What is the best dumb cellphone and carrier in the Chatt area?

[Guest Lester Weevils]

Well, wife is a technophobe. She resents it when I try to talk her into getting techie. So her simple keypad samsung slide-phone, after many years is getting flakey, and she took great offense after I found the best-reviewed smartphones currently offered by sprint and tried to convince her she would like a smartphone even more gooder than her old failing simple phone.

 

All the well-reviewed sprint phones are in wife's opinions too big and too complicated. So she finally found a couple of simple small dumb phones she would consider having, but the user reviews stink on all of them. The usual user comments, "don't buy this phone", "worst cellphone ever", "bad tone and constant dropouts". Etc.

 

She is mad at me, but can't quite figure it out. I showed her the well-reviewed hi-tech phones (which she doesn't want) and showed her that the consensus of reviewers believe that the phones simple enough to please her are "the worst phones ever made".

 

So dunno if going to verizon, at&t, etc, would really help trying to buy wife a good quality dumb phone. After all, there is a "close approximation" of each major brand of clam-shell or slider phone, sold by all the providers. So if the samsung clamshell phone sold by sprint sucks, then possibly the samsung clamshell sold by AT&T or Verizon most likely is near-identical and sucks just as bad as the Sprint model?

 

Anyway, if someone in chatt knows of a recent dumb phone with excellent performance and coverage, then I can probably cancel wife's half of the sprint account and get her on another plan, just as cheap as upgrading her sprint phone with a 2 year contract on a phone that at least half the reviewers say is "the worst phone they ever had." :)

[morrisster]

go prepaid. 

If she's in love with sprint's service, stick to virginmobileusa.com  - dumb phones from free to $30 plans that are actually useful for these dumb phones are $30 (1500 text/1500 minutes) - $40/month (unlimited)

 

I am on straight talk (through walmart) - they have dumb phones from free to $30 online (and $30-50 in store) - their dumb phones are on verizon network. one plan. $30/month for 1000 minutes and 1000 text (or $45 for unlimited everything)

 

or boost mobile (also sprint) dumb phones are $30-60 online - unlimited talk and text is $45/month (paying more than virginmobile for the same thing...)

 

IMO, any of these are better than the prepaids like tracfone and the like. I have auto billing set up on my straight talk phone and in over 2 years have never had trouble with my service. The 'bill' just comes at the beginning of service instead of at the end.

[ironsniper1]

iPhone is really user friendly if you want to force a smart phone on her :P

Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk HD

[Murgatroy]

I have used Virgin's service for over a decade. I have never felt the need to pay more.

 

I went to a smart phone from them a while ago and am grandfathered into a lower rate, but even at the $40 a month they are the best deal going IMO.

 

The last 'feature' phones I had from them were Kyocera 2300 (it was called the Loft or some such when I got it) and an LG flip phone that they have discontinued. They did what they were supposed to.

[enfield]

My $15 LG flip phone from Tracphone has been flawless for the last year.  Can't say the same about my wife's Motorola Droid "smart" phone - it's driving her nuts.

 

It costs me $99/year for 800 minutes, of which I use half, and all of the remainder rolls over.

[Clod Stomper]

Don't know about carriers, but as far as phones, my dad has had a Motorola flip phone for many years and it's still going.  It's in very rough shape, but still works.  His is through US Cellular.  I have a similar prepaid Tracfone.  I bet you can get one through most carriers.

[Guest Lester Weevils]

Thanks. I'm of the opinion "don't fix what ain't broke." Sprint has been OK, puts thru calls OK and they haven't done anything to make me mad lately. The devil you know might be better than the devil you don't know.

 

So maybe I pay too much attention to user reviews, but don't know any better way to look for reliable product. Spent inordinate time looking for my last smart phone because I was looking for a slider-keyboard large screen android or winphone, and reviews on all the available models were scary. So finally sprint came out with a model that more than half of reviewers didn't hate, and I got that model and it has performed well.

