Yep, they're selling good ole refurbished phones. Also, I got a quick look at what seems to be the trend on reliability on various cell phone manufacturers, from what defective phones passed by this one Pocket kiosk...:)
In the front display, there were a few different phones available, all refurbished, selling for $50. The phones were the Kyocera Milan, the Audiovox 8615 and the Motorola v262, if memory serves me. There was also the LG vx3200 at $55. None of these phones had any warranty or insurance-ability, so far as I heard from the person behind the counter there, but then again $50 is the deductible on insurance anyway, heh. Better to use the insurance protecting the likes of the Motorola Rokr z6m ($300) or the Razr v3m ($260).Or maybe the rather junky, but certainly better looking and feeling than its precursor (the Strobe) Kyocera M1000 "Lingo", at $200. The Strobe, by the way, is now $190 at Pocket...I'll go for the Lingo any day vs. the Strobe, but I'd rather touch neither.
Also of note was the Kyocera K342, priced at $139 before rebate, $99 after. Why? Because it'll randomly crash, says the person behind the counter, who has one. Typical Kyocera stuff though, and in this case you get what you pay for: great features (like Bluetooth and dual color displays), poor reliability (evinced by the brand name on the phone).
Looking to the side of the kiosk we see a flier printed out in black and white. Pocket apparently bought a bunch of Kyoceras at fire-sale prices and now wants to sell 'em to consumers. The phones? The KX440 (which is kinda sorta okay), the KX424 (lame) and the KE414 (LAME!). These l'il guys are $69 new or $59 refurbished, looks like. I would go for the LG vx3200 at this point. Even when you count in what looks to be a Kyocera KX9c at $49.99 refurbished. I'll pass; that's the phone that, without a caller ID display, would happen to be the infamous Kyocera Oystr on Virgin Mobile. Spare me.
Oh and by the way, in case you were wondering where you could use your Pocket phone while roaming, it is on Verizon's towers, and theirs only. In short, do yourself a BIG favor and grab a Page Plus Cellular phone for next to nothing and use that. Your minutes will be about five times cheaper. Just forward to Page Plus when roaming and you're good to go, with airtime rates that make contracts a laugh (that's the point, right?) unless of course you miss features like unlimited text messaging or web access when you stray out of Pocket territory...
About the reliability stats, the quick rundown is that LGs and the high-end Motorolas are the most reliable phones, which is to be expected. Jumping to the low end (past some Audiovoxes and maybe a Kyocera or two, but probably not) are the Motorola v262 and, to an extent, the w315. At the bottom of the heap is the Kyocera K132, known on Virgin Mobile as the Marbl...except the Marbl is more reliable than the K132, which is an utter piece of junk as far as I, and anyone else, can tell, even though it looks cool.
Moral of the story on reliability? Buy the Kyocera K342 if you can stand your non-smartphone acting like it is running a beta test of Windows Mobile 6 with not enough memory available, in a word "crash". In a few more words "crash early and often". But hey, the phone is only $100 on an unlimited plan, with no contract, so whaddya expect? Or spare yourself and get an LG (on the low end) or a Motorola (on the high end). And always, ALWAYS, steer clear of the Kyocera K132 and such other nonsense, for the love of your sanity and your cell service.
Tuesday, March 11, 2008
Monday, March 10, 2008
AWS Phones, Here We Come
Why are we talking about the new 1700 MHz AWS (Advanced Wireless Services) spectrum in a blog about unlimited cell plans? Because it's being used by CricKet, of course.
To be precise, it is being used by CricKet, MetroPCS, US Cellular and Verizon, to be exact. Two of which are unlimited carriers; how interesting. This is probably due to AWS being pretty close to the PCS spectrum in use by these companies, so they already know how to optimize their networks for high-band cellular, I suppose. But then why aren't Sprint and T-Mobile in the mix, or did the article I was reading about AWS just forget to mention them?
