Cell phone help
 

Hello all,
I've just moved to New York from UK and need to get a cell phone. Does anywhere offer impartial advice like a Carphone Warehouse-type store? I've only found stores for each network provider so far.
I'd like a Pay As You Go phone to use around the NY / NJ area, but it doesn't seem PAYG is as popular over here. Any suggestions for good, reliable providers or decent talk plans?
Thanks, any help is appreciated.

Re: Cell phone help
 

PAYG is pretty popular - if you want sim based then go T Mobile or ATT - the latter have pretty good rates for calling and texting UK.

Re: Cell phone help
 

I live in NYC also. I use AT+T and they've been good so far.

Why do you want payg though? It's very expensive. As you are new and might not have a credit history yet you probably wont be able to get a monthly contract phone, but you can if you pay $500 deposit which you will then get back once you've established a bit of a track record. payg is a massive waste of money.

the talk plans here are rubbish compared to what you can get in the UK and you'll probably have to pay for your own handset (which will probably be one that came out in the UK about 18months ago...handsets are very behind the times here) as well. I cant remember the plan I'm on but its one of the standard ones + i the international calling addon. I pay $10 extra per month and I get cheap international calls.

Re: Cell phone help
 

The phones are now much more up to date than they used to be!:lol: To be fair our ATT plan on the iphone is very comparable to UK plans and we get more minutes that could ever be used!

Re: Cell phone help
 

A little harsh. It depends on how much you use it. With a tmobile sim you can bring it down to less than 10c/minute. That makes it equivalent to 300 mins for $30 without any added taxes and fees and with minutes that don't expire at the end of the month. Sure your plan is $39.95 or whatever, but what is your monthly bill???

Have a look at http://www.howardforums.com/ for discussions about the various providers and plans.

Re: Cell phone help
 

I use tmobile to go prepaid. If you charge it at $100 you get 1000 mins that don't expire for a year. I find mine lasts me 5-6 months so its much better than paying the standard $39.99 + taxes and fees. My wife doesnt even use the 1000 mins in a year and we found that tmobile will roll over the mins when we renewed it.

Also unlike so many of the other carriers tmobile does not charge a fee for every day you don't use the phone or an additional flat fee for a day you do use the phone.

Its 10 cents and min anytime.

Its really cheap to upgrade your phone too. I just got a RAZR V3, case, car charger & a $25 voucher for $100 from costco.

Re: Cell phone help
 

I too am a Tmobile payg user - my phone cost me $49 - and I used about $20tops per month (only 4 people have my # and I am not an obsessive user) - it just depends on how much you use your phone - now saying that, my son, who lives in Dallas has one of these new 'Blackberry Curve':confused: that I pay about $105 per month for so many texts and 1500 mins:curse: The phone cost me $290 with a mail-in rebate of $100 which to this date (a month after mailing it in), I still haven't received.

Re: Cell phone help
 

This is really helpful guys, thanks very much. It seems to make sense to pay the deposit and get a better rate, so I'll investigate :)

Re: Cell phone help
 

You are gonna get ripped off no matter which one you choose :(

You have to pay for incomming calls over here, you can't just switch phones when you feel like it because they insist on selling phones that don't use sim cards so you have to return to the company your contract is with instead of just buying a phone and slipping your card inside.
I have tried Cingular (ATT&T) who charge excesive amounts and don't explain unlisted overcharges and Verizon, who I am still with because allthough they ain't much better, they are about the best over here........... It's a shame they don't use the same charging systems as their major shareholder (Vodafone) does in the UK :)

Re: Cell phone help
 

We ended up with tracfone paid $100 got a nice camera phone with 500 minutes and double minutes for life and they are good for a year, they will roll over the unused mins when I put another one year card on next time, plus those minutes will be doubled too I've ended up with a ton of minutes so I text my sister in Gran Canaria and my Aunt in Spain and my family in UK all the time, it only costs .3units to text, less than one minute

Re: Cell phone help
 

interesting - me and the wife have had about 10 phones over here and sim cards are fully removable and interchangeable with UK phones and other usa phones

ATT and t mobile allow you to do this

IMO ATT is by far the best provider since you can use most phones abroad and swap sims.

not had billing problems for a few years either

Re: Cell phone help
 

CDMA phones dont have SIM cards. Any provider that has a GSM network (i.e. what they have in europe and most of the world) have SIM cards that you can remove and swap just like at home. NYC has full GSM coverage with ATT and T Mobile. CDMA tends to be found in smaller towns and the country.

Re: Cell phone help
 

BTW, you may find that AT&T stores etc are really reluctant to sell SIM only packs. I had a bunch of visitors recently who wanted to buy a SIM only so they could make calls at local prices, and the tools in the shops wouldn't sell it to them - they wanted to upsell to a contract 'cos it makes them more money.

You can buy SIMs on eBay for $10.

Re: Cell phone help
 

Similar with TMobile. The SIM pack often costs more than their cheapest PAYG phone, so buy it, swap SIM and keep as a spare.

I bought a TMobile PAYG SIM on ebay with 200 mins for $9 a couple of years ago, still going strong.

Re: Cell phone help
 

If you don't use the phone much, tracfone will do and they have simcards as well, works pretty well.