 

So sprint has only a few dumb phones with the small size and simple operation wife desires, and even the best-reviewed models, half of the reviewers are very unhappy campers. Wife has had years of good service from two dumb phones now, but her last slider dumb phone, which worked great many years, is on its last legs. She won't be a happy camper if the replacement sucks worse than her old phone.

 

So maybe the user reviews should be ignored. Or maybe where there is smoke there is fire and manufacturers don't pay much attention to making dumb phone users happy anymore? I mean, if I was looking for a power tool and half the user reviews say the tool ain't worth a crap and doesn't do the job and they wish they had never bought it, call me crazy but I'd be askeered to buy that tool unless I had personal experience negating other folks' experiences.

 

Here are links to the "best-reviewed" Sprint items of which wife finds acceptable, if anyone cares to see of what I speak. Half the users reasonably happy, and the other half pissed-off and disappointed. Do you feel lucky, kid? :) I don't care what service or phone she gets, as long as it gets good coverage and doesn't annoy the wife.

 

http://shop.sprint.com/mysprint/shop/phone_details.jsp?prodId=dvc6610001prd&deviceSKUId=66100135

 

http://shop.sprint.com/mysprint/shop/phone_details.jsp?prodId=dvc6560001prd&deviceSKUId=65600047

 

http://shop.sprint.com/mysprint/shop/phone_details.jsp?prodId=dvc6390001prd&deviceSKUId=63900159

 

http://shop.sprint.com/mysprint/shop/phone_details.jsp?prodId=dvc6290011prd&deviceSKUId=62900169

 

Other carriers have product very similar from the same manufacturers, so it is an easy guess that buying the same thing from Verison or TrakPhone might have as good odds of sucking, but dunno one way or t'other.

[Dustbuster]

FWIW. if shes that anti tech get her a jitterbug phone cant get any simpler,or if she wants simple but steel worker tough get her the casio tough phone from verizon !!!

[Guest Lester Weevils]

FWIW. if shes that anti tech get her a jitterbug phone cant get any simpler,or if she wants simple but steel worker tough get her the casio tough phone from verizon !!!

 

Thanks all for the suggestions.

 

I looked up that casio tough phone on verizon, along with the other offered verizon dumb phones. Maybe people who buy dumb phones are just hard to please nowadays, but the verizon user reviews on their dumb phones, even those casio tough phones, are worse than the sprint dumb phone user reviews, and the sprint dumb phone reviews are on average pretty bad. When a product gets a three out of five star rating-- Half of the reviews are 1 and the other half of the reviews are 4 or 5. Well half the users "got lucky" anyway. :) When the statistic "yes I would recommend this to a friend" is less than fifty percent-- Spooky.

 

That jitterbug plus and a plan commensurate with wife's minimal usage looks about as cheap as a prepaid phone, and I can't find lots of web traffic totally savaging the jitterbug as "worst phone ever". Maybe its target market is easier to please, or possibly it is built slightly better than other samsung phones that have very similar features which almost get to 50 percent "yes I would recommend this to a friend" from sprint and verizon. The advantage of the jitterbug is that it has even fewer features and buttons than the major carrier similar-looking samsung phones. Fewer things to screw up.

 

I was afraid to show wife the jitterbug promotional videos, being as the target audience for the thing is closer to 80 than 60, but wife loved it and didn't get insulted being shown a "phone for the elderly". The jitterbug plus actually does seem a model of simplicity in the user interface design category. Perhaps it would be smarter for even a techoholic to carry a jitterbug for phone and in addition carry a small-format tablet for camera, web, books, mp3, radio, email and other distractions? For instance I keep all my sensitive info in an encrypted pdf, and sometimes when I'm on the phone it is awkward to look up a pin number or password in the encrypted file, at the same time on the same device I'm making a call to some company. Maybe having two devices would be better than one?

 

So anyway Sears has jitterbugs locally so I'll get wife signed up today and see how it goes.

 

Spoke to the Sprint account lady on the phone about transferring over wife's phone number, explained that at the moment sprint doesn't have any simple phones with good user reviews. She was perhaps too candid and sprint would get mad at her, but she agreed and said it is a problem because there are not many excellent heavy-duty dumb phones to choose any more. She said she shopped for her personal phone the same way and wouldn't touch a phone with bad user reviews.

