Never been a contract before, only prepaid. Any protips?

[SanjiX]

Hey all,

I've been thinking about buying an iPhone 6 from a major carrier in April and at the moment I'm trying to soak in any deals or protips before I make the jump. I've currently been on Virgin Mobile (basically prepaid for Sprint) for around five years since I was constantly on a budget. Now I've been thinking about moving to a contract plan so that I have a better choice of phones in the future.

Some Info:

1. I live/work in Western Maryland and the plan is just for myself

2. I've been looking at Sprint and Verizon.

3. I'm willing to buy an unlocked phone/pay off the phone from the start.

4. I want at least 2 GB of data of month.

5. For the phone's warranty, I'm probably going with Squaretrade since I have no Apple store nearby.

Verizon from my research seems to have the best service but in turn is more expensive. Sprint (from my experience) has always been okay but in some areas, but the service just takes a nosedive in some areas. I've never been on a phone plan with a "big" carrier before so I'm not sure of all of the positives and negatives that will go with it yet. I'm in my mid-20's and a lot of my friends are still on their parent's plans and all the other's are on prepaid soooo... IRL advice is sadly not an option, lol. 

Oh, and if someone wants to convince me to go on something like AT&T or T-Mobile, go for it. 

 

[yourlefthand]

Hey all,

I've been thinking about buying an iPhone 6 from a major carrier in April and at the moment I'm trying to soak in any deals or protips before I make the jump. I've currently been on Virgin Mobile (basically prepaid for Sprint) for around five years since I was constantly on a budget. Now I've been thinking about moving to a contract plan so that I have a better choice of phones in the future.

Some Info:
1. I live/work in Western Maryland and the plan is just for myself
2. I've been looking at Sprint and Verizon.
3. I'm willing to buy an unlocked phone/pay off the phone from the start.
4. I want at least 2 GB of data of month.
5. For the phone's warranty, I'm probably going with Squaretrade since I have no Apple store nearby.

Verizon from my research seems to have the best service but in turn is more expensive. Sprint (from my experience) has always been okay but in some areas, but the service just takes a nosedive in some areas. I've never been on a phone plan with a "big" carrier before so I'm not sure of all of the positives and negatives that will go with it yet. I'm in my mid-20's and a lot of my friends are still on their parent's plans and all the other's are on prepaid soooo... IRL advice is sadly not an option, lol.

Oh, and if someone wants to convince me to go on something like AT&T or T-Mobile, go for it.

why would you sign a contract if you're willing to pay for the phone upfront? Subsidized phones are the only advantage to a postpaid plan.

If you're ok with sprint's coverage then they probably have the cheapest option, but I would take a look at the coverage of all the major carriers in the areas where you live, work, and drive and make a decision based on that. Be sure to check out page plus and cricket and other prepaid options.

 

[J Rokk]

I have been thinking of switching to T-Mobile myself. Me and my wife currently have 2 contact phones, and see that T-MOBILE has two lines with unlimited service and 4 gigs of net per month for 100.

As far as pre paid service goes, if it picks up well in your area as it does in ours, Straight Talk is a good one to try. It's about 45 to 55 for unlimited a month (can't recall which as it's been a while since we used them).

Sorry I wasn't of more help but good luck my fellow CAG.

 

[theemadgamer]

I'm a new huge fan of T-Mobile.  Since you've got no problem buying the phone outright, there is no reason to be under contract to anyone.  But you have to ensure you have good coverage where you use it the most.

T-Mobile offers the week free trial of a smartphone (iPhone).  You should use the week trial to use a phone on their network all the places you frequent, if the coverage works for you, it is a great value.  The Wifi calling also helps in some areas with less than perfect coverage.

I moved my family to T-Mobile and I have 3 iphones and 2 ipads with different data plans for the phones and the ipads match the highest data plan automatically.

That plus free roaming data, cant' be beat.  I love landing in Spain, Brazil, Mexico and Canada and my first text on my iPhone and iPad is Welcome to free data included in your plan!

Best of luck!

TMG

 

[n64ra]

Definitely take a look at the coverage of all the major carriers in the areas where you live, work, and drive and make a decision based on that!

I had Sprint for years then all of the sudden it stopped working at home. They gave me a modem thing, but that didn't help. I had to switch to AT&T. If you are checking the company website for coverage, be warned Sprint called me a 'Good' area (out of Fair, Good, Best).

 

[SanjiX]

Thanks for the input everyone. I meant service, not contract lol. I'll look into T-Mobile tonight.

 

[hotstud19us]

If you go with Verizon they have a plan called the 2gb loyalty plan. You have to ask for it and it's $60 (plus taxes). It includes the subsidized pricing for a phone. For a single user that uses below 2gb of data a month. 

 

[SanjiX]

I'm a new huge fan of T-Mobile. Since you've got no problem buying the phone outright, there is no reason to be under contract to anyone. But you have to ensure you have good coverage where you use it the most.

T-Mobile offers the week free trial of a smartphone (iPhone). You should use the week trial to use a phone on their network all the places you frequent, if the coverage works for you, it is a great value. The Wifi calling also helps in some areas with less than perfect coverage.

I moved my family to T-Mobile and I have 3 iphones and 2 ipads with different data plans for the phones and the ipads match the highest data plan automatically.

That plus free roaming data, cant' be beat. I love landing in Spain, Brazil, Mexico and Canada and my first text on my iPhone and iPad is Welcome to free data included in your plan!

Best of luck!

TMG

I did some research into T-Mobile and you weren't kidding. It seems Verizon are sticklers with data and Sprint while okay didn't seem to have any benefits at all - just average prices and just well average everything. Coverage wise, Sprint was the worst which probably explains why my Virgin Mobile service has never been too great.

When it finally came down to it, Verizon with the 2GB plan would be $80 a month while T-Mobile would be $60 with a 3 GB plan which includes data rollover. T-M seems like they are cool with unlocked phones as it's the first thing to site asks when you look into a plan. Verizon doesn't mention unlocked phones at all when shopping for plans.

If you go with Verizon they have a plan called the 2gb loyalty plan. You have to ask for it and it's $60 (plus taxes). It includes the subsidized pricing for a phone. For a single user that uses below 2gb of data a month.

I'll give them a call about it when I get closer to buying my phone. They will probably say "BS" or give me some story but I guess it's worth checking on. It seems they are really pushing the whole Edge thing which appears a strange membership service that everyone gets to join. Talk about some weird marketing. Why not just call it a discount? lol

Thanks for the input again everyone. I actually asked the same question on the Apple Q&A forum and I immediately lost my thread the moment I posted it. Glad I tried here too.

 

[Josh1billion]

If you're still considering carriers:

I switched from Verizon to Ting recently, and it's awesome.  Rates are low (I estimate about $20-30 per phone per month).  They run on the Sprint network, so the coverage is whatever Sprint offers.

Before that, I was considering Republic Wireless, which is a little cheaper if you're good with using 3G instead of 4G (or even cheaper than that if you go wifi-only), but they limit your choices to only a few phones.  In contrast, Ting accepts just about every Sprint phone (bought mine on Amazon).