"Straight Talk" - please advise

[Islander]

I have an old school phone. It's an older Motorola and it does what I want it to do, i.e. make and receive calls. I never use the camera feature. I could have Internet access for extra $$ but can't afford it. With this phone I can make and receive calls at no charge unless I exceed my minutes, which I never do. For this I pay $63/month.

Now I see that Wal-Mart has a "Straight Talk" dealio. There's a choice of 3-4 plans, a choice of $40-$100 phones, and the lowest monthly charge is $30. The other one is $45, unless I choose a Trac Phone pay-as-you-go, which seems pricier at 10¢/minute.

The mid-price phone appears to give me everything I want, including unlimited Web access at $45/month. I think it has a qwerty keyboard, but if it doesn't, the $99 phone does. They are LG; my first mobile phone was an LG and I preferred it to the Motorola I have now. Service appears to cover my area pretty completely.

Even with the $45/mo. option, once I've bought the phone I'll be saving close to $20/month, which on my budget is significant. Anyone have any experience with these plans, or any advice? All input appreciated!

[wring]

how much do you use your phone? I've done the 'add minutes' thiing for years, generally spend about $100 or so a year for making/getting calls. have a netbook I cfarry w/me if I need web access on the road and look for free wifi.

[Dragonlady]

I bought a $20 reconditioned Tracphone off the website. Put a $100 "double minutes for life" plan on it and got better reception than I do with my Verizon phone. IF you don't use the phone much, that may be worth looking at.

[Islander]

Dragonlady, what website would that be?

[Dragonlady]

Tracfones - www.tracfone.com

And the double minute plan has gone down to $25. They have phone/double minute bundles.

[shamrock]

I can tell you do NOT go the Trac Phone route. I had one years ago and unless they have improved their service and coverage dramatically it was the pits.

You may want to look into T Mobile. They have prepaid, month to month, and regular contract plans, all for what I'd consider reasonable rates.

ETA: I see Dragonlady has had a very different experience with TracPhone. So, as always, YMMV

[Dragonlady]

OH, their customer service sucks. Off shore, sounds like India or Bangladesh and they don't even attempt reasonably understandable english. All true. But in the 3 years I used that phone as my primary, I only had to call them once. Everything else I did online.

[Euryphaessa]

Just watch out for added features, hidden charges and taxes and the like. My phone plan is supposed to cost me $45 per month, but with the access fee and the caller ID and the damage insurance and various other things, it comes out to about $80 per month. My pay as you go phone never cost me more than about $25 per month, but their long distance rates sucked so I ended up getting a plan.

[Islander]

I know what you mean. My US Cellular plan, with which I'm very happy, is an unlimited $49.95 plan, no contract, but additional taxes & charges boost it up to $62-63.

I've read the fine print on Straight Talk and I can't find the crack in the wall. No contract, you pay by the month, you can set it up on line, no hidden charges. A friend has it and is delighted. I keep waiting for the unseen other shoe to drop....

[hilarity n. suze]

For a throwdown kind of phone, I like Virgin. No contract, no minimum, pay as you go. I have a thing where, when I get low on minutes, it automatically tops up; if I don't get low on minutes it does it every 45 days. I can get on the Internet with it, but I usually don't. I have one, my husband has one, my son has had one, total cost approximately $20/month. The phones are cheap--if you can't find a cheap one at Best Buy, the Virgin website has some. And, if it falls out of your pocket on the roller coaster, well, no great loss.

[Islander]

Hilarity, that sounds like the best deal yet, if I can get coverage here. Maine is a rural state and until fairly recently there were a lot of dead spots. I'll check the website. Thanks!

[Auntbeast]

When I lived in a large city, I used MetroPCS. However, I don't text and just want a phone to send and receive calls. The service was fantastic, assuming you never needed customer service, which was abysmal. I only needed to call customer service twice in the two years or so I used them. They may be nicknamed GhettoPCS, but if you care more about what people think of the phone you use than how much it actually costs you, I think they were fabulous.

I got tired of the tremendous variable in cell phone bills and found the flat rate/unlimited minutes pretty fantastic.

[wring]

t-mobile has the same sorta deal check their coverage.

[jali]

Metro PCS.

$50 per month - unlimited everything. Pay online. What's not to love?

forgot the best: No contract!

[tunaman]

Let's see...

Tracfone uses AT&T as the carrier, while most Straight Talk phones use Verizon. So you might want to ask your friend with AT&T or Verizon to come over and see how well phones from those carriers work in your house\neighborhood before you buy one.

Tracfone\Straight Talk are owned by the same company: América Móvil... whose CEO is Carlos Slim Helú, currently the richest person in the world. All their tech support\customer service is based in Mexico and Latin America. I've had to call them twice (to swap out phones) and it required multiple calls. The first time I call, the background is always SO LOUD that you can't make out what the CS reps are saying. I usually hang up and call back, and it's quiet this time. I don't know why.

For Tracfone, I wouldn't pay extra for a "Double Minutes for Life" plan... I'd just buy a phone that already had it.

One thing about Tracfone is that you add airtime and you're given x number of minutes or 90 days, whichever comes first. However, if you add airtime, then add more airtime, your expiration date moves out 90 days from the previous expiration date. So instead of buying a One Year card (which gives you zero minutes but 365 days of service for $50), it's better to buy four 60 minute cards (which gives you 240 minutes (or 480 with DMFL) and 360 days of service for $80).

The expiration dates are really the only catch with Tracfone. There are no "fees" for days you use the phone, nor is there any requirement to buy airtime outside that 90 day window (unlike Virgin Mobile, where you MUST buy airtime every 30 days).

My GF has had Straight Talk for a year and really likes it. No complaints about the service, or the billing (she set it up to automatically charge her debit card, and it's $49.xx for the $45 plan). Her only major complaints are that the Samsung (with the slide-out QWERTY keyboard) looks old-fashioned next to our friends Droids and iPhones... and the "Camera" button is in a stupid place (on the lower right side, right where you'd grab it if you didn't know better).