Decent Phone for under $75

[Jimboy121]

I shouldn't think there is many decent phones for under $75, would you consider a contract phone or a second hand phone?

 

[Jimboy121]

http://www.phones4u.co.uk/shop/shop_payg_details.asp?ItemKey=271434&MPItemKey=368464

abit more money, a friend has this phone and is very happy with it.

 

[T-Rexx]

Any unlocked GSM phone should work with a T-Mobile SIM card, of course.

Try:
hXXp://bestcellz.com/?gclid=CL7tkdjinZ8CFWpd5Qodem3NRg

Maybe also:
hXXp://www.craytonelectronics.com/used-cell-phones-t-mobile.html

 

[Jimboy121]

http://cgi.ebay.com/Samsung-SGH-T92...ZViewItemQQptZCell_Phones?hash=item518f9fe086

$76 at the moment, alot of intrest.

http://cgi.ebay.com/Samsung-SGH-T91...ZViewItemQQptZCell_Phones?hash=item45f0673e6d

$46 at the moment

 

[T-Rexx]

One more thought, Puff.

I recently bought a Samsung t401g phone to use for emergencies. It comes pretty close to meeting your price point and specifications. It can only be used as a prepaid phone on the Net10 network, but Net10 is the least expensive cell phone plan in America. If you don't already have a T-Mobile (or other) SIM card and plan, it can save you a lot of money. Net10 phone calls are 10¢ a minute, and text messages are just 3¢ each. There are NEVER any roaming fees, regardless of where you are using the phone in America. Net10 phones are GSM phones which piggyback off BOTH T-Mobile's and AT&T's networks (the phone picks whichever carrier's signal is stronger at the moment, so you actually get BETTER service than you would with either a T-Mobile or an AT&T service contract). If you don't talk a great deal, you can keep the total cost of everything down to just $15
per month.

The Samsung t401g matches your price point almost exactly ($79 brand new, with NO contract obligation). The price of the phone includes your first two months/300 minutes worth of service.

The camera isn't wonderful, but it's 1.3 MP (which means 1280x1024 photos), and that is way better than the Razr's VGA camera. There is even a crude image-editing application built into the phone, for doing some simple editing of your photos. Video recording is quite low res at just 176x144 pixels, but that still beats the Razr (and most other cell phones in this price range), which can't record video at all!. The t401g accepts microSD cards up to 16 GB (& possibly 32 GB when these become available). So you can load up an unbelievable number of pictures, photographs, videos, and mp3s onto it.

You don't need any special software to access the phone's memory card from your computer. It is recognized by Windows, Mac, or Linux as a flash drive when you connect via usb cable or bluetooth. You just drag and drop to upload/download from it. And you can use the phone as a flash drive, of course, to transfer files between home and work computers, etc.

The built-in media player can play back some video formats as well as mp3 audio and display still jpegs. It is compatible with stereo A2DP bluetooth. If you have stereo bluetooth headphones, you can stream the audio wirelessly from the phone to your headphones. Should a phone call come in while you are using the media player, the phone will interrupt media playback and send the telephone call audio to the headphones. If you want to use regular wired headphones, however, you'll need an adapter - it uses a ridiculous proprietary jack for usb and headphone connections. The phone has a small speaker built into the back, if you don't want to use either bluetooth or wired headphones. There is also a built-in voice recorder for taking voice memos, recording lectures, etc.

The phone is a slider type with a QWERTY keyboard. The big keyboard works very well for texting, but it does make the overall size of the phone a bit big and clunky (112x51x18mm). I have not personally found this to be a problem. The keyboard is also useful with the phone's note-taking application, which lets you write out short memos, notes, lists, etc. that you can recall later, upload to your computer, send as text messages, etc. The keyboard is also useful with the built-in internet browser ("NetFrontBrowser v3.4") which offers very limited access to selected Net10 news, sports, weather, and shopping sites.

There is also a nice "converter" application for doing Celcius/Fahrenheit, foreign currency, and metric/English length/width/volume/weight conversions. Other applications include an alarm clock, calendar, stopwatch, countdown timer, and world time clock.

