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Archive for March, 2009

If you are in the market for a new prepaid cellular phone, then this prepaid cell phone review is exactly what you are looking for. I have taken the time to look at three of what I consider to be the best cell phones available and write up a quick prepaid cell phone review for each so that you can pick the one that best fits into what you need.

TracFone – Best Overall Of the Bunch

The first prepaid cell phone review is for the TracFone. They are one of the innovators and originators of the pre paid cell phone market. The good, and bad thing about TracPhone is that they only offer prepaid cell phones. This is good because they are very focused on the prepaid customers while other companies may have a tendency to let these customers slip as they already have their money in hand and generally speaking this is not where the companies make the most money. Because of this, TracFone offers unique and flexible plans to its customers so that you can have plenty of options for your phone. The bad thing is that TracFone is not one of the big wireless providers and rents cell tower time from other companies. In my experience I have been nothing but pleased with them however and rank them very high in my prepaid cell phone review.

Verizon – Coverage At Its Best

Next up in the prepaid cell phone review is the Verizon prepaid cell phones. The options and prices for these phones do not compare as favorably with others, but what they lack in features and cost they more than make up for in service. Verizon offers the best possible phone coverage and area for their phones. In addition the network that the phones are on is incredibly reliable so you can expect rock solid performance and reception with a Verizon phone. Again this is perfect if you are looking for an emergency phone. I rank this phone very high for this purpose in my prepaid cell phone review.

T-Mobile – Stay Away

I had one T-Mobile prepaid cell phone and it was nothing but trouble. I can not possibly tell you how frustrating the coverage was, how difficult talking to their customer service was, and how just in general awful the whole experience was. Given the choice I would stay far away from them and they rank poorly on my prepaid cell phone review.

There are many reasons why you would want to get an international prepaid cell phone. An international prepaid cell phone may not make sense for everyone, but there are people out there that can find a very good use for an international prepaid cell phone.

Getting An International Prepaid Cell Phone

If you have ever had to travel abroad for business or pleasure and come home to find a ridiculous cell bill with excessive charges from roaming minutes and long distance fees, the perhaps an international prepaid cell phone is just what you need to alleviate those costs. Firstly I would check to see how much you spent or plan on spending then seeing if you can find a phone that will be cheaper than what you expect to pay. While there really is not an international prepaid cell phone of choice, many prepaid cell phone providers offer options for international use. Check into these to see which plan best fits into what you will need. You can even look up prepaid cell phone reviews and apply those to the companies that offer international plans. These international prepaid cell phones should correspond with the regular phones as far as the reviews go.

If you are traveling with your family abroad, an international prepaid cell phone plan for multiple phones could be a very worthwhile investment. For around $10 a phone you have something that each of your children can use in case of emergency, or you can get in touch with them if need be. These are very handy especially if the kids are a bit older and want to go off and see their own thing. These phones provide a great and inexpensive way to stay in touch. The cost if you were using a traditional domestic cell phone plan to do this would be absolutely ridiculous, but if you can effectively keep all of your family members in touch there is no reason not to.

As you can see there are several compelling reasons for using an international prepaid cell phone over your regular phone when traveling to foreign lands. By having this disposable phone handy you can save yourself a fortune in fees and charges. In addition you do not have to worry nearly as much about losing, damaging, or getting the phone taken away as it really is just a disposable unit that you can use at your leisure.

I have used prepaid cell phones for a while and people always ask me what the best prepaid cell phone is. Well that really is a loaded question because much of that depends on what you are using the phone for and what your needs are. It really depends as many people will be using a prepaid cell phone for different things, some for emergencies, some for everyday use; even others have international prepaid cell phones for when they travel abroad. Again, determining what the best prepaid cell phone is in these cases can be very difficult as each person will see one set or sets of features as more important than the other. That being said, for me the best prepaid cell phone is TracPhone. The reason for that is they offer the features that I want regardless of where I am going and what I am doing with the phone.