Edited June 5, 2013 by Lester Weevils

[Guest Lester Weevils]

So just a final report-- Technophobic wife loves the Jitterbug Plus. The coverage on (jitterbug's only carrier) verizon has been real good. She loves every feature because it is simple, and it is small and convenient. Including numerous taxes and fees, her monthly bill for more minutes than she has ever used historically, voice mail and "more texts than she ever historically used" is less than $40. Another "feature" that may be quite common nowadays, is that the bill includes free roaming. Maybe that is common nowadays, but in the past I remember getting raped on a few minutes of phone calls "off network" out in the boonies, where tiny local networks were the only ones I could connect to. Especially a few places down in rural alabama, the tiny local cell networks had prices high enough to be the telephone equivalent of rural county speed traps only enforced on strangers passing thru. :)

 

She likes using the camera. Every dumb phone she has had since years ago I nagged her into letting me buy her a cellphone for her own security, has had a camera and I don't think any of those cameras were any way difficult to use, but for some reason she would never use the cameras. Maybe the jitterbug removes one or two button presses from the process, but she now enjoys using the camera. It isn't a fancy high-pixel camera, but she doesn't care about pixels, and the pictures seem fairly clear for what they are.

 

So anyway thanks for the jitterbug suggestions. It has earned me a few "get out of the doghouse free" cards. :)

[Dustbuster]

glad you found success,yeah don't show the wife the jitterbug video,well be busy on here  getting you a lifeflight ride to vandy and bart durham for your injuries.... :woohoo:

[GlockSpock]

Just for anyone that might be interested, I am extremely happy with Ting as as a "dumb phone" provider.

 

500 Minutes

1000 Text

0 Data

<$25 a Month

 

I've contacted them on quite a few "issues (questions)", and their support has responded very quickly and solved all of them. I kept my same number from Verizon. They also provide free voice and text roaming to Verizon, and it simply takes away from your tier that you choose. Everyone should at least take a look and see what their bill would be for your selected usage. It's not for everyone, but I am 100%, 10/10/ 5/5, and two thumbs up satisfied.

Edited June 18, 2013 by CZ9MM

[Guest Lester Weevils]

glad you found success,yeah don't show the wife the jitterbug video,well be busy on here  getting you a lifeflight ride to vandy and bart durham for your injuries.... :woohoo:

 

Wife can operate a computer when she has to, but she doesn't enjoy it. If she had to she could operate a smart phone, but she thinks it is too much carp to put up with, and she thinks the smart phones with nice screens are too big, and it would be torture to use a smart phone with a tiny screen. Just sayin (in case it may have been implied), she isn't a dummy or senile yet. She is simply technophobic. She reads the paper rather than drudge report. She reads books from the library rather than the kindle I got her. She was interested and wanted to try a kindle, but decided she likes paper books better.

 

I showed her all the jitterbug ad videos before buying the gadget (apologizing in advance because I didn't mean to imply she was an old woman). :) But she loved it on the videos showing old folks operating a simple phone, and she went on a song-n-dance about how it was perfect for her because she is so over the hill and brain-dead (60). Apparently she doesn't mind going over the hill, which is a good thing because currently there isn't any viable alternative. :)

 

Just for anyone that might be interested, I am extremely happy with Ting as as a "dumb phone" provider.

 

500 Minutes

1000 Text

0 Data

<$25 a Month

 

I've contacted them on quite a few "issues (questions)", and their support has responded very quickly and solved all of them. I kept my same number from Verizon. They also provide free voice and text roaming to Verizon, and it simply takes away from your tier that you choose. Everyone should at least take a look and see what their bill would be for your selected usage. It's not for everyone, but I am 100%, 10/10/ 5/5, and two thumbs up satisfied.

 

That sounds like a really good deal!

[GlockSpock]

That sounds like a really good deal!

 
Well, they will work with most any Sprint phone (except iPhones). You can have your number ported to them for free (keeping your existing number). If you signup with that link above, you will get $25 off your phone order or your billing statement. If you already have a Sprint phone, it should be easy to try them. There are some issues with using a prepaid phone with them though, but they should be able to answer whether a certain phone will work if you provide the ESN.

