Cell Phones
So, my contract is almost up on my cell phone, and my little brother needs to displace me on the family plan. All this means that it is time for norm to get a new phone.
The options out there are many.
I went into each of the carriers and look primarily at plans. For $60-$70 a month you can get 450 mins, unlimited internet and about 200 texts from each of the major carriers.
I think about phone contracts as a cost per year - it is the easiest way to really see the differences and include the phone prices. (Phone price/24 + monthly contract)*12 = yearly cost
So next comes the question of phones. There are the halo phones: the Pre, the iPhone, the MyTouch, the Blackberry Storm. There are the messaging phones - pretty much like what I have now (Samsung Alias), but some with features such as full HTML web browsers which set them apart. And in the middle are the legions of pretty-good high-end smartphones like Blackberry curves and pearls, LG Vu's and a host of others.
In the end though, I have wittled it down to these main offerings:
• SPRINT: A Pre would be $940/year, while a $50 texting phone would be $864/year
• T-MOBILE: Would come out at $864 a year with a $50 Blackberry Pearl
• ATT: Would cost $744/year with a LG VU,
A 3g iPhone $70 refurb = $935/year
• VERIZON: Krave = $73/month = $875/year
• BOOST: $130 for a i465 – a pretty decent but not spectacular texting phone, = $665/year
Boost is obviously a wildcard thrown in because it is so damn cheap, but it does run on the Nextel iDEN network - which is less than spectacular.
I am leaning towards the ATT/LG Vu combo - I think it would offer most of the goodies of the iPhone/Pre, for $200 less a year. What I would really be missing out on are the app stores for each, and Wi-Fi (which the Vu does not have) - but I have my much loved Nokia 770 for that, and the integration with iTunes (which the Pre actually has as well as the iPhone).
What would you pick? (Voting to the right).
The options out there are many.
I went into each of the carriers and look primarily at plans. For $60-$70 a month you can get 450 mins, unlimited internet and about 200 texts from each of the major carriers.
I think about phone contracts as a cost per year - it is the easiest way to really see the differences and include the phone prices. (Phone price/24 + monthly contract)*12 = yearly cost
So next comes the question of phones. There are the halo phones: the Pre, the iPhone, the MyTouch, the Blackberry Storm. There are the messaging phones - pretty much like what I have now (Samsung Alias), but some with features such as full HTML web browsers which set them apart. And in the middle are the legions of pretty-good high-end smartphones like Blackberry curves and pearls, LG Vu's and a host of others.
In the end though, I have wittled it down to these main offerings:
• SPRINT: A Pre would be $940/year, while a $50 texting phone would be $864/year
• T-MOBILE: Would come out at $864 a year with a $50 Blackberry Pearl
• ATT: Would cost $744/year with a LG VU,
A 3g iPhone $70 refurb = $935/year
• VERIZON: Krave = $73/month = $875/year
• BOOST: $130 for a i465 – a pretty decent but not spectacular texting phone, = $665/year
Boost is obviously a wildcard thrown in because it is so damn cheap, but it does run on the Nextel iDEN network - which is less than spectacular.
I am leaning towards the ATT/LG Vu combo - I think it would offer most of the goodies of the iPhone/Pre, for $200 less a year. What I would really be missing out on are the app stores for each, and Wi-Fi (which the Vu does not have) - but I have my much loved Nokia 770 for that, and the integration with iTunes (which the Pre actually has as well as the iPhone).
What would you pick? (Voting to the right).
There is also the Verizon Blackberry Pearl....
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