Anyway, CricKet, in two markets (Tulsa, Oklahoma and Las Vegas, Nevada) is finally making use of the AWS spectrum it snapped up in 2006's auction. The first phone to get this service (the first tri-band CDMA phone to see actual duty, in fact) is the rather low-end UTStarCom 7126. The little guy has indicator lights instead of an external display, and features only 1xRTT data (nothing high-speed) but it does have Bluetooth, and for talking away that's pretty much all you need anyway. the price hasn't been announced for this phone yet, and it isn't up on CricKet's website yet either, and it probably won't be for another few months, while the AWS networks are finished up and made ready for service. But it's interesting to watch.
Oh, and if you're wondering about what other cellular goodies are going to be tri-band CDMA, here are a few models that have passed the doors of the FCC, bound it seems for CricKet and MetroPCS, who would seem to need the new frequency the most (due both to coverage and capacity constraints...nobody roams on them to my knowledge so the AWS spectrum for only their service makes more sense than would a normal cell carrier):
To be precise, it is being used by CricKet, MetroPCS, US Cellular and Verizon, to be exact. Two of which are unlimited carriers; how interesting. This is probably due to AWS being pretty close to the PCS spectrum in use by these companies, so they already know how to optimize their networks for high-band cellular, I suppose. But then why aren't Sprint and T-Mobile in the mix, or did the article I was reading about AWS just forget to mention them?
Anyway, CricKet, in two markets (Tulsa, Oklahoma and Las Vegas, Nevada) is finally making use of the AWS spectrum it snapped up in 2006's auction. The first phone to get this service (the first tri-band CDMA phone to see actual duty, in fact) is the rather low-end UTStarCom 7126. The little guy has indicator lights instead of an external display, and features only 1xRTT data (nothing high-speed) but it does have Bluetooth, and for talking away that's pretty much all you need anyway. the price hasn't been announced for this phone yet, and it isn't up on CricKet's website yet either, and it probably won't be for another few months, while the AWS networks are finished up and made ready for service. But it's interesting to watch.
Oh, and if you're wondering about what other cellular goodies are going to be tri-band CDMA, here are a few models that have passed the doors of the FCC, bound it seems for CricKet and MetroPCS, who would seem to need the new frequency the most (due both to coverage and capacity constraints...nobody roams on them to my knowledge so the AWS spectrum for only their service makes more sense than would a normal cell carrier):
- UTStarCom 7176
- UTStarCom 8076
- Samsung R430 (might show up on US Cellular or even Verizon, or might not)
- Samsung R210a
- Kyocera S4000 (might show up on US Cellular)
- ZTE C79 (probably MetroPCS-exclusive)
- Huawei M328 (probably MetroPCS-exclusive)
Friday, March 7, 2008
Alltel Goes unlimited, Very Quietly
Last to the big-carrier unlimited party, even behind the smaller US Cellular (and rounding out all cell phone carriers with over ten million customers, to my knowledge), is Alltel.
They're not giving away the far either. $100 gets you what it gets you on Verizon or AT&T: unlimited voice, that's it. As usual, they aren't putting the plan up on their website the first day, but they didn't even give it a press release.
Alltel's reasoning: their My Circle plans are good enough, right? For $100 on My Circle, you get 2000 anytime minutes, unlimited nights and weekends and unlimited calling to and from twenty (yes, TWENTY!) numbers of your choice. Plans of $60 or more get ten free numbers, $50 gets five and $40 gets one. You even have it on the North American Freedom (Canada and Mexico roaming free) plan, with the same price criteria: $60 or more gets 10 numbers, $100 or more gets 20.
Still you gotta admit that $100 for unlimited calling to everybody is better than unlimitd to twenty people, with 2000 minutes and nigths and weekend for everyone else. Espeially if you're using the phone as a business line...
But hey, Alltel has unlimited for $100 per month now, so who am I (or anyone) to complain?
They're not giving away the far either. $100 gets you what it gets you on Verizon or AT&T: unlimited voice, that's it. As usual, they aren't putting the plan up on their website the first day, but they didn't even give it a press release.
