New Cell Phone

[kitkong]

Hi

I'm in Manitoba and I'm looking for a new cell phone, previous I only have used a prepaid phone. I don't need a lot of data but would love a smart phone or at least something easy to text with. Any ideas on a plan. I'm looking but it seems all pay as you go's are priced similar to a monthly plan now.

Thanks
Kit

[shirl57]

Hi. Unless you plan or need to text, I just use a Rogers pay as you go plan ($100 voucher card from walmart plus the GST/PST) so about $112.00 (now $113.00) for 365 days which comes out to about $8.00 or a smidge more per month. That gives me about 7 or 7.5 hours per year of air time.

But again, I don't text, I just use it for quick calls now and then or for "emergency calls". Never know when that car can break down and there's no phone around.

I bought their cheapeast phone 1.5 years ago from Rogers for pay as you go as some you can't buy certain phones w/o a specific plan. Didn't use it much, was a C414 Samsung flip phone. In the last 2-3 months, was giving me nothing but grief, so I broke down and broke the bank and bought a new iphone. Love it, not only does it do what I want it to do (dependable when I need the phone), but with the other apps, is my notepad, etc etc. Now that's going to the extreme buying my iphone outright, but I know now I can at least depend on getting a call through w/o hit and miss situations.

Because they're unlocked now, you can go to any phone provider and purchase whatever you want, plan or pay as you go, your choice.

The downside is that the phone cost me between $700-$800 by the time I bought the necessary accessories with it, but you know, once in awhile we have to be good to ourselves. On the other side of the coin, I can purchase $5 or $10 monthly data plan for a little bit of texting, but not into that right now. What I like is that I'm not locked into any plan. An average plan for 3 years (basic plan), I checked would've run me about $2400.00 for 3 years, so that divided by 3 years still costs me $800 per year but at least I'm not locked into any one plan and then have to pay penalty if I want/need to break that contract in midstream.

It's a lot of money but I don't regret it. I looked at it as my birthday gift to myself this year as I just passed my birthday recently. Besides I worked pretty hard for that money so I deserve to buy something for myself like that once every many years.

[Peachykeen2007]

MTS also has the $100 card that doesn't expire for 365 days on pay as you go

iPhones are only unlocked if you buy them outright from the Apple store - if you purchase one at ANY provider it is locked to that provider

I work for MTS and really if you are needing data and don't want to be locked into a 2 or 3yr plan the only way around it is to purchase your device outright not from a provider and unlocked

Also as this just happened last week DO NOT buy off of kijiji or usedwinnipeg ANY smartphone without doing so in the actual store in front of a sales rep!! I nicely had to take a iPhone 5 that a kid purchased off of kijiji because it was reported stolen!!!!!!

If you have any other questions about MTS in particular just ask - I do it everyday!!

[Jezebel]

I love my plan !!!
iphone4s
~unlimited texting
~unlimited to 5 numbers local or long distance any provider cell/landline
~free after 6pm and week-ends
~350 reg minutes
~150 data

I text daily because of my 5 unlimited numbers I never go over my plan price of $58 per month. I use it instead of a house phone...as for data I am on Sc/FB/Twitter/instagram/my own blog daily and never go over my data either....

[shirl57]

Thanks ladies for all the good info. I didn't know about the $100 with MTS now.

And as for the theft input, yes that is why I went direct to Apple. Just prior to that, I was checking on kijiji and found 2 and wrote to both places. One might've been a possible good situation, and the second situation told me they had thrown their receipt away. Perhaps, ... really ??? She said they had bought their son a $600 phone but because it wasn't with the right provider, it was of no use to them, but .... she threw the receipt away. This is a $600 item not a $6.00 item. My red just went right up.

So for peace of mind, I went to Apple at P.Park, and the guys who looked after me were tremendous in the info dept and getting me all set up, etc (as although I'm familiar with an iTouch, I wasn't with an iphone, pretty green around the gills, you know), and I walked away many dollars poorer but much happier and at peace now with my new phone, and like you say peachykeen, you never know when it might be stolen.

I know of a close situation where a friend of mine purchased one very recently also, had not been opened yet, but the owner had the original papers, receipt, etc as proof of purchase. So that was a lucky exception for my friend and his wife. But in their case, they lucked out, many aren't so lucky.