The phone comes with two games, Sudoku and "Jump Boy" (I have no idea what the latter is - I've never tried it). You can buy other games on-line.

I think the build quality is quite good. The phone seems sturdy (even a little heavy) and looks professional. There is NO "Net10" logo on it anywhere, so no one will know you are using a no-contract phone (if you care about that). I've never had to use Net10's customer support, but everyone says it is just unbelievably BAD.

Anyway, I've been well satisfied with my t401g and Net10 service so far.

 

[T-Rexx]

^ The Samsung t401g is a GSM phone. It is actually a quad band GSM - it can use any of the four GSM frequencies in use worldwide.

I have heard that it is possible to unlock it for use with an AT&T or T-Mobile SIM card, but I don't know how difficult that is to do. Also, it cannot ever be switched back for use as a Net10 network phone after you've unlocked it. You would need to stick with AT&T or T-Mobile indefinitely after unlocking it.

 

[T-Rexx]

Having said all that, I would be reluctant to spend $80 on a phone in the hope that it can be unlocked. A lot of things can go wrong, and you could end up with an $80 brick!

So here's another option. Buy an LG Neon* on the AT&T prepaid "GoPhone" plan (It's $80 at Amazon**). Activate the phone on AT&T and use it for 90 days (the phone includes $50 worth of air time). After 90 days, ask AT&T to unlock the phone for you.

It is AT&T's policy to unlock their phones (including prepaid GoPhones) for customers who request this after 90 days as a customer in good standing. After the phone is unlocked, you can just put your T-Mobile SIM card in it and use it on the T-Mobile GSM network.


* The LG Neon is similar in many ways to the Samsung t401g. The Neon is a "slider" phone with a QWERTY keyboard that is good for texting. The Neon is physically smaller than the t401g but the Neon's screen is bigger (240x400). The Neon's screen also has touch capability with haptic feedback (although touch is only implemented on the Neon for dialing the phone and nothing else). The Neon's camera is better than the t401g's, with 2.0 MP resolution (vs. 1.3 MP on the Samsung). That means photos up to 1600x1200 on the Neon (vs. 1280x1024 on the t401g). The Neon can record video clips at either 320x240 or 176x144 resolution, but video clips are limited to no more than 32 seconds each.

Although the Neon's camera and screen are better than the t401g's, the Neon will only accept microSD cards up to 4 GB, whereas the t401g can go to 16 GB (and possibly even 32 GB). Both phones have A2DP-compliant bluetooth, so you can stream mp3s wirelessly to stereo bluetooth headphones from either phone. Both phones have similar applications including a calendar, note pad, alarm clock, calculator, etc. Both phones require stupid proprietary cables to connect to your computer's usb, and both require adapters to use regular wired headphones.

You may like the LG Neon better than the Samsung t401g, and it is probably easier to get it unlocked. The Neon usually sells for about $100, but Amazon has it for $80, which would make it exactly the same price as the t401g - except Walmart now has the t401g for just $60!***



**hXXp://www.amazon.com/Neon-Prepaid-GoPhone-Airtime-Credit/dp/B002XITTXG



***hXXp://www.walmart.com/catalog/product.do?product_id=12718742

 

[T-Rexx]

Okay, today I bought the cheapest bluetooth headphones they had at Best Buy ("Rocketfish" headphones - $65).* They aren't very comfortable, but they're tolerable.

I synced the Rocketfish to both the LG Neon and the Samsung t401g (I have both of these phones, on different carriers). Both cell phones synced well with the Rocketfish, although neither phone succeeded on the first or second tries. The Neon's interface is slightly more intuitive than the t401g's, but the t401g has a numeric pad to enter the bluetooth security code. On the Neon, the haptic touch numeric pad cannot be called up to enter the bluetooth code - you need to enter it from the microscopically small shifted numbers crowded onto the small keys of the slideout keyboard. Of course, you should only have to set up syncing once on either phone.

