Let's get one thing straight, right off the bat. I am a completely ignorant Luddite when it comes to cell phones. Telephobic would be a good word to describe me.

OK, SWMBO tells me I have to have a cell phone. I want something as completely opposite from an iPhone as possible. I don't want a camera. I don't want internet access. I don't want call forwarding. I don't want games. I don't want fancy ringtones. I don't want three layers of sub-menus for features I will never use.

All I want is a device I can carry around that will ring sometimes and let me talk to whoever called me, and maybe once in a great while let me dial out and talk to someone else. Based on past experience, my cell phone usage will average less than five minutes a month.

I do need a cell phone that will work in the San Francisco area even in a weak signal area (inside a metal building, for example) and that will work in Mexico in the Lake Chapala region (about 30 miles south of Guadalajara.)

The research I have done so far has been like when I was first learning Unix: everything I learn serves only to widen the horizons of my ignorance. There are probably a thousand different phones out there, with prices ranging from free to nearly $1000. The terminology is unfamiliar, I'm told I need GSM whatever that is. And apparently choosing a phone is just the tip of the iceberg. The real fun comes with choosing a service provider, and then after that choosing a plan, do I go pre-paid, some two-year contract, what? Do I buy an unlocked phone and then shop for a provider? Do I just walk into the local AT&T office and throw myself on their mercy? What about 850 vs 1900 MHz or do I need to worry about that? SWMBO's cell phone worked OK in Mexico, but when she got the bill the charges were absolutely staggering, I think something in excess of $10 per minute when it was all added up.

It will be about a year before I need to address the Mexico thing, so for now I'm just looking for an interim solution.

What do I do?

tanstaafl.

For what you're doing... in the San Francisco area... I think you do it backwards from that. Start with the service provider that gives you the coverage you want. Then from there, decide on a monthly billing plan that works around your expected usage (i.e. minimal). Then get the simplest phone they offer that goes with that plan (probably a free or nearly-free phone).



If they have coverage in the area of Mexico you're talking about? Yeah, that's probably the best approach. Ask them that Mexico question first and go from there.



Yeah, that's what happens when you have a USA-only phone-calling plan and you take the phone out of the country. I experienced a similar thing with Canada. So start there: Ask them what you can do about a monthly calling plan that'll work in Mexico without the bloodsucking money leeches, and then work backwards from there.

I'm going to be in a similar boat when I buy the new iPhone next month, I need to find out what Canada options they can give me.

I'm just waiting for them to finally announce what the actual price is going to be for the greater majority of buyers. $199 aint it.

I wonder if you can find places in Mexico that will sell pre-paid SIM cards**. Isn't that something that's pretty common in Europe? That might be the cheapest option, though it would mean your phone number would change every time you're in that country.

[edit]
**sorry, I'm probably remembering that completely incorrectly...
[/edit]

Sure it is. But you have to re-up a two-year committment with AT&T to get the phone at all. And you have to qualify.

Edit: I see what you mean. You're wondering what the non-subsidy price is for those who don't qualify. And yeah, their qualification requirements seem to be a bit complicated, potentially leaving a fairly large chunk of existing AT&T users out in the cold. Yeah, they haven't announced the amount of that extra fee yet.

CNet has a list of basic phones that they keep updated. They key thing for international travel is indeed GSM, though Mexico does also have CDMA providers (the other major standard in the US). AT&T or T-Mobile both offer GSM service in the US. And this site lists the Mexican GSM and CDMA providers.

And I agree with Tony, decide on who offers the coverage you need, then look for a plan (prepaid/monthly, etc), then get the phone. Most electronics retailers also now carry prepaid phone kits where you get the phone, and first $20 of service in a box. Take it home, turn on the phone, and make a call to set up the account.

With the way rates are, I'd recommend going with a US provider and a US number if you are going to be here for another year, then look for a provider and service in Mexico when you get there. Keeping a US provider long term in Mexico is going to be very expensive.

If I was in your situation I would be looking to get a phone with very clear and easy functionality. There are some truely awful and frustrating to use phones out there. As far as I am concerned the old Nokia interface was by far the clearest there was. Unfortunately you can't say the same for their current phones.

So I'd look to get one of their few remaining phones that uses the old UI. For example the Noika 1200. It isn't listed on the US site, but it is on the UK one:

http://www.nokia.co.uk/A4405747

In the UK it is available very cheaply as a handset only without contract, for example only £22 here:

http://www.theorder.co.uk/simfree/offline/deals/Nokia/1200

As well as the old basic UI it also has the benefit of a monochrome LCD screen, which are still far more readable in all conditions that colour screens. They also tend to be more robust than more recent phones, we still have 5 old style Nokias hanging around the house somewhere that still worked fine when we stopped using them. All the more recent phones I have bought have died within a couple of years.