Alltel's reasoning: their My Circle plans are good enough, right? For $100 on My Circle, you get 2000 anytime minutes, unlimited nights and weekends and unlimited calling to and from twenty (yes, TWENTY!) numbers of your choice. Plans of $60 or more get ten free numbers, $50 gets five and $40 gets one. You even have it on the North American Freedom (Canada and Mexico roaming free) plan, with the same price criteria: $60 or more gets 10 numbers, $100 or more gets 20.
Still you gotta admit that $100 for unlimited calling to everybody is better than unlimitd to twenty people, with 2000 minutes and nigths and weekend for everyone else. Espeially if you're using the phone as a business line...
But hey, Alltel has unlimited for $100 per month now, so who am I (or anyone) to complain?
Wednesday, March 5, 2008
Mapquest Meets Metro
No GPS capability, however now available for $4 or free on higher-end MetroPCS plans, MapQuest Mobile has come. I'm wondering why you couldn't just use Google Maps Mobile on your Pocket phone (network or phone lockdown?) but if it works, it works. more info here:
http://metropcs.com/mapquest
Pocket Reaches 250,000...and intros new phones...two plus one more!?!
Looks like Pocket has graduated into some higher ranking of cellular carriers; it's not a "big one" like Sprint or even CricKet, but it is quite large for the local carrier that is, probably because it covers the huge San Antonio market.
What did it graduate to, on February 28th? 250,000 subscribers. Again, this may not sound like much but for the area that it covers, and the age of the company (slightly under two years...shorter than the usual cell phone contract) it's huge. This is up from about 200,000 at the turn of the year, and 175,000 forty-five days or so before. In other words, if Pocket keeps up this crazy growth rate they might just double by the end of the year, or more.
Such large-scale business leads to an ability to get higher-quantity phones, and it looks like that's where Pocket is headed. Hopefully though, they won't discontinue their rather high0end lineup that they have now, with the Razr v3m and the Rokr z6m. I say that because MetroPCS and CricKet have turned toward the low-end recently.
The phones I'm talking about are the Motorola Razr v3a and the Motorola w385. The former is $200 on Pocket, or will be once it comes out, and the latter will be $180. This is respectively $20 and $30 more expensive than the prices of MetroPCS and CricKet on these phones (though CricKet doesn't have the w385...yet...and is out of stock of the v3a right now, as well as the Samsung r500) but when you notice that Pocket's plans are at least $5 cheaper than those offered by CricKet or metroPCS...and that Pocket's coverage in San Antonio is actually quite good, Pocket wins out here.
Though I have to say that Pocket had better not go down the primrose path of offering cut-rate phones on their service; while the Motorola w385 and v3a are certainly quite new in comparison with the phones that make up the main body of their offering at the moment, their feature sets are rather pared down; neither the w385 nor the v3a have high-speed data or anything better than a VGA camera. Then again, they also don't cost $259, nor do they have the Kyocrap...er...Kyocera brand name on them. Well, I suppose that, so long as they don't restrict Bluetooth (which isn't restricted on their v323i phone) everything'll be all right. As far as I know, neither phone is a piece of junk, which is always a plus...
...but wait! There may be yet another phone coming in for a Pocket landing: the Kyocera E1000 Deco. I'm thinking it slides right into the spot currently occupied by the K342. It would make a worthy upgrade, though I'd better be aerodynamic, 'cuz I don't trust Kyocera phones any farther than I can throw 'em. Fortunately for Pocket, this one looks slick and aerodynamic...while it isn't thin it looks sophisticated enough.
CricKet Comes to St. Louis
Hot off the PhoneScoop presses, thence from those of RCR Wireless news, it looks like Leap wireless, aka CricKet for those in the unlimited crowd, is coming to St. Louis. They're not available there quite yet, however they are coming, proving that the dedicated unlimited carriers are still going strong, unfazed by the $100-ish unlimited plans that have come forth from the bowels of mainline cell carriers over the past few weeks. Of course, seeing as how the highest-end CricKet plan is $50 for their network, the unfazed-ness is understandable. Plus there's no contract, and if you need to roam out of CricKet's coverage area, you can. Still sounds good to me...
Sunday, March 2, 2008
CricKet: Phones Down To $40, Pocket up to M1000, Page Plus down to $1.99? Lower?