 

Lets say I go crazy one month and use twice what I expect to (1000 minutes, 2000 texts). It would only be ~35. It really is a good deal, and since you get free roaming to Verizon you generally get as good of service as Verizon (although "roaming" can be "odd" at times. It isn't a full-proof experience).

[mikegideon]

Thanks. I'm of the opinion "don't fix what ain't broke." Sprint has been OK, puts thru calls OK and they haven't done anything to make me mad lately. The devil you know might be better than the devil you don't know.

 

So maybe I pay too much attention to user reviews, but don't know any better way to look for reliable product. Spent inordinate time looking for my last smart phone because I was looking for a slider-keyboard large screen android or winphone, and reviews on all the available models were scary. So finally sprint came out with a model that more than half of reviewers didn't hate, and I got that model and it has performed well.

 

So sprint has only a few dumb phones with the small size and simple operation wife desires, and even the best-reviewed models, half of the reviewers are very unhappy campers. Wife has had years of good service from two dumb phones now, but her last slider dumb phone, which worked great many years, is on its last legs. She won't be a happy camper if the replacement sucks worse than her old phone.

 

So maybe the user reviews should be ignored. Or maybe where there is smoke there is fire and manufacturers don't pay much attention to making dumb phone users happy anymore? I mean, if I was looking for a power tool and half the user reviews say the tool ain't worth a crap and doesn't do the job and they wish they had never bought it, call me crazy but I'd be askeered to buy that tool unless I had personal experience negating other folks' experiences.

 

Here are links to the "best-reviewed" Sprint items of which wife finds acceptable, if anyone cares to see of what I speak. Half the users reasonably happy, and the other half pissed-off and disappointed. Do you feel lucky, kid? :) I don't care what service or phone she gets, as long as it gets good coverage and doesn't annoy the wife.

 

http://shop.sprint.com/mysprint/shop/phone_details.jsp?prodId=dvc6610001prd&deviceSKUId=66100135

 

http://shop.sprint.com/mysprint/shop/phone_details.jsp?prodId=dvc6560001prd&deviceSKUId=65600047

 

http://shop.sprint.com/mysprint/shop/phone_details.jsp?prodId=dvc6390001prd&deviceSKUId=63900159

 

http://shop.sprint.com/mysprint/shop/phone_details.jsp?prodId=dvc6290011prd&deviceSKUId=62900169

 

Other carriers have product very similar from the same manufacturers, so it is an easy guess that buying the same thing from Verison or TrakPhone might have as good odds of sucking, but dunno one way or t'other.

 

I would get her the first one... Samsung flip

[Guest Lester Weevils]

I would get her the first one... Samsung flip

 

Yep, that samsung flip is most likely extremely similar in all respects to the samsung manufactured jitterbug plus. Dunno if the radio or sound is beefed-up on the jitterbug incarnation, but the jitterbug has fewer buttons, bigger buttons, simpler operation, and very large text on the screen.

 

Old dad thinks that online user reviews should be ignored because they are most likely written by idiots, but nontheless some models get better user reviews than others. The jitterbug plus incarnation generally gets positive reviews and it is difficult to find many "worst phone ever" user reviews, but both the sprint and verizon incarnations of "about the same thing" are about 50 percent "worst phone ever, would not recommend to a friend". Which may be meaningless, dunno.

 

Difficult to judge. For instance, if a GMC truck and a Chevy truck are virtually identical, but you see Chevy trucks broke down on the road all the time, and never see GMC trucks broke down on the side of the road, are ya gonna buy the GMC version or the Chevy version?

[Oh Shoot]

Yep, that samsung flip is most likely extremely similar in all respects to the samsung manufactured jitterbug plus. Dunno if the radio or sound is beefed-up on the jitterbug incarnation, but the jitterbug has fewer buttons, bigger buttons, simpler operation, and very large text on the screen.

