T-Mobile pre-paid phone deal

[Athena]

If you just need to have a phone available for occasional use, the T-Mobile To Go plan is the best deal going. Staples is selling the basic phone for $20 (after rebate) this week. 100 bucks gets you 1000 minutes with a year's expiration and after that, you get twice as many minutes for the same amount. 20 + $100 = $10/month with 90+ minutes a month.

 

[ironcrotch]

Do the Gophones talk free to regular t-mobile poeple?

 

[vkeks05]

Originally posted by: ironcrotch
Do the Gophones talk free to regular t-mobile poeple?

Nope.

 

[abaez]

I'm on t-mobile now. Can I switch to this? I've had this phone for almost 4 years and the total amount talk time it says is 330 minutes.

 

[Buz2b]

Not trying to crap but I just bought one and I have one big caveat for all considering this; check the coverage area very closely. If you are anywhere close to the "edge" of the coverage, don't buy it. The signal drops off like a rock at the coverage limit and those areas are none to large unless you are in a bigger metro area. Mine dropped off less than 12 miles from the house. It sucks to be me!
Other than that, we like the phone, it's features, etc. :frown:

 

[Andy]

Can prepaid tmobile roam internationally?

 

[Akki]

All the info is on the website (http://www.t-mobile.com/prepaid/coverage.asp)). No international roaming, unfortunately. If you need to roam alot, you could always pick up a prepaid in the other country.

 

[usernamemax20charact]

Good deal on the phone, but I hate that the prepaid minutes expire so soon. Wanted to buy one for my parents for emergency use. If the prepaid minutes didn't expire so quickly, I'd have bought one. Seems like all carriers are like that.

 

[jamesave]

The nokia phone is not available anywhere in the bay area store. Is there any activation fee with prepaid?

 

[Akki]

No activation fees. The minutes last a hell of a long time too for prepaid, up to a year.

 

[puppyfriend]

What? I picked one up in Santa Clara. There was about 4 of them.

Originally posted by: jamesave
The nokia phone is not available anywhere in the bay area store. Is there any activation fee with prepaid?

 

[mscdex0]

Just looking at all the prepaid carriers, they're all still expensive IMHO. I mean, verizon and cingular have a prepaid plan that charges $1/day PLUS the per minute charge. So you're going to be paying $30+ a month for pre-paid wireless. Might as well just get a non-prepaid plan, you'll probably get more features and whatnot.

The day I see the rates be $0.10/min. for prepaid wireless will be the day I sign up for it. But with the $1/day required charge (even if i don't use the phone that day), just doesn't make it worth it to go prepaid.


EDIT: at least t-mobile has the sense to let customers keep their minutes an entire year, unlike other companies.


My $2

 

[usernamemax20charact]

Originally posted by: Akki
No activation fees. The minutes last a hell of a long time too for prepaid, up to a year.

But it's only up to a year for the $100.00 prepaid card (1000 minutes). The $10.00 card (30 whenever minutes) expires in 30 days while the $25.00 card (130 minutes) and the $50.00 card (400 minutes) expire in 90 days. It'd be nice if the other cards lasted 6 months. That'd be perfect for my parents.

 

[usernamemax20charact]

Originally posted by: mscdex0
Just looking at all the prepaid carriers, they're all still expensive IMHO. I mean, verizon and cingular have a prepaid plan that charges $1/day PLUS the per minute charge. So you're going to be paying $30+ a month for pre-paid wireless. Might as well just get a non-prepaid plan, you'll probably get more features and whatnot.

The day I see the rates be $0.10/min. for prepaid wireless will be the day I sign up for it. But with the $1/day required charge (even if i don't use the phone that day), just doesn't make it worth it to go prepaid.


EDIT: at least t-mobile has the sense to let customers keep their minutes an entire year, unlike other companies.


My $2

T-Mobile's $100 prepaid card (1000 minutes) works out to be $0.10/minute. Looks like it's time to sign up.

 

[Athena]

Originally posted by: usernamemax20charact
Good deal on the phone, but I hate that the prepaid minutes expire so soon. Wanted to buy one for my parents for emergency use. If the prepaid minutes didn't expire so quickly, I'd have bought one. Seems like all carriers are like that.

That's what makes T-mobile such a good deal. You start with 1000 minutes for $100 and they are good for a year. You can top off the remainder with any amount and that will extend the period for another year.

 

[Athena]

Originally posted by: mscdex0
The day I see the rates be $0.10/min. for prepaid wireless will be the day I sign up for it. But with the $1/day required charge (even if i don't use the phone that day), just doesn't make it worth it to go prepaid.

