7-11 Speakout a good way to test cell waters?

[Tom]

Heh, I have about 20-40$ in bottle returns I bet Its _hardly_ "change". To me at least.

[Thorin]

$144.61 Phone + $8.68 GST = $153.29
$20/month, automatically topped up, x 11 months = $240
$10 credit and $10 kickback = $20

$153.29 + $240 - $20 = $373.29.

Keeping in mind

5. How am I charged for my calls?
Your incoming and outgoing calls are charged by the minute (that means calls less than a minute are charged for one full minute). So if you make a call that lasts a minute & 47 seconds, you’ll be charged for 2 minutes.

and

Call Connectiom
On March 5, 2007, we’re changing the way we charge for connected calls that you make from your Virgin Mobile handset. A connected call is any call that you make that is answered, either by the recipient of your call or that individual’s voice mail.
What’s Changing?
As a result of changes in the way Virgin Mobile is charged for calls you make, we are now aligning our systems to start your call length from the moment you press the SEND button on your handset to initiate a call that is carried on our network. Previously, you were charged from the moment your call was connected. Virgin Mobile calls are billed by the minute, so we expect that the majority of our customers will not be impacted by this change in the cost of their average calls. We do not charge for usage on unanswered calls.

and

1. Is voicemail included with my Virgin Mobile service?
Sure is. However, you will be charged airtime for calls to your voicemail from your mobile phone.

Bill-by-the-minute instead of bill-by-the-second (which old providers like Clearnet used to have, so providers nowadays can't say the technology is too difficult for bill-by-the-second) can help you chew through your minutes pretty quick, especially since you start getting billed the moment you press SEND on your phone.  Since you're also using it to check voicemail and the voicemail system probably takes more than a minute to just play a single message, you may be burning two or three minutes to check a twenty-second voicemail.

Best of all, though, is how they really make Auto Top Up sound like the best thing for the consumer since sliced bread, but really it's just a more efficient way for them to take your money.  If I were you, I'd set up Auto Top Up, but put the threshold at $5 and the automatic top-up amount at $15.  That way if your phone gets stolen you're out no more than probably $30 if you figure it out by the next day.

By the way, for three years you'd pay $153.29 + $240 - $20 + $240 + $240 = $853.29.  My three year contract for a RAZR on the Telus Talk & Spark 30 was $0 for the phone, $39.96 per month, and $50 Best Buy gift card = $0 + $1,438.56 - $50 = $1,388.56.  My plan has 100 minutes instead of your 200, but unlimited nights and weekends and 100 free text/video/picture messages per month.  So your plan is about $535 cheaper over three years, so long as you don't use the phone extensively on nights or weekends (which I will be doing, I'm sure, since the wife and I will probably be at different arenas/pools/dance classes/etc on the weekends as we shuttle our kids around).  I hope the $535 in savings helps you restore some skin-flintiness-feeling.

[Ustauk]

Thanks for the advice Thorin, especially about limiting the auto-topup and theft; I hadn't thought of that.  I already knew about the roundup to the minute thing.   I didn't know the time started from when you hit the send button, assuming the call was answered, so I'll keep that in mind.

My reason with going with Virgin was only partially financial.  I'll admit I wanted to get away with the minium plan I could get away with, keeping the option to move up in plans should that become neccessary, but I likely could have moved up in the plans with another provider by renewing contracts.  It was more my aversion of being tied to a specfic cell provider for a number of years that made me start with pay-as-you-go.  I didn't want to be locked to a specific provider, as I had know idea if I'd like that provider.  If I get fed up with Virigin for whatever reason in a couple of months, I could probably cell the phone for a bit of a loss and move on.  I like that flexibility.  I probably won't do that, but I like having that freedom.

Should my usage warrant it, I'll upgrade to the next plan up.  It'd cost me an extra $360 over three years to move up to a thousand evening/weekend minutes and a hundred daytime minutes.  And I'm not such a skinflint that I won't pay that extra cost should it prove neccesary.  I probably wouldn't bump up to the $40 unlimited evening and weekend plan unless I dropped my land line, which might be a possiblity in the future.   I'd be paying a premium over your plan by that point, Thorin, but once again there's nothing stopping me from selling the phone and moving onto a full up plan with another provider. 

Thanks again for the advice.

PS: You forgot to knock $20 off my total for the free second month promotion going on now

[Thorin]

I could probably cell the phone

Pun intended?

It was more my aversion of being tied to a specfic cell provider for a number of years that made me start with pay-as-you-go.  I didn't want to be locked to a specific provider, as I had know idea if I'd like that provider.  If I get fed up with Virigin for whatever reason in a couple of months, I could probably (s)ell the phone for a bit of a loss and move on.  I like that flexibility.  I probably won't do that, but I like having that freedom.

Yes, definitely a good idea to try it out, and the plan's not terribly expensive.  Pay-as-you-go phones used to have the Achilles heel of being able to run out of money in the account at the most inopportune times.  That Auto Top Up takes care of that particular little problem.

Should my usage warrant it, I'll upgrade to the next plan up.  It'd cost me an extra $360 over three years to move up to a thousand evening/weekend minutes and a hundred daytime minutes.  And I'm not such a skinflint that I won't pay that extra cost should it prove neccesary.  I probably wouldn't bump up to the $40 unlimited evening and weekend plan unless I dropped my land line, which might be a possiblity in the future.   I'd be paying a premium over your plan by that point, Thorin, but once again there's nothing stopping me from selling the phone and moving onto a full up plan with another provider. 