Oh and it has a standby time of 390 hours, that's 16 days

Edit: not sure if it is suitable for the US/Mexico though, can't remember what GSM frequencies are used where, it does "EGSM 900/1800 and GSM 850/1900"

A slight hijack of the thread here. Is there a way to tell if your phone (in this case a Palm Treo 650) is unlocked? The phone is a few years old and I bought it for my wife. I'm now using it and will be traveling to Europe later this summer. I'd like to buy a SIM card over there to use, but if my phone is locked that plan won't work.

If my phone IS locked, I'll also be looking for a simple unlocked phone just for use this summer.

Just put a SIM from another phone, on another network into it. If it is unlocked it will work, if it isn't it won't.

If you're really going to be using it that infrequently, prepaid is the way to go. It's far cheaper than any monthly plan for really low usage customers like you (and me).

If the fact of the matter is that you're never going to use any feature of the phone except answering and dialing, any phone will do. It might have a thousand features you'll never use, but who cares? There's nothing that will prevent you from ignoring them, and nothing that will get in your way of just answering and dialing. AFAIK, no phone hides answering or dialing in any menu at all.

Oh, and usually simple phones are cheap enough that it'd be easier to just get a new phone when you move to Mexico.

If you want to be able to keep the same number, I'd suggest getting a number from a forwarding company and just have that number forwarded to whatever cell phone number you happen to have at the time. Heck, get a VoIP service that will ring your home and cell phone at the same time.

I tried out this phone for a while, it was a bit too basic for my taste, but worked good, and looks pretty cool too.

http://www.gsmarena.com/motorola_motofone_f3-review-134.php

Actually i still have it in the box now, want me to take it to the empegmeet so that RobRicc can bring it back or something?

Or won't that work in the us anyway? "Motofone works in GSM networks at 900 and 1800 MHz frequencies (there is a version for the Americas with GSM 850/1900 bands)."

I've never been a fan of the UI on Motorola phones. Are the newer models any better?

Erm, that motofone F3 has almost no ui

Nope - SWMBO keeps trying other phones and we always come back to Nokia. We have a stack of Nokias dating back 13 years and they all still work. Motorola, Siemens, Samsung, Sony etc die before they are 2 years old! Terrible UI, terrible reliability.

On a side note, I think its the first ePaper display in a phone.

C139 Tracfone
$14.99 Comes with 20mins prepaid. Cheap enough to find out if the service is right for you and your conditions. Get them and any Target, Wal-mart, etc...

I carry the C139 and work in a metal building. Excellent stand by time in that condition. Most cells drain themselves trying to keep in touch with the towers.

Or one of these other Tracfones.

PS. My total cost for the last year has been $14.99+99.99 for 400min and 1yr of service. About half of the iPhone cost.

For 14.99 + 139.99 You get the phone and 800min and 1 yr service Plus all future purchases of airtime come with double the mins.

I actually looked at this phone, was interested in it until I started reading the reviews on Amazon.com. It is a totally polarizing phne -- people either love it or hate it. The ones who love it get the ones that actually work. The ones that hate it (about 55% of the total reviews) get the ones that don't work -- either because they are 900/1800 in North America (you need 950/1900 here, I believe) or they are DOA out of the box. No North American tech support is available for those phones, either. However, it is the sort of phone I'm looking for, feature wise.

tanstaafl.

I'm with Bitt on this. Given your minimal usage, prepaid phone contracts can be quite cheap (see, for example, Cricket Wireless, Virgin Mobile, etc.). The major players like AT&T also offer this sort of service (e.g., AT&T's "Go Phone").

I'd recommend completely separating your Mexican phone from your U.S. phone. It seems silly, but it lets you avoid all the silly roaming rules. You simply just get two phones with two plans. You may cleverly try to get phones made by the same vendor, such that they'll share chargers and other accessories. This helps you avoid getting slammed with nasty international roaming charges, but it means that people have to try two different numbers to find you. On the other hand, people calling you never have to worry about the cost of making international calls.

The sort of basic phone that you want is going to be available at minimal cost from pretty much every vendor. You should find you have plenty of options...

