A one-time Cult of iPhone charter member turned Android fanatic found himself without a working smart phone — and just a month away from the release of the HTC EVO — so he decided to kick it old school with a prepaid phone:
So I walked into my friendly neighborhood Radio Shack and took a look at what they had to offer. These aren’t exciting phones, unless it was 1999 again, in which case the tiny color screen would be very cool. But they’re small and, importantly, they make phone calls.
And wow are they affordable. For $25 I walked out of the store with a Net10 LG 100 phone that had 300 minutes of talk time included over a 60 day period. As long as you buy more minutes all the minutes keep rolling over to new months. And there is no contract and no termination fee. I pointed my Google Voice phone number at the phone, and everyone that calls my normal number gets through just like they did on my old smartphones.
The phone has features such as making calls, receiving calls, a speakerphone that’s better than any smartphone I’ve had, and a battery that seems to last forever. It also does text messaging and has a variety of cheesy ring tones to choose from.
That’s it. And five days later after heavy usage I’m not sure I’m going to stop using it. The call quality, despite the fact that it uses the AT&T network, is five stars. Calls fail to be dropped. I consistently am able to hear what the person I’m talking to is saying. All of these things are new experiences to me, or at least new in the last few years.