T-mobile doesn't have a daily charge and if you start with the $100 card, you are paying 10¢/minute for the first 1,000 minutes and 5¢ for an additional batch of 2000 minutes.

Also, once you have purchased $100 worth of minutes, the expiration period is automatically extended by a year, any time you add to your balance. So if you only use half of the 1000 the first year, you can just buy $10-$25 worth and the entire balance is good for another year.

 

[lsman]

so $100 first year, and near the end of it. But a $10 and it will be $110 cost for almost 2 years?

BTW, this phone will works in US (850/1900) only, most likely as other countries use different frequency of GSM. So the idea of buying another sim card in other country do not work with this phone.

click on the countries and you see what frequency they use, most are 900, 1800... unless may be some south america
http://www.t-mobile.com/international/coverageInternet.asp


I like to see US T-mobile have a coverage map like this
http://www.t-mobile.com/international/c...n=T%2DMobile+Czech+Republic&ctry=CZECH

 

[JDJr]

Current T-Mobile Customers:
I called them about this and this is what they told me. As long as you are out of contract (So you don't pay early term. fees), all you have to do is go and buy a prepaid card then call them up to activate it and they (should) be able to switch your sim from a postpaid account to a prepaid account.

So anyone know a good place to get a 1000/1yr card?

JDJr

 

[lsman]

Originally posted by: JDJr
Current T-Mobile Customers:
I called them about this and this is what they told me. As long as you are out of contract (So you don't pay early term. fees), all you have to do is go and buy a prepaid card then call them up to activate it and they (should) be able to switch your sim from a postpaid account to a prepaid account.

So anyone know a good place to get a 1000/1yr card?

JDJr

t-mobile.com

 

[MWink]

Originally posted by: mscdex0
Just looking at all the prepaid carriers, they're all still expensive IMHO. I mean, verizon and cingular have a prepaid plan that charges $1/day PLUS the per minute charge. So you're going to be paying $30+ a month for pre-paid wireless. Might as well just get a non-prepaid plan, you'll probably get more features and whatnot.

The day I see the rates be $0.10/min. for prepaid wireless will be the day I sign up for it. But with the $1/day required charge (even if i don't use the phone that day), just doesn't make it worth it to go prepaid.


EDIT: at least t-mobile has the sense to let customers keep their minutes an entire year, unlike other companies.


My $2

Yeah I think the $1 a day charge is pretty stupid too however Cingular ONLY charges it on days that you USE the phone. Verizon OTOH charges it every day whether you use it or not, which makes the service pointless IMO.

 

[emeraldsky]

Thanks OP. This is a nice deal for people in T-Mobile coverage areas. And you've done a nice job of clarifying the benefits of this prepaid plan.

 

[TheLogLady]

Virgin Mobile's pre-paid offering, despite it's cheesy teeny-bopper marketing, has been great for me as an occassional-use phone. You just have to buy at least $20.00 worth of minutes every 90 day to keep your account active, and you carry over unlimited minutes which never expire.

The per-minute usage charge comes out of that $20.00 at $0.25/minute (or $0.10/minute if on calls longer than 10 minutes). In simpler terms, if you're like me and talk less than 26 minutes/month, you're only topping up 4x/year @ $20.00 each, which breaks down to $6.67 month.

If you talk a lot more than that, though, it's probably not the best deal for you.

 

[hifi]

just got back from a trip in china, to my amazement many ppl on the street have a cellphone. plan there is about 2.5c/min with $3 fee/month.

 

[NoBoB]

Oops

 

[mscdex0]

Originally posted by: usernamemax20charact

Originally posted by: mscdex0
Just looking at all the prepaid carriers, they're all still expensive IMHO. I mean, verizon and cingular have a prepaid plan that charges $1/day PLUS the per minute charge. So you're going to be paying $30+ a month for pre-paid wireless. Might as well just get a non-prepaid plan, you'll probably get more features and whatnot.

The day I see the rates be $0.10/min. for prepaid wireless will be the day I sign up for it. But with the $1/day required charge (even if i don't use the phone that day), just doesn't make it worth it to go prepaid.


EDIT: at least t-mobile has the sense to let customers keep their minutes an entire year, unlike other companies.


My $2

T-Mobile's $100 prepaid card (1000 minutes) works out to be $0.10/minute. Looks like it's time to sign up.

Yeah, but still... a $100 prepaid card, i'm not prepared to pay that much at one time. sheesh