 

I got my 88 year old Mom (in 'Nooga incidentally) a Jitterbug (Great Call) account/phone a number of years ago, she just keeps it as emergency phone, seldom uses it.

 

My opinion, it's TOO simple. You absolutely have no options to go directly to a function when you open it, except to dial from scratch. You have to hit "yes/no" over and over to get to anything. Even bringing up your phone list requires two "no" responses, best I remember. And adding someone to list is so counter-intuitive, even I have to play with it every time I'm down there and she wants somebody added.

 

But it's a nice phone sound wise, probably the biggest flip phone there is (which is fine in a purse, but like carrying a full size Glock in a pocket), seals around ear nicely, no shifting around to find the audio sweet spot, etc.

 

She's actually gotten to where she can operate the antique RAZR 3 that I carry better than her own "simple" phone, and she uses Vtech cordless ones as her main phone, which actually have every phone gizmotic function you can think of.  And remember, my mom is zero computer/digital literate, took off and on instructions for a year to get her competent with Comcast remote!

 

Point is, assuming she uses it much at all, even your Technophobe Babe is likely to get frustrated when she can't even pull up her frigging last made/received calls or phonebook with a simple button press. Maybe that Jitterbug Plus phone has more shortcut buttons added now, I don't know, didn't check it out.

 

Unclear if you're going to use Great Call service with it, but if so, another drawback is that you don't get option of your own area code, it's all 866 prefix. Even though it's a free call to dial, it's still a "long distance" prefix that has to be entered by anyone calling. Maybe not much of a big deal, although it is for the little old ladies around town that would call my mom on it if she really wanted to use it regularly for incoming.

 

- OS

Edited June 19, 2013 by Oh Shoot

[Guest Lester Weevils]

I got my 88 year old Mom (in 'Nooga incidentally) a Jitterbug (Great Call) account/phone a number of years ago, she just keeps it as emergency phone, seldom uses it.

 

My opinion, it's TOO simple. You absolutely have no options to go directly to a function when you open it, except to dial from scratch. You have to hit "yes/no" over and over to get to anything. Even bringing up your phone list requires two "no" responses, best I remember. And adding someone to list is so counter-intuitive, even I have to play with it every time I'm down there and she wants somebody added.

 

But it's a nice phone sound wise, probably the biggest flip phone there is (which is fine in a purse, but like carrying a full size Glock in a pocket), seals around ear nicely, no shifting around to find the audio sweet spot, etc.

 

She's actually gotten to where she can operate the antique RAZR 3 that I carry better than her own "simple" phone, and she uses Vtech cordless ones as her main phone, which actually have every phone gizmotic function you can think of.  And remember, my mom is zero computer/digital literate, took off and on instructions for a year to get her competent with Comcast remote!

 

Point is, assuming she uses it much at all, even your Technophobe Babe is likely to get frustrated when she can't even pull up her frigging last made/received calls or phonebook with a simple button press. Maybe that Jitterbug Plus phone has more shortcut buttons added now, I don't know, didn't check it out.

 

Unclear if you're going to use Great Call service with it, but if so, another drawback is that you don't get option of your own area code, it's all 866 prefix. Even though it's a free call to dial, it's still a "long distance" prefix that has to be entered by anyone calling. Maybe not much of a big deal, although it is for the little old ladies around town that would call my mom on it if she really wanted to use it regularly for incoming.

 

- OS

 

I think the current jitterbug plus is a little different from that earlier model. It is about the same size as the equivalent samsung flip phones offered by sprint and verizon, just fewer buttons and larger text. Wife's size test is "will it fit easy in my pocket like the last phone" and is about the same size as her previous samsung slider which was pretty small.

 

Seems pretty easy to navigate with up/down, yes/no. I even have trouble with "star" buttons (the ubiquitous left/right/up/down circle with yes button in the center). I mainly have trouble because of big fingers and tiny star controls. I keep my fingernails trimmed short, and it is real frustrating operating the star navigation control on an old style kindle ferinstance. It is tiny with too many small keys too close to the control.

 

So anyway wife still likes the plus model, and if mama ain't happy ain't nobody happy, so its all good. :)