The wife keeps complaining that I don't have a smart phone. I just have a basic phone on a cheap payg plan on AT&T. It barely gets used as I sit at home all day at my desk.

So poking around, I learn that Cricket is the budget arm of AT&T and a look at their site I see some pretty affordable looking plans and not too expensive phones either.

Anyone with experience of using Cricket? I assume it has the same coverage as AT&T, which I'm pretty satisfied with round here.

Looking at their phone selection anyone have a Moto E or HTC Desire 510?

We have Cricket phones, I pay $60 a month autopay and get unlimited talk, text, internet and 1,000 minutes and texts to overseas.

We have never had any problems with them and the minutes to call home have been a godsend

I have T mobile PAYG. I think I have to top it up $3 month to keep it active. For that you get 30 minutes talk time or 30 texts. After that it 10 cents a minute for calls incoming and outgoing. I don't use it much so spend about $10 a month probably. Just upgraded from a basic phone to a smart phone. Its a Nokia Lumia 640 Windows phone that cost $100. Pretty nice. Connects to wifi at work and home and anywhere else I need it like hotels, airports etc. I don't need full web access/email etc when out and about. But I can still access emails it has already downloaded or contacts, calendar etc from anywhere which is handy.

Don't have a smart phone and no plans to buy one as I rarely use the phone. We have a land line in the house and I have a $12 fliptop cell phone for use in emergencies.

The question as to which phone you need is critically dependent on how much use you might make of it once you have it. I had a flip phone until three years ago, and only "traded up" to a smart phone when (i) my flip phone failed (apparently the cables in the hinge broke), and (ii) I discovered that printed maps were no longer available (the most recent map I could find of Florida and Mouse Town was six years old, and would have cost $40! ) Up to that point I would have sworn that I didn't need anything more than a dumb phone.

Once I got my new phone I immediately started to find more and more things to do with it. ..... Like posting to BE when I am on the bus, or without using my employer's computer network. I use the camera frequently, often in ways I would never have anticipated, if I am out shopping and I am not sure if I have found the product Mrs P sent me for I can e-mail a photo to her phone for her to see! I recently needed to see an upward-facing (top) surface high up on product display in Lowes, and I reached up with my hand to photograph the surface that was otherwise too high for me to see.

I use non-app web sites several times a day, such as on-line banking, ordering a pizza (cheaper than phoning the same restaurant for the same pizza), and checking the cheap place to buy gas on the way home (usually varies by 15c-20c over a 60 mile drive). The uses are many and various, and steadily increase as time goes by. We added a web-linked home security system earlier this year, which we can arm or disarm remotely, for example if my in-laws arrive when we're not home.

If I am doing a DIY project and need advice on how to do something I can pull up YouTube and find a choice of instructional videos, or if need a service manual I can download one. And all this is available whether I am in the crawlspace, the garage, the attic, or the back yard.

In short, if you get a smart phone, be prepared for it to completely change your life. Honestly I'd now miss my phone nearly as much as my right arm!

Isn't there a law against that?

I can relate since my IPad has the same amazing capabilities.

There should be!

I'm with Pulaski - smart phones are fabulous for so many reasons, one of which isn't 'it's a phone'; I don't like speaking on the phone much, and prefer text and email if possible. Landlines, mind you - they're pointless, and we haven't had one now for years. Who needs to phone a house, rather than the desired individual within it?

Our home alarm system is wired to the landline. Yes, we could change this, but it's worked well for 30 years. (Except when the phone is down.)

It is too easy to snip the line to a land-line linked alarm. Ours is linked to the monitoring service by a cell connection.

True, though it's never happened to us. I would like to go cellular, but my husband likes it just the way it is.

No doubt he will right up until someone snips the phone line to bypass the alarm. ..... Most land-line alarm companies now offer cell-linked services too - maybe you could look into switching technology with the same company?

That's certainly part of it. The constant bugging of the wife to look it up on her phone. And using her phone to entertain Young Sir (yes I know we had that on the list of things we would never do). And using her phone for this or that or whatever.

After reading reviews all afternoon I am leaning towards the Moto E, the $35 plan on Cricket is only about $5 a month more than I was paying for my dumb phone on ATT.

The same company will totally do it for us. We would then have keypads and zones, it would cost about $400 to set up, and would be the same annual charge. I haven't even mentioned it to my husband since I know he would not go for it.

At least not until .... [you know the rest].