Both phones played over bluetooth with acceptable quality. The Neon's music player is a little easier to use than the t401g's (again, the interface is slightly more intuitive). Both phones would cut out very momentarily (less than a second), for no clear reason I could deduce. This got worse the further the phone was physically separated from the headphones. But, I actually thought the sound quality on the cheaper Samsung t401g was slightly better than the Neon's.

Again, the media player on the Neon is slightly easier to use. You can just load up songs onto a microSD card, slip it into the phone, navigate to the song folder, and start playing. You can do that on the Samsung, but it only lets you play one song at a time that way. It wants you to define "playlists" where you select your songs, define your selections as a playlist, then it plays your list. I found that slightly annoying, but I kinda got around that by just adding every song on the memory card to a single playlist. The playlists only need to be defined once. But, of course, if you add music to your phone, you'll need to add the music to your playlist.

Also, to my surprise, you can control the playback on both phones to some extent from the headphones. My Rocketfish headphones have buttons that enable you to adjust the volume and page forward/backward through the songs, without touching the phone in your pocket! I thought that was pretty cool!

I tried out also the movie recorders and photo-taking on the two cameras. Both phones will record video at 177x144, which is completely worthless, as far as I am concerned. I can't imagine how such a low resolution video could be useful. Only the Neon can record video at 320x240, which is still pretty ridiculously low res, but possibly acceptable for the right videos. Also, outdoors in daylight, the LCD screens of both cameras are practically un-viewable. You just have to aim the camera phone in the general direction of interest and hope you somehow capture the action you're after. (At least half the time, I was not).

The still cameras on both phones are passable. Of course, I prefer the 1600x1200 pics on the Neon to the 1280x1024 images generated by the Samsung. But, under certain conditions, the pictures generated by the cheaper Samsung were actually better than those of the Neon. My initial impression is that the Samsung seems to do better in low light situations, despite its lower resolution.

I don't mean to rag so much on the Samsung t401g. It really is an amazingly capable telephone, especially given the remarkable new low price at Wal-Mart and Best Buy of just $60! (I saw it selling for $60 at Best Buy just today!). There are not many phones that cheap (if there are any at all) that can come close to the Samsung t401g's functionality. And the Neon limits memory card expansion to 4 GB, while the t401g will go up to 16 GB (and some sources claim 32 GB, when such cards become available)!

Also, one really annoying feature of the LG Neon needs to be mentioned. If you charge the Neon with a usb cable from your computer, THE PHONE WILL NOT OPERATE THE ENTIRE TIME IT IS CONNECTED TO THE COMPUTER! It does not do this with the wall charger, even though both the usb cable and the wall charger use the same (very weird and stupidly proprietary) connector.



* hXXp://www.bestbuy.com/site/Rocketfish&%23153%3B+Mobile+-+Behind-the-Head+Bluetooth+Stereo+Headphones+-+Black/9499296.p?skuId=9499296&id=1218116136277

 

[T-Rexx]

Here is an example of the still cameras of both phones under the same (very) low light conditions. Neither phone has a flash, of course. (That's my little doggie!).

LG Neon 2.0 MP camera:

Samsung t401g 1.3 MP camera:

Both pictures were taken with the automatic settings that the cameras choose for you. Both phones allow you to make adjustments to the white balance level and other parameters to help you improve your pictures.

 

[wirega56]

Wow T-Rexx you really went out of your way in answering this post

 

[bmwducatirider]

Tigerdirect.com is a good source for unlocked phones. While I use an iPhone now, I always like the Razr phones I had in the past. My BF recently lost his iPhone and replaced it with an unlocked Razr from TD for $75 until his plan is ready for upgrade phone pricing. It was gunmetal, unlocked and used a sim card.

 

[T-Rexx]

Here's a comparison I made of the video cameras on the two phones. This is a small waterfall in a creek near my home. The two videos were recorded on successive days at about the same time of day (under similar, although not identical, light conditions).

Look at the difference! As I said earlier, I regard the 176x144 maximum pixel resolution of the Samsung t401g to be almost worthless.

Samsung t401g 176x144 pixels:

[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HEnS287qF0E[/ame]



LG Neon 320 x 240 pixels:

[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aVH-avLPQkA[/ame]