If I were in this situation (which I assume to be that you want to be able for people to be easily able to get to you in both the US and Mexico), here's what I'd do:

Find a VoIP provider that has numbers in Mexico and in the US. Get an account with them and two numbers, one in the US, one in Mexico. Get a US prepaid cellphone and a Mexico prepaid cellphone. Set up your VoIP service to forward to whichever phone is in the country you're going to be in. When you head for the other country, change the forward to the other phone. Don't give out either cellphone number; use the VoIP numbers exclusively.

This results in people in Mexico being able to use a Mexican number, people in the US being able to use a US number, and you being able to get your calls no matter which country you're in, without any exorbitant fees.

Although, I don't know for sure that any VoIP provider is going to have both US and Mexican numbers. But that would certainly be my starting point.

This looks like exactly what I am looking for, a simple phone with a $7/month prepaid plan and unlimited minutes rollover. Same price for local, long distance, roaming, and international calls they claim... but I wonder if that's just a sneaky way of saying that it's still $7 per month, but if you call from Mexico (or, for that matter, Alabama) the $7 worth of minutes you bought just get used up really, really fast?

One thing I haven't been able to find is TracFone coverage map for Mexico.

International Long Distance

Call Mexico, Beijing, London or your next-door neighbor for the same price!

Now with America’s #1 Prepaid Wireless Service you can call over 60 international destinations directly from your TRACFONE at no additional cost.

Their website certainly suggests they have coverage there.

OK, a bit more research shows me that TracFone won't work for me long-term. Once I'm in Mexico TracFone cannot make outgoing calls, and I can (if I understood the gentleman correctly) only receive calls from other TracFone users who have signed up for TracFone's ILD ("International Long Distance") plan.

I think I'll just follow Tony's advice and throw myself on the mercy of the local AT&T store, see if I can get a pre-paid plan using my existing phone and keep the same phone number so that none of the three people who know it will have to update their lists. The existing phone is more feature-rich than I like, but heck, like Bitt says, I don't have to learn how to do anything to it except recharge it once in a while, flip it open and talk when it rings, and key in the phone number when I want to call someone (as long as I remember to press the green button when I'm through "dialing".)

tanstaafl.

Does not compute. Cell phone stores have no mercy.

Matthew

I kept my number when I went to Tracfone. "wow-beer"

Though it was a challenge to actually get Tracfone to make the transfer. Their customer service seems to be setup to frustrate doing this.

Though I've never called internationally, I can say that local, roaming and long distance is all, truly one rate.

Where did you see this $7/mo plan? AFAIK they have a $5 plan that just keeps the service active with no additional mins. And a $10/mo plan that adds 50min/mo w/rollover. Those are for people that are worried about the possibility of loosing the active phone #.

I don't like paying that monthly bill, so the $100 for a full years service is a nice fit. I wind up paying the equiv. of $8.33/mo. I've not seen any thing less expensive.

I think I was confusing that with my (now defunct) Cellular One plan that was $20 every three months.

tanstaafl.

Aha! I wasn't hallucinating. Look here. It's the second bullet point (after the little movie quits): $20 every three months. Of course, nowhere that I can find do they actually offer that plan...

I am now the proud owner of my very own TracFone, complete with 150 days service and 80 whole minutes. Believe it or not, I probably won't use all those minutes in five months!

I decided not to keep the old number -- too many hoops to jump through since my old number had an Alaskan area code, and they said it would take up to 14 days to activate and then all my calls would be roaming. Now I have to make an appointment at the tattoo parlor to have the new number put onto the inside of my eyelids so all I have to do is close my eyes and stare up at a bright light...

I even went off the deep end and spent serious dollars and upgraded to the high price phone -- $19.99 instead of $14.99. Motorola W260g. Not very many bells and whistles, and the instruction book is only 35 pages, much of which is pictures. Give me a few months to study it and I'll have it pretty much figured out.

Thanks everybody for the suggestions and help.

tanstaafl.

Ok, You know I've seen that 60min/90day card but failed to compute the cost per/mo. $6.66

It's the calling plan of the Beast.

They announced it, by the way.

I find it hysterical that Doug's getting a $7 a month plan, and iPhone users are getting a $130 a month plan.

Apples to oranges, the $130.00 plan is for unlimited everything. Apples to apples, it's more like 70.00 versus 7.00. Which, I agree is highway robbery.

Is it really unlimited everything or "unlimited until you hit the limit and then we'll send you a nasty letter" style unlimited?

For their Blackberries, AT&T has an "unlimited, but you can't tether it to a laptop" plan and a "limited, but you can tether it to a laptop" plan. So I'm guessing that if you started transferring a lot of data, they'd probably ... do something.