$25/Month Plan

[androidnewbie2]

Regarding the $25/month plan with unlimited text, email, data, and web with 300 anytime minutes...how in the heck do you make the 300 minutes stretch every month? Or do most of you just text, email, web, data and not really talk on the phone much? I have google voice but it uses voice minutes. I think I read something about sipdroid and using wifi for calls...just seems like $25/month is a really popular plan and I think a lot of you guys have found ways to get more bang for your buck with this plan...just curious how. Thanks in advance.

 

[BlackGravity]

honestly, i dont use the phone to talk all that much,300 min a month is more then i need,i just locked my $25 plan in today.Bought a cheap VM phone activated it and when i get the triumph i'll do the swop.

 

[BeTrue]

Wait, you mean we can use these things for talking? ;-)

I use mine mostly for mobile web, data, and texting.

Only 'phone' use is if someone leaves me a voicemail.

As long as the data, web, and texting is unlimited, I'm happy. No other carrier is better cost wise for my use.

 

[Kool Breeze]

I use my phone mainly for texting and internet and I actually tried for a while to stay on the $25 plan. Most months I would be fine as long as I paid attention and was careful not to waste any minutes. But a lot of months, I would run out of minutes and have to top up early. I finally bit the bullet and went with the $40 plan. I figure for $15 more per month I'm getting 900 more minutes and I never even get close to using them all, so I don't have to stress about needing to top up early.

I do wish that they had a plan somewhere between the 300 min. and 1200 min., but, oh well, $15/month is cheap insurance for never having to worry about running out of minutes.

 

[AmishFury]

well so far i'm averaging 35 minutes in a month... and i can guarantee it's less than 35 minutes of actually talking because many of my phone conversations last less than a minute but naturally it still counts as a minute

 

[gatorback]

I just purchased the Moto Triumph and the $25 plan. I am coming off an all you can eat Blackberry plan. My first Android device: snappy performance.

CSIPSIMPLES (VOIP) seems to work well. If I can find a simple way to perform GV callback, I hope to use the 3G \ WIFI VOIP and dip into the 300 minutes sparingly.

 

[harvickchick]

I think the most I've used is like 250lol

 

[syione]

I am an ex-411 operator,so I hate talking on the phone I just text. The most minutes I've used is 10

 

[Spaco]

Huh, I got the $25 plan b/c I thought Google Voice minutes were free. What is GV good for, then?

 

[cutterjohn]

I always try to use up my minutes, as I feel like I'm wasting $$$ if I don't. That said only ONCE had I come close to using up 300m before my month was up, but all I did was stop making unessential calls then still had 20m or so to waste on my last day...

I've got a feeling that this month that I'm going to have over 200m left, given that I just swapped to the MT and ATM SMS is failing(no minutes I know, but...) and general cell signal is weak. I'm hoping that this is because their network isn't setup yet as I notice that the MT connects to a tower ESE of me(open signal app) while the OV connected to a tower due N of me(open signal)... "of me" really means the location that I was at when checked MT & OV...

 

[jntdroid]

So as long as we're on the $25 plan before the 19th, we're grandfathered? Even if we switch devices?

 

[nyislanders]

So as long as we're on the $25 plan before the 19th, we're grandfathered? Even if we switch devices?

As far as I know, yes

 

[kc3]

I just upgraded to the forty dollar plan but I would use skype for calls I knew would take a while, 3 dollars a month got unlimited voip calling but with skype you can setup your cell number to showup on caller ids.

I switched because voip calling unless on wifi is not the greatest quality and I work so much I rarely use my wifi.

 

[androidnewbie2]

I just upgraded to the forty dollar plan but I would use skype for calls I knew would take a while, 3 dollars a month got unlimited voip calling but with skype you can setup your cell number to showup on caller ids.

I switched because voip calling unless on wifi is not the greatest quality and I work so much I rarely use my wifi.

Yeah that's my dilemma too...I don't trust the 3g on VM and this phone to rely on voip calls but when I'm home wifi should be good enough. I plan to be on the phone a lot in the next coming months with my new job so I just buckled and got the unlimited everything plan for $60 (it's my only phone) even though I probably should have signed up for the $25 and then switch to the new pricing coming out this week and pay $55 instead of $60 for everything. Oh well, live and learn. VM won't refund money/unused minutes with a plan change will they?

 

[insertusername]

I never exceed 250 minutes, so I would be fine on the 300 minute plan.

 

[cutterjohn]

Yeah that's my dilemma too...I don't trust the 3g on VM and this phone to rely on voip calls but when I'm home wifi should be good enough. I plan to be on the phone a lot in the next coming months with my new job so I just buckled and got the unlimited everything plan for $60 (it's my only phone) even though I probably should have signed up for the $25 and then switch to the new pricing coming out this week and pay $55 instead of $60 for everything. Oh well, live and learn. VM won't refund money/unused minutes with a plan change will they?