Okay, $39.99 gosh darn it. At prices this low a penny just might matter. The phone? The Motorola v262. CricKet probably would ave charged $29.99 for the phone, but it took $10 per phone to dig them up out of the basement and blow all the dust off of 'em. This little guy is OLD!
Not so with Pocket Communications. Their Kyocera Lingo M1000 (also seen on CricKet and on Virgin Mobile, the latter as the Slice) is out and ready to rumble at a mere $199.99. Okay, that's expensive, but we're taking about non-contract, unlimited, dirt-cheap service here. The cheapest alternative to Pocket that doesn't cost that much for a phone is Sprint, with their $50 LG Rumor and $100 price point. With taxes, the difference between the two plans would run around $65 per month. Discounting the possible fact that the LG Rumor is a bit better than the Kyocera, you would have to roam out of Pocket's service area for around 90 minutes of usage every month in order to make up for the price differential between it and Sprint...and we're comparing the cheapest unlimited plan on a national carrier here.
Okay, I'm on Sprint, and I take advantage of Sprint-only features like PDA phones, EV-DO internet, etc. I also don't have an unlimited plan.
Speaking of not having unlimited plans, in case anyone was wondering about anything else Sprint had, their minute-limited plans can get the same feature bundle as the unlimited everything $100 plan for $30 on top of the regular monthly charge, making all those extra data features "worth" $20 if you're on a regular plan or $10 on top of the unlimited plan. The unlimited plan of which I speak, in comparison to the $100 one, is the $90 deal, which has "sister" plans (minute limited) at $10 per month above the bare minimum plans that are voice only. Which places the effective voice-only cost of Sprint's unlimited plan at a cool $80, as much as $20 below the competition. Though Sprint's add-a-line feature is funky when you compare it with regular plans...until you figure out that you pick any combination of full plans, not some lame service-fee-for-no-minutes addon. Slick, to say the least. But anyway, on to Page Plus...
...who can be cheapened even more than $2.49 per day. In Ohio, Florida and Michigan it can go all the way down to a juicy $1.99 per day, blowing ALL unlimited plans out of the water as far as national coverage goes, at around $60 per month. What you don't get as a result of the $40 (or $25 elsewhere) less you pay per month is free roaming; it's 59 cents per minute. I'd say get a Tracfone for that. Incidentally, the $60 unlimited plan decreases the "cost efficiency threshold" between a regular Page Plus plan and unlimited to about 1000-1100 minutes per month, depending on whether you're in February (lear year or not), March or April, etc.
But wait, it gets even better. If you feel like playing the system, you can get unlimited minutes for next to nuthin' in the scheme of things: activate your phone on a normal plan, stock up on $80 Page Plus refills (preferably at a discount from a place like Callingmart.com) and then convert over to unlimited. You will take a $20 hit as an activation fee for the unlimited plan, and you will still have to add money to your account every four months to keep your service active, but by the Page Plus "funny money" $80 counts as $168 toward your balance on the regular Page Plus plan. This effectively halves the cost of unlimited calling while you're still eating away at that balance, as well as doing the same thing for text messaging and roaming, respectively beinging those down to around 7 cents per message and 28 cents per minute. Maybe a little less...my calculator is sitting on my other monitor. The plan itself? Effectively $1.19 per day for most of the U.S. or about 95 cents per day if you're in the three-state discount-rate area.
