Smartphone for less than 20 USD per month?

Toggle sidebar Toggle sidebar
Bateluer

Bateluer

Lifer
Jun 23, 2001
27,730
8
0
My younger brother emailed me last night inquiring about getting his first smart phone. I pointed him to the Lumia 520/521, because they're 100 bucks off contract. A Lumia 521 on TMO's 50/month plan would be a decent plan, I think? But, he poopoo'd it as too expensive for him.

After some back and forth with him, he let me know that he has little carrier preference but doesn't want to spend more than 15-20 dollars a month. I'm thinking that ~30/month might be the minimum for decent service with a decent phone, but he also turned his nose up at Republic Wireless's Defy XT & 19/month plan because it'd mostly be WiFi usage.


So . . . anyone have any ideas for something in his price, err, range? He's a cheap bastard.
 
I

ImDonly1

Platinum Member
Dec 17, 2004
2,357
0
76
Bateluer said:
My younger brother emailed me last night inquiring about getting his first smart phone. I pointed him to the Lumia 520/521, because they're 100 bucks off contract. A Lumia 521 on TMO's 50/month plan would be a decent plan, I think? But, he poopoo'd it as too expensive for him.

After some back and forth with him, he let me know that he has little carrier preference but doesn't want to spend more than 15-20 dollars a month. I'm thinking that ~30/month might be the minimum for decent service with a decent phone, but he also turned his nose up at Republic Wireless's Defy XT & 19/month plan because it'd mostly be WiFi usage.


So . . . anyone have any ideas for something in his price, err, range? He's a cheap bastard.
Click to expand...

Lumia on PlatinumTel (tmobile mvno, minutes and text, with minimal/no data).
Lumia on t-mobile $30 plan (100 minutes, text, and data).
Or pay as you go.
Depends if he wants more minutes or more data.

Republic wireless is the only other option. I don't think they care how much you use the phone in non-wifi either.
 
Last edited:
Yuriman

Yuriman

Diamond Member
Jun 25, 2004
5,530
141
106
Bateluer said:
My younger brother emailed me last night inquiring about getting his first smart phone. I pointed him to the Lumia 520/521, because they're 100 bucks off contract. A Lumia 521 on TMO's 50/month plan would be a decent plan, I think? But, he poopoo'd it as too expensive for him.

After some back and forth with him, he let me know that he has little carrier preference but doesn't want to spend more than 15-20 dollars a month. I'm thinking that ~30/month might be the minimum for decent service with a decent phone, but he also turned his nose up at Republic Wireless's Defy XT & 19/month plan because it'd mostly be WiFi usage.


So . . . anyone have any ideas for something in his price, err, range? He's a cheap bastard.
Click to expand...

Republic Wireless will have the Moto X soon. That's probably his best bet in that price range.
 
Bateluer

Bateluer

Lifer
Jun 23, 2001
27,730
8
0
ImDonly1 said:
Lumia on PlatinumTel (tmobile mvno, minutes and text, with minimal/no data).
Lumia on t-mobile $30 plan (100 minutes, text, and data).
Or pay as you go.
Depends if he wants more minutes or more data.

Republic wireless is the only other option. I don't think they care how much you use the phone in non-wifi either.
Click to expand...

He poopoo'd the TMO 30 dollar 100min/tex/5Gb data plan already. :/

Yuriman said:
Republic Wireless will have the Moto X soon. That's probably his best bet in that price range.
Click to expand...

I saw they were advertising it, with plans as low as 5/month too, but they didn't have any details for those plans.
 
F

Fox5

Diamond Member
Jan 31, 2005
5,957
7
81
Lol, $20 a month is the extra cost of adding a line + data onto a family plan. Let him piggyback on your cell plan and subsidize his phone costs if you really want to get him a smart phone plan for so cheap.
 
Joe1987

Joe1987

Senior member
Jul 20, 2013
482
0
0
Have him sign up for Freedom Pop's phone & service, I just ordered one for the hell of it, went with the free package.

It's about $110 for the phone and the service is free, $10 or $20/month.
 
S

s44

Diamond Member
Oct 13, 2006
9,427
16
81
Fox5 said:
Lol, $20 a month is the extra cost of adding a line + data onto a family plan. Let him piggyback on your cell plan and subsidize his phone costs if you really want to get him a smart phone plan for so cheap.
Click to expand...
^^^

Individual plans fall off a cliff below the $30 T-Mo deal.
 
Bateluer

Bateluer

Lifer
Jun 23, 2001
27,730
8
0
I'm talking him into a TMO Monthly 4G plan, 30/month. Although, I'm going to be the one buying the phone. :p His birthday is coming up next week anyway.

I know you can port a Tracfone number to a TMO plan, but I'm not sure if he could do it online during his activation.
 
podspi

podspi

Golden Member
Jan 11, 2011
1,982
102
106
Plans start @ $10/month for no minutes no data at https://www.consumercellular.com/

I use this with a Lumia 520 and I'm pretty happy with it. Assuming he is on Wifi most of the time and can use Skype/something else it should work fine, while still having service for emergency use. Otherwise, as everybody else is saying, there aren't a lot of alternatives. $30/month is pretty cheap for cellular service in this country.
 
