weekends would probably be a better deal than pay-as-you-go.

I think Verizon has the most condescending, irritating commercials, too.

Noumena said...

I'm going to go with Sprint. I get half the daytime minutes of Tmobile, but I don't think that'll bother me so much, and it's $5 less. Plus, they have a 14-day guarantee, so if I get down to South Bend (one week from tomorrow) and the service sucks, I can go with Tmobile anyways.

MosBen said...

Yeah, I've never really had a problem with going over minutes, so a plan that gives me lots of them isn't a big selling point. As long as I've got my free evenings and weekends I can make all the long calls to the family I need to without worrying. Most of my weekday calls go something like this,

"Hey, you wanna get some food/watch a movie/play video games?"
"Yeah, come on over."
"Cool, see you in a few."