That's right...if you work the system you can get nationwide unlimited for less than the price of the local unlimited plans. You can also get a phone for less than they charge you, and if you're in the tri-state cut-rate area everyone else is even greener with envy. Gotta love them loopholes, huh? Time to grab a Razr2 from eBay at he same price as you'd get one from the Verizon regular site, then stock up on several hundred dollars worth of Page Plus airtime cards ($800 worth should get you through a full two years of service...just add $10 cards every four months
and you've got it). Apply them, switch your plan and let the über minute cellular parté begin. Just don't tell anyone that texting is still halfway outrageous in price, and that internet is nonexistent. Just obnoxiously flash your phone around while loudly boasting that you didn't have to get on a contract to get all this, while everyone writes you off as a complete show-off, which you'd be at that point, but entirely justified in being so. :)
Not so with Pocket Communications. Their Kyocera Lingo M1000 (also seen on CricKet and on Virgin Mobile, the latter as the Slice) is out and ready to rumble at a mere $199.99. Okay, that's expensive, but we're taking about non-contract, unlimited, dirt-cheap service here. The cheapest alternative to Pocket that doesn't cost that much for a phone is Sprint, with their $50 LG Rumor and $100 price point. With taxes, the difference between the two plans would run around $65 per month. Discounting the possible fact that the LG Rumor is a bit better than the Kyocera, you would have to roam out of Pocket's service area for around 90 minutes of usage every month in order to make up for the price differential between it and Sprint...and we're comparing the cheapest unlimited plan on a national carrier here.
Okay, I'm on Sprint, and I take advantage of Sprint-only features like PDA phones, EV-DO internet, etc. I also don't have an unlimited plan.
Speaking of not having unlimited plans, in case anyone was wondering about anything else Sprint had, their minute-limited plans can get the same feature bundle as the unlimited everything $100 plan for $30 on top of the regular monthly charge, making all those extra data features "worth" $20 if you're on a regular plan or $10 on top of the unlimited plan. The unlimited plan of which I speak, in comparison to the $100 one, is the $90 deal, which has "sister" plans (minute limited) at $10 per month above the bare minimum plans that are voice only. Which places the effective voice-only cost of Sprint's unlimited plan at a cool $80, as much as $20 below the competition. Though Sprint's add-a-line feature is funky when you compare it with regular plans...until you figure out that you pick any combination of full plans, not some lame service-fee-for-no-minutes addon. Slick, to say the least. But anyway, on to Page Plus...
...who can be cheapened even more than $2.49 per day. In Ohio, Florida and Michigan it can go all the way down to a juicy $1.99 per day, blowing ALL unlimited plans out of the water as far as national coverage goes, at around $60 per month. What you don't get as a result of the $40 (or $25 elsewhere) less you pay per month is free roaming; it's 59 cents per minute. I'd say get a Tracfone for that. Incidentally, the $60 unlimited plan decreases the "cost efficiency threshold" between a regular Page Plus plan and unlimited to about 1000-1100 minutes per month, depending on whether you're in February (lear year or not), March or April, etc.
But wait, it gets even better. If you feel like playing the system, you can get unlimited minutes for next to nuthin' in the scheme of things: activate your phone on a normal plan, stock up on $80 Page Plus refills (preferably at a discount from a place like Callingmart.com) and then convert over to unlimited. You will take a $20 hit as an activation fee for the unlimited plan, and you will still have to add money to your account every four months to keep your service active, but by the Page Plus "funny money" $80 counts as $168 toward your balance on the regular Page Plus plan. This effectively halves the cost of unlimited calling while you're still eating away at that balance, as well as doing the same thing for text messaging and roaming, respectively beinging those down to around 7 cents per message and 28 cents per minute. Maybe a little less...my calculator is sitting on my other monitor. The plan itself? Effectively $1.19 per day for most of the U.S. or about 95 cents per day if you're in the three-state discount-rate area.
That's right...if you work the system you can get nationwide unlimited for less than the price of the local unlimited plans. You can also get a phone for less than they charge you, and if you're in the tri-state cut-rate area everyone else is even greener with envy. Gotta love them loopholes, huh? Time to grab a Razr2 from eBay at he same price as you'd get one from the Verizon regular site, then stock up on several hundred dollars worth of Page Plus airtime cards ($800 worth should get you through a full two years of service...just add $10 cards every four months
and you've got it). Apply them, switch your plan and let the über minute cellular parté begin. Just don't tell anyone that texting is still halfway outrageous in price, and that internet is nonexistent. Just obnoxiously flash your phone around while loudly boasting that you didn't have to get on a contract to get all this, while everyone writes you off as a complete show-off, which you'd be at that point, but entirely justified in being so. :)
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