K

Ksyder

Golden Member
Feb 14, 2006
1,829
1
81
podspi said:
Plans start @ $10/month for no minutes no data at https://www.consumercellular.com/
Click to expand...

Lol. Plans start at $10 for 0 minutes. Where do I sign up?

Seriously, $20 is a really bad price point for any plans in prepaid.

Off the top of my head, who offers some- page plus, lycamobile, spot mobile, airvoice

All with very low minutes and data. He would be best off to go with airvoice with an unlimited plan + 100 mb data for $30. Airvoice has at&t coverage and a great reputation for CS.

Spot mobile is unlimited + 250 mb for $30 as well, but they have no OLAM and you can't even find out your data balance without calling CS, same with the lower plans. They have no way to tell you what your minutes/text balance is unless you call them, which is only acceptable if you are on unlimited talk/text plan as you can easily keep track of data.

Lyca moble has the $16 plan and I believe 250 minutes, unl. text, and 50mb data. To me that is not worth it. If it was $12 I'd consider using it but 250 min is too low.

Page Plus has the same plans as always but the same limitations on 4g phones.

Maybe try ptel with pay as you go?

I've been looking for the same thing, a $20 plan and they are just not out there, at least on any gsm carrier. Once you hit the $40 range you have tons of options. I don't need unlimited though and thats what you will find for the most part.
 
T

Tom

Lifer
Oct 9, 1999
13,293
1
76
There are plans under $20, but of course they're going to have limits. For a person like me, who can get by with low amounts of minutes, txts, and data, I think the two best options are Selectel and Airvoice.

Besides having very low cost options, they're also on the two best cell networks, Verizon and ATT, respectively. And both include free roaming.

For me the most important thing is being able to make calls and send txts, from wherever I am. Verizon's coverage is the best, and Selectel uses Verizon's postpaid coverage, not the more limited prepaid coverage.
 
B

bearxor

Diamond Member
Jul 8, 2001
6,605
3
81
agent2099 said:
Moto X is a $600 phone off contract. Don't see how someone looking at the Lumina 521 could afford the Moto X.
Click to expand...

Republic Wireless is selling the moto X for $300, which makes you wonder why it's so expensive everywhere else... hmmm...
 
C

Chrono

Diamond Member
Jan 2, 2001
4,959
0
71
Bateluer said:
He poopoo'd the TMO 30 dollar 100min/tex/5Gb data plan already. :/



I saw they were advertising it, with plans as low as 5/month too, but they didn't have any details for those plans.
Click to expand...

Just tell him to get another Sim and open up a new account with that sim. He should be able to sign up for the same plan again. I've done it a few times already.
 
vi edit

vi edit

Elite Member
Super Moderator
Oct 28, 1999
62,484
8,345
126
iPhone 4s + Page Plus $30 a month plan is probably one of the better compromises in phone quality, carrier coverage and plan offerings.

You can get a phone for under $200 and that $30 deal is 1000 minutes, 1200 texts and 500 meg of data.

Anything under $30 and you are either no talk/text and just getting data, or all talk and text and no data. There's really no good in between under that.

Ting (Sprint MVNO) will give you some flexibility in how you tailor your options. But you are still in the $30 range for basic functionality.
 
cronos

cronos

Diamond Member
Nov 7, 2001
9,380
26
101
Of course there are plans out there that your brother can get that will cost him less than $20/month. The only issue is to find the best plan that fits his usage pattern, and/or his willingness to adjust his usage pattern to make his budget works.

You're wrong if you think $30 is a 'minimum amount' for a decent service with a decent phone. I consider myself an extreme example: I use an HTC One on $10/90 days H2O wireless pay-as-you-go plan. That's less than $5/month for a flagship phone on AT&T network. If I go to PlatinumTel, it's $10/60 days on T-Mobile network.

In general, most type of monthly plans are terrible for people with very low usage, but want all of voice/txt/data. You need to look at PayGo options at MVNOs. My suggestion is to look at Airvoice Wireless or H2O Wireless (for AT&T) or PlatinumTel or LycaMobile (for T-Mobile).
 
Bateluer

Bateluer

Lifer
Jun 23, 2001
27,730
8
0
I think I've talked him into a Lumia 521 on the Walmart Monthly4G $30 plan, and I'm getting him the phone, SIM, and a recharge card as a birthday gift. I'm just not going to tell him that the 521 doesn't support LTE and Grand Rapids does have TMO LTE. :p

His last question was about cross platform gaming, but that wasn't a question I could readily answer as it varies by the game. Words with Friends does have cross platform play, from what I could tell. But the WwF app for Windows Phone looks like its broken right now, based on the number of 1 star reviews in the Windows Store.
 
Bateluer

Bateluer

Lifer
Jun 23, 2001
27,730
8
0
Well, I got him the Lumia 521, he activated and ported his Tracfone number over without calling me a dozen times. Walmart.com initially emailed me errors when I tried to buy him an airtime card, but it unkinked itself later last night.

Now I get to listen to him complain that his smartphone is tightly integrated into Facebook. :p Welcome to 2008?
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

TRENDING THREADS

COMPANY
RESOURCES
FOLLOW
Top Bottom