Good cheap "Simple mobile" phone?

E

etepsnewo

New member
Hi all,

I know nothing about phones and need to pick out one from this behemoth list:

http://www.mysimplemobile.com/Simple-Mobile-Phones-Approved.aspx

I want 3 things:

- fairly good call quality/reception
- reliable/decent battery life
- relatively small

I do NOT want an expensive phone with extras. frankly i don't even care about texting.

What's a good simple phone that fits the above and is cheap to buy?

Thanks!
 
Amazon may not have the best pricing, but they have a wide assortment of unlocked GSM phones here:

http://www.amazon.com/s/qid=1275992840/ref=sr_st?page=1&bbn=283273011&rh=n%3A301185%2Cn%3A283273011&sort=price

The cheapest, most basic phone that meets your criteria is this one:

http://www.amazon.com/Motorola-Motofone-F3-Dual-Band-1900-International/dp/B0013A7KMW/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&s=wireless&qid=1275993288&sr=1-4

Hope this helps...
 
Add this one to the list: Motorola W233. Amazon link is:
http://www.amazon.com/Motorola-W233-RENEW-Unlocked-Phone/dp/B00374OTH6/ref=wl_it_dp_o?ie=UTF8&coliid=I11H7IAVK577KZ&colid=77WDQ3RJZNAV

Both this and the F3 above receive very good reviews at Amazon. I was going to get one but need CDMA.
 
Good pull. I actually bought the T-Mobile Prepaid branded Motorola W233 Renew from a corporate store at the then-rockbottom price of $19.99. FYI it's since been reduced to $14.99 on the T-Mobile website (hopefully clearing stock for a newer "green" handset like the the Motorola A45 Eco):

http://www.t-mobile.com/shop/phones/prepaid.aspx?WT.z_unav=mst_shop_phones_prepaid

It's a lightweight "candybar" handset, pleasant to grip, and features a simple MP3 player. Significantly, it can support MicroSD storage up to 2GB in size. It's notable that even though it's a carrier-branded OS, the MP3's on the MicroSD card are available for use as custom ringtones. The catch is that after installing these USB drivers:

http://www.motorola.com/consumers/v/index.jsp?vgnextoid=bda09ec8009a0210VgnVCM1000008806b00aRCRD

...it was a PITA getting my PC laptop to recognize the phone's MicroSD card as "USB Mass Storage". What worked for me was to have the phone on (and the keypad unlocked and the home screen up), then connect the cable. After the first attempt, I always get an error dialog box to the effect that "This device is not recognized. Remove cable and attach again." After detaching and re-attaching the cable, I would get the option to connect the phone as "USB Mass Storage" (instead of using the USB for recharging).

Once this connection was made, I was able to access the MicroSD card's filesystem via the laptop. Then it's simply a matter of dragging and dropping MP3's into the 'Music' folder and JPG's and GIF's into the 'Pictures' folder. NOTE: there are bitrate compression restrictions on MP3's and size & resolution restrictions on image files; read the manual for the thresholds and "resize" your content accordingly.

The MP3 player is limited to only basic playback modes (1) play one song, or (2) play 'All Songs'. There are options for 'Auto Repeat' as well as 'Shuffle' (notice there is no playlist capability). The recommended workaround for the lack of playlists is to create named subfolders under the 'Music' folder on the MicroSD card, and drag the desired MP3's into the subfolder. Then navigate the MP3 player into the specific subfolder and use the 'All Songs' playback mode.

Since Simple Mobile is a T-Mobile MVNO, my understanding is that any T-Mobile postpaid handset can be activated on Simple Mobile out-of-the-box. The question is if T-Mobile prepaid handsets can likewise be activated for Simple Mobile? Any Simple-Mobileers able to chime in?

Thanks in advance,

PS:



FWIW, last week I noticed that NewEgg.com was offering non-contract Verizon CDMA handsets.
 
Good cheap "Simple mobile" phone?

Just watch out for decent reception on those cheap phones. I bought a ?20 phone to use overseas once and the signal quality was terrible. Even in the middle of a 5-million person city there was barely a bar of signal, and most calls sounded like Army-style radio transmissions.

It might be worth going to a shop and checking one out there, since you'll at least be able to test the demo phone for signal strength.
 
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