Since you're a basic user, it would probably be best to purchase a basic phone at full price. You can look on eBay to see what is available. You can then just put your SIM card in. It's usually not worth signing a contract for a basic phone. You won't be getting much of a discount. If you were a more advanced user it would be more worth signing a contract to save hundreds of dollars.

Hi, folks -- Glad I found this forum. I've been a customer of AT&T and its various mutations of Cingular Wireless for about 10 years. I wanted a GSM phone I could use overseas. We presently have the Family Plan with shared and rollover minutes, which has been quite adequate during the years. We have Motorola V551 phones, which are going on 7 years old.

We are both basic cell phone users. We don't text, do pictures on our phones, or any other smartphone stuff.

I joined to be able to figure out how to best upgrade our phones. (We have been getting the notices from AT&T for about 6 months.) I also want to trade AT&T versus T-Mobile and a new contract versus buying unlocked phones and either dropping in our SIMs or buying T-Mobile SIMs.

I look forward to getting some help and advice as well as hoping to provide some help to others.

MarkVA