Where can I get a cheap dumb phone with prepaid minutes

shortduck · Oct 17, 2017

Hello

I wanted to buy a cheap phone can be a dumb phone plus some minutes, this phone will serve as an emergency phone to me.

I wanted something as pay as you go where the minutes should not expire.

Can you please help me decide ?

Thanks

Clementine_3 · Oct 17, 2017

Tracfone might be a good option for you. My sister (for her 10 year old) and one of my friends use dumb-phones with no issue. They have a year long plan with 400 minutes but it triples to 1200, I think it's $99 for the year and the unused minutes roll over. If you aren't going to use a ton of minutes it's worth looking at.

kate · Oct 17, 2017

And for the phone... chain stores like Best Buy, Target, Walmart, etc. will usually have a couple prepaid phones like Tracfone for around $20.

shortduck · Oct 17, 2017

Clementine_3 said:
Tracfone might be a good option for you. My sister (for her 10 year old) and one of my friends use dumb-phones with no issue. They have a year long plan with 400 minutes but it triples to 1200, I think it's $99 for the year and the unused minutes roll over. If you aren't going to use a ton of minutes it's worth looking at.

Thanks for your reply, should I just get any unlocked phone, to get started ?

Clementine_3 · Oct 17, 2017

See Kate's reply, you can pick them up anywhere really.

You can use any phone (but I'd check w/them first), even a smartphone and just not buy data. For phones that have SIM cards there is a little starter pack with cards that can be used on GSM or CDMA (not Sprint though). So, if you wanted to use Verizon you'd have to get a CDMA/LTE phone and the starter pack thingy. If you don't care then just go to Walmart and get a Tracfone off the shelf and active it.

edit: to maybe make that clearer (or worse); my nephew had a smartphone with Verizon radios so we got the SIM package and set that up to use Verizon's towers. My niece just has a dumb-phone from Tracfone so my sister just activated it and it seems to be using ATT. I'm not sure you can choose a network on the dumb-phones. They use T-Mobile and ATT as much as they can.

kate · Oct 17, 2017

shortduck said:
Thanks for your reply, should I just get any unlocked phone, to get started ?

An unlocked phone will be more expensive, around $50 - $100 is the cheapest.

When you buy a cheap $20 prepaid phone it's locked to that network (usually for 6-12 months).

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Where can I get a cheap dumb phone with prepaid minutes

shortduck

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Clementine_3

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kate

Dreaming of Bugdroid.

shortduck

Newbie

Clementine_3

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

kate

Dreaming of Bugdroid.

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