Why The TracPhone Is The Best Prepaid Cell Phone

There are several things that for me make the TracPhone by far and away the best prepaid cell phone you can get. The first thing is how long the minutes are good for. With a Tracphone your minutes will be good for 3 months time. With many other phones you may only get a month or even less. This is a very important feature for any user. What this means is that no matter what, you can hold onto your phone for three months before having to re-up your minutes. In addition, you can pay so that the minutes on the phone never expire if you are willing to pay a bit extra. This is an amazing feature because it means that you only have to pay one price and can keep the phone active for as long as you want. While it may seem that this is only really useful to people using the phone for emergency purposes, the fact is that if you infrequently use the phone it is one less thing to think about.

The next thing about my TracPhone that makes it the best prepaid cell phone you get is how cheap the minutes are. You can get minutes for less than ten cents if you buy enough of them. I usually try to purchase as many minutes as I can and make sure that I have the no expiration feature on the phone so that I can just pay one cell phone bill per year. This usually will cover almost all of my talk time and I use the phone for personal use. Now I am not really a cell phone kind of guy, but if I need someone to get a hold of me or want to make a quick phone call it is a great option to have.

If you have decided to get a prepaid cell phone for emergencies, then you need to make sure that your prepaid cell phone service is incredibly reliable. There are many different brands and kinds of cell phones out there so you need to be careful in your choice.

Looking At Prepaid Cell Phone Service Areas

The first thing you want to make sure of is that you can use your phone wherever you are going to be. It is important that the prepaid cell phone service covers the entire area that you will be traveling or plan to be traveling in. Even if it only once in a while you want to make sure that this phone will have coverage especially considering most people get the phones for emergencies. The prepaid cell phone service area should be described in your contract that you sign up for so make sure that this has what you want before you pay any money.

On top of the physical area that the prepaid cell phone service covers there is the consideration of how good the company’s coverage of that area is. There are many prepaid cell phone service plans you can get out there, but in my experience if you are truly looking for the best coverage I would go with a prepaid cell phone service that owns the equipment that they are using. Verizon and any of the major phone companies are good choices. When a company rents out the equipment, if there is problems it can take them time to correct it. I have seen issues moving from tower to tower on some of the lesser known and named companies. I would avoid these if possible.

So there you have the things to consider when looking at prepaid cell phone service coverage areas. How these correspond to what you need will determine what the best prepaid cell phone is for your uses. I know myself that Verizon and Sprint phones work very well in my area, so I usually look for prepaid phones from them or phones that use their networks. Where you live it may be T-mobile or Virgin Mobile and you should look for phones from those companies. If you do an internet search for prepaid cell phone service and your area you should be able to find some reviews of what works and does not work in your area. Start here and then narrow down your choices based on your needs.

If you are in the market for a prepaid cell phone, then there are some things you need to have in your plan to truly maximize your use and spending for the phone. Not all prepaid cell phone plans are created equal and some have significant advantages over others. If you are not familiar with prepaid cell phone plans then this may be difficult to spot or find. I have had prepaid cell phone services for years and I can tell you there are some things I absolutely wished I had looked for in the beginning.

What You Need In Your Prepaid Cell Phone Plan

The first thing I always look for in my prepaid cell phone plan is how long the minutes are good for. There are some that are only good for a month, and others that range up to three months. Depending on price, I would recommend for the longest that you can possibly find, with three months being ideal. If you have a phone and the minutes are gone after a month, you probably are better off looking at a pay per month plan as opposed to a prepaid cell phone plan.

The next thing that may not be readily obvious in a prepaid cell phone plan is how long you have after the minutes expire to refresh and activate the phone. This is important because in general once the phone deactivates there is no way to reactivate it. I have seen plans that only offer a ten day grace period, but some can offer as much as six months. Again this will be totally up to you, but I would look for as long as possible on this as well so that you can keep the same number and same phone. Most of the expense in using prepaid cell phone plans is in the actual phone, so the longer you can guarantee you have the same one the better off you are.

Obviously both of these options have to be weighed against the cost for minutes to refill your phone. A phone with dirt cheap minutes probably will not have the best extra features that you can find, so you really have to balance out what is most important to you. Keeping in mind these two things however will keep you with your phone for longer, and that is definitely important, regardless of what your intention or use of the phone is.

Hopefully now you have a better idea of what to look for when you are shopping prepaid cell phone plans.