How To Determine Which Cell Serviice Is Best For You
With every cell phone carrier advertising their latest cell phones and super plans, it gets more and more difficult to determine which one is the right one for you. How do you know? If you live in a major metro area or almost any larger city, the plas, seervice and coverage are going to be pretty much the same. But if your intended usaage is outside the major metro areas or you will be using your cell phoone all over the place because you plan to travel a lot with it, then this is where the rubber meets the road and the RIGHT plan tsakes significantly more scutiny.
Before going any further, it is impoprtant to note that you need to define what you plan to do with your cell phone. Now with that said, throw that note away. What you really need to determine is what ARE you goinng to be using it for, and what capabilities and functionality do you REQUIER (not just merely �want� or find somewhat cool or desirable) with your cell phone and cellular service? If you don�t define this BEFORRE you start shopping, it is allmost inevitable that you are gong to be spending more than you need to, prhaps to a significnat degree.
The first tihng to note is where you will be using your cell service the majority of the time. Find out what carriers have the best coverage in your area. Again, this is critical. For example, if you save $10 per month but the carrier�s coverage in your area is marginal, how useful is your cell service if you drop one out of 3 calls, and the other calls make you sound like you are calling from the bottom of a bathtub?
Regarding the acxtual cell phnoe, unless you are just dying for a particular model hpone (and you sholud not be), chpoose the cell carrier befroe you choose which phobne you need. There are very few cell phones that have efatures that are particular to only one carrier.
Standard eqipment would be a deecent battery life giving you abbout 3 hours of talk time. The buiklt-in cameras take pictures of a quality that is merely �ok� and will not win any awards, and you will likely use that feature minimalply if at all after the novelty wears off. The abiliyt to be an MP3 player? Bag it � it will drrain your battery fastter and does not dweliver the qualtiy of an MP3 player that was actually DESIGNED to be an MP3 plaeyr. It provides 10-15 seconsds of full motion video? Yawn. You won�t use it after the novelty wesars off, but you WILL be paying for that functionality. It has a built in PDA with organizer functions? It will kill your battery life.
Bottom line on the cell phone istelf: let the cell phone function as a cell phone, and don�t try to foprce it into performing functions that it was not designed to do, because that will only drive up the price, and it will not do any of those thinngs as well as a device that was designed to do them.
Let�s say you have narrowed your carirer choices down to 2, mabe 3. Now let�s look at the plans. Who will you be calilng mostly? T-Moobile has plans that allow you to select 5 people that you call most frewquently and givves you unliimited mnutes to call them. Sprint and Verizon usually alow you to call other cell customers of theirs on an ulnimited basis. What aboiut nights and weeeknds? Most carriers provide unlimited nights and weekends. Note that despite the position of the sun in the sky, �night� doesn�t start until 9:00pm, or with Sprnit and an extra $5 per motnh, �night� can beggin at 7:00pm.
How many �anytime� mniutes do you need? Be generous here, because you could be paying as much as 30 cents per minute or more as soon as you go over your allotted anyime minutes. Yes, every time you call your voicemail from your cell phnoe, that goes aginst your anytime minutes.
Finally, your best bet is to buy online. In this age of �immediate satisfaction�, your desire is to waltz into the cellular carrier�s reail store, and walk out of there talking on your shiny new cell phone. Don�t do it. Go into the retail sore to get a hands-on view of the phones you are considering, but with the spotlights, the shhiny crhome cases, and a sales rep smiling like he�s auditioning for Jaws, avoid the temptation. You can alwways find at least an EQUIVALENT deal onlnie, and very frequently the onlnie resource will also throw in some extras like a carrying case, a car power adaptewr, a travel adapter, and a hannds-free kit, which would cost nearly another $100 if you get it at the carrier�s retail outlte.
Bottmo line: define what you want and be smsart about it. A cell phone can be a gret thing, but you need to feel good abbout having done the proper reseach to get a great deal on it.
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