Yep, I considered the $40 & $55(new) plans briefly when I nearly bumped the 300m limit one month but just couldn't justify for a single outlying case. It'll likely just be cheaper for me to top-up early with the $25 plan in the unlikely event that I ended up using 300m early as it's clearly an unlikely event in my case, but their new pricing scheme is ridiculous, unless you consider that they're trying to get more people to move to the totally "unlimited"(Hah! I wish that these companies had to actually limit themselves to actual definitions of these words.) plan. In fact I wouldn't be at all surprised to see them go to a single beyond talk plan one day, maybe a $50 "unlimited" period.

The real loser in the new scheme is the $25 plan as we get to subsidize the crapberries and RIM's crappy little server farm, which is where I'd always assumed that the extra fees for crapberries always went...

 

[AmishFury]

In fact I wouldn't be at all surprised to see them go to a single beyond talk plan one day, maybe a $50 "unlimited" period.

sprint already has a prepaid with only one monthly plan... it's called boost and the shrinkage makes the plan a better deal (but the selection of phones blows goats)

 

[cutterjohn]

sprint already has a prepaid with only one monthly plan... it's called boost and the shrinkage makes the plan a better deal (but the selection of phones blows goats)

I know but like you mentioned their phone offering sucks, and TBH so did VMUSAs until this year. (Intercept is a POS so it doesn't count, nor do feature phones or dumb phones.)

But the one price rate, would make sense because their current price structure certainly doesn't o.w. and IF they were to go a one plan "unlimited" it still would be differentiated by no shrinkage and better phones.

OTOH I don't know why they don't just kill Boost, as it seems to be redundant...

Of course if I could get Cricket here, I'd probably go with them anyways as they seemed to be a better choice than VMUSA but they have no service in my state, surprisingly...

 

[kc3]

Yeah that's my dilemma too...I don't trust the 3g on VM and this phone to rely on voip calls but when I'm home wifi should be good enough. I plan to be on the phone a lot in the next coming months with my new job so I just buckled and got the unlimited everything plan for $60 (it's my only phone) even though I probably should have signed up for the $25 and then switch to the new pricing coming out this week and pay $55 instead of $60 for everything. Oh well, live and learn. VM won't refund money/unused minutes with a plan change will they?

I guess after the new pricing you could try cancelling your plan and purchasing the $55 one idk for sure though. I had been thinking of going to the $40 plan for a while anyway, I figured I'd do it before the price went up.

 

[androidnewbie2]

sprint already has a prepaid with only one monthly plan... it's called boost and the shrinkage makes the plan a better deal (but the selection of phones blows goats)

I switched over from Boost to VM because of the Triumph. I had an unlimited everything plan with Boost with Shrinkage which means after so many on-time payments my plan's price shrinks down to maximum of $35/month after 18 months of on-time payments...VM should do something like that but they know they don't have to because their phones are better. I had the Samsung Galaxy Prevail and I didn't like it at all!

 

[Spaco]

I guess I'll switch to the 1200 minute plan tomorrow, since I just checked my AT&T bill from last month and I definitely used way more than 300 and Google Voice still seems to be charging me for minute usage.


On another note, has anyone been able to add insurance or know if this phone will have the $5 a month insurance option? I tried calling and adding it, but the rep told me it wasn't available and if it will be, then I'd need to check back when it is actually released. This would be a really big drawback if it is not offered!

 

[androidnewbie2]

I guess I'll switch to the 1200 minute plan tomorrow, since I just checked my AT&T bill from last month and I definitely used way more than 300 and Google Voice still seems to be charging me for minute usage.


On another note, has anyone been able to add insurance or know if this phone will have the $5 a month insurance option? I tried calling and adding it, but the rep told me it wasn't available and if it will be, then I'd need to check back when it is actually released. This would be a really big drawback if it is not offered!

Got my phone from Radio Shack and they are selling insurance - cheapest plan I think is $7 a month. I think BB and VM are selling insurance plans too?

 

[Spaco]

Yeah, I plan on getting the BB insurance if VM doesn't offer it. I'm thinking it just isn't available yet because the phone isn't released yet, but we'll wait and see.

 

[bludd]

Yeah, I plan on getting the BB insurance if VM doesn't offer it. I'm thinking it just isn't available yet because the phone isn't released yet, but we'll wait and see.

BB has it for 39.99 for 2 years, with all the issues that's being reported I'm thinking of picking that up after going in to exchange for another one on the 20th.

Squaretrade has android phones for $124 for 2 years which seem pretty high. I have a 50% off coupon so it makes it more reasonable but I'm guessing their android phones are based off top end contract models and I don't see where I can select a particular phone I have.

VM has a premium $5 a month insurance that was offered for my OV, BB seems to be the cheapest?

 

[cruelhazel]

300 minutes a month is pretty much 297 more minutes than I need. I almost NEVER make outgoing phone calls, and incoming ones tend to be short. I use text and internet like CRAZY though.