Help choosing a cell phone

Hi;

I am a complete cell phone newbie. I would like to get a cell phone,
but I am overwhelmed by the number of options in hardware and plans.

All I want is a basic phone to keep in the glove compartment of my
car, for occasional use. Less than once a month. I would prefer a
prepaid plan.

I live in Maryland, in the Washington D.C. metro area.

Can anyone make a recommendation?

I found this and I thought I might post it here for future archive
searchers:

http://www.emergencycellphones.com/

Steve wrote:
> Hi;
>
> I am a complete cell phone newbie. I would like to get a cell phone,
> but I am overwhelmed by the number of options in hardware and plans.
>
> All I want is a basic phone to keep in the glove compartment of my
> car, for occasional use. Less than once a month. I would prefer a
> prepaid plan.
>
> I live in Maryland, in the Washington D.C. metro area.
>
> Can anyone make a recommendation?

PagePlus is probably your best option. As an added benefit, it will work
on the Metro because it uses the Verizon network. It's the least
expensive prepaid too.

"https://www.pagepluscellular.com"

They'll sell you a basic phone, or you can use any phone intended for
Verizon.

On Apr 8, 3:50 pm, SMS <scharf.ste...@geemail.com> wrote:
> Steve wrote:
> > Hi;
>
> > I am a complete cell phone newbie. I would like to get a cell phone,
> > but I am overwhelmed by the number of options in hardware and plans.
>
> > All I want is a basic phone to keep in the glove compartment of my
> > car, for occasional use. Less than once a month. I would prefer a
> > prepaid plan.
>
> > I live in Maryland, in the Washington D.C. metro area.
>
> > Can anyone make a recommendation?
>
> PagePlus is probably your best option. As an added benefit, it will work
> on the Metro because it uses the Verizon network. It's the least
> expensive prepaid too.
>
> "https://www.pagepluscellular.com"
>
> They'll sell you a basic phone, or you can use any phone intended for
> Verizon.



Check out T-Mobiles Pre-paid plan. The BEST IMHO (Especially once you
have bought their $100.00 Gold card), a one time purchase.

FM wrote:

> hmmmm, they leave out a good portion of NYS. They think that NYC is all
> there is. Jerks.

Are you saying that they don't offer phone numbers or that they don't
offer coverage? Anywhere there is native Verizon coverage, there is
PagePlus coverage.

You can port an existing number to PagePlus and get around the lack of a
local number.

On Apr 8, 9:07 pm, SMS <scharf.ste...@geemail.com> wrote:
> Jazz_Azz wrote:
> > Check out T-Mobiles Pre-paid plan. The BEST IMHO (Especially once you
> > have bought their $100.00 Gold card), a one time purchase.
>
> Yes, this is the best priced service. Unfortunately, there are a lot of
> areas where T-Mobile service is completely unavailable or that the
> coverage is pretty poor. I.e., the city I live in, which is in a very
> urban part of Silicon Valley, has very spotty T-Mobile coverage because
> T-Mobile (and Sprint) have been unable to construct enough sites to
> provide seamless coverage. This is an inherent problem with 1900 MHz
> systems.
>
> The good thing about PagePlus is that they use Verizon as their main
> carrier, and Verizon consistently has the best coverage in the U.S. (at
> least according to all the independent surveys).



I was also concerned about that, living up in N.Calif's Solano county.
My Cingular worked well, finally, after being worthless for so long
when it was PacBell Wireless early on>>LOL. So anyway, I bought the T-
Mobile phone, taking it home to check how well it worked. Looked OK on
the map. Turned out, it works as well as my Cingular phone did, within
our house. So AFTER verifying that, I then bought their $100.00 Gold
card. I held off on the card, because you have 30 days to bring back
their phone, canceling your service. But can not get a refund on any
minutes you bought.

Jazz_Azz wrote:

> I was also concerned about that, living up in N.Calif's Solano county.
> My Cingular worked well, finally, after being worthless for so long
> when it was PacBell Wireless early on>>LOL.

Yes, since T-Mobile essentially is operating the old Pac Bell network,
and doesn't allow roaming in areas that T-Mobile theoretically covers, I
just accepted that the coverage will be as bad as the old Pac Bell
Wireless.

Ironically, I know the person that is responsible for my neighborhood
having no 1900 MHz coverage, either on GSM or CDMA, as he's been the
prime mover behind preventing these companies from erecting towers
behind his house which backs up to a small shopping center. This has
been going on since before T-Mobile took over the 1900 MHz Pacific Bell
Wireless network. I expect that in other areas there is a similar issue
with neighbors preventing towers.

Steve wrote:

> All I want is a basic phone to keep in the glove compartment of my
> car, for occasional use. Less than once a month. I would prefer a
> prepaid plan.
>
> I live in Maryland, in the Washington D.C. metro area.

For that type use, the 7-11 plan could be good. T-Mobile is all over
the DC & Baltimore areas (not sure about in between or further out of
the metro areas -- I use Cingular). So, the T-Mobile prepaid plan
mentioned in several other threads sounds about the best. In most
metro areas, they have decent coverage, though not usually as dead spot
free as the competition. But, if your rare usage is mostly in the DC
metro area & only 911 calls elsewhere, T-Mobile could be your choice.

--
Bill K