If/when you consider dropping the landline, have a look at the Share 30 plan from Telus.  Yes, it's meant to be shared between two or more people, but it doesn't *have* to be.  $30 gets you 225 minutes per month plus unlimited nights (9pm to 7am) and weekends (9pm Friday to 7am Monday) plus unlimited local incoming calls.  It already has Call Waiting and Conference Calling.  Add in Spark 7 for Caller ID and 100 text messages for $7, and Voice Mail 10 for $6 or Voice Mail 25 for $8.  Add in $6.95 system access fee and $0.75 for 911 access fee and GST, and you're at $53.74 or $55.86, depending on voice mail level picked.

That's $54 for a portable phone with lots of daytime minutes, unlimited evenings/weekends, unlimited (local) incoming calls, caller ID, voice mail, and text messaging all included.  Compare that to what you pay now for your landline and your cell phone separately; it'll probably save anywhere from $5 to $15 a month, and allows you to have one contact number to give out to everyone.

The Virgin XXL plan at $40 is cheaper, but with only 100 minutes daytime you can pretty easily go over the limit if you're not counting minutes closely (yes, nights start at 7pm instead of 9pm; I was thinking of people who call you right after work).  And on the XXL plan, if someone calls you during the day, the minutes get counted; on Telus' Share 30, those calls are considered local incoming so they *don't* count.

Anyway, just providing some alternatives, not saying you didn't find a good deal in that Virgin M plan

[Tom]

This is why I'm happy with my setup (for now). $6/mo VOIP, $10(ish)/mo pay as you go cell phone. The $10 card's minutes are uber expensive at 0.30$/min, but I _normally_ don't use that much now that I have  my inexpensive voip plan.

edit:
Oooh, I've actually surpassed $6 this month on my voip wow. $6.98 for 188+ minutes. (includes the service and local phone number fee)

[Ustauk]

I could probably cell the phone

Pun intended?

No, I just had cell phones on the brain at the time.

Thanks for your advice about the Telus plan you spoke of.  I'll think about it for the future. 

[Ustauk]

Futureshop has my phone on for $129.99.  It's been just over thirty days since I bought my phone, so I exceeded the length of their price protection policy, but they were nice enough to give me the $15.50 in in store credit that was the difference between the current price and my last price match against Wal-mart.

[Darren Dirt]

Futureshop has my phone on for $129.99.  It's been just over thirty days since I bought my phone, so I exceeded the length of their price protection policy, but they were nice enough to give me the $15.50 in in store credit that was the difference between the current price and my last price match against Wal-mart.

I printed out the FS product page, gonna see if the Southpark location has one they can put aside for me for the end of the day.

Thanks for all your research, hopefully I'll benefit from it


PS: some other info/reviews for this model:
http://www.nokia.ca/english/products/6275i/6275i_features.asp
http://www.prairiemobile.com/nokia_6275i.html
http://www.phonescoop.com/phones/user_reviews.php?phone=1025
http://www.cellphones.ca/cell-phones/phone/513/

[Ustauk]

I found out about the sale by reading this thread at Redflagdeals.com, which also happens to contain information on where to get various accesories on the cheap and how to mod the phone to run Java apps and use your own MP3s as ringtones.  If you don't care to get an microSD card for music, but want a custom ring tone, you could come over to my place and we could use my USB cable and software to do it.

The phone's been pretty good to me so far.  Which plan do you intend to get?  Good luck with the phone

[Darren Dirt]

I plan on getting whatever plan the hard-sell suggests I get

Seriously, gonna go for the cheapest as I'm hoping I can stick to just using it for emergencies, calling cabs, checking BusLink info, etc. And I don't want to have only 30 days for my prepaid minutes to expire, which is why I have been delaying this purchase for so long...

[Lazybones]

Hmm, hell must have frozen over, firs Mr. A, then Ustaulk now the Dirtman is getting a cell? What is this world coming to?

[Ustauk]

I plan on getting whatever plan the hard-sell suggests I get

Seriously, gonna go for the cheapest as I'm hoping I can stick to just using it for emergencies, calling cabs, checking BusLink info, etc. And I don't want to have only 30 days for my prepaid minutes to expire, which is why I have been delaying this purchase for so long...

The nice thing about Virgin is the topups range from 45 days to a year in expiry, depending on how much you get.

I'd say start with the 200 minute anytime plan for $20.   The equivalent would cost $50 if paid straight pay-as-you-go.  If you do it that way, your second month will be free.  If you find you use less then that you can downgrade in the third month.  You can request a usage spreadsheet from Virigin, though they leave to you to figure out how many minutes you've used.  As noted to me by other board members, you'll use it more then you think.

[Darren Dirt]

I plan on getting whatever plan the hard-sell suggests I get

Seriously, gonna go for the cheapest as I'm hoping I can stick to just using it for emergencies, calling cabs, checking BusLink info, etc. And I don't want to have only 30 days for my prepaid minutes to expire, which is why I have been delaying this purchase for so long...

The nice thing about Virgin is the topups range from 45 days to a year in expiry, depending on how much you get.

I'd say start with the 200 minute anytime plan for $20.   The equivalent would cost $50 if paid straight pay-as-you-go.  If you do it that way, your second month will be free.  If you find you use less then that you can downgrade in the third month.  You can request a usage spreadsheet from Virigin, though they leave to you to figure out how many minutes you've used.  As noted to me by other board members, you'll use it more then you think.

Miserly minds think alike.

I was actually gonna go that route, only cuz of the "2nd month free" deal. In fact, I was considering the next step us, since the 2nd month is free (if equal or lesser rate). Then I can have a look at the account after the first month and see how I'm actually using it.

[Thorin]

The nice thing about Virgin is the topups range from 45 days to a year in expiry, depending on how much you get.

I'd say start with the 200 minute anytime plan for $20.   The equivalent would cost $50 if paid straight pay-as-you-go.  If you do it that way, your second month will be free.  If you find you use less then that you can downgrade in the third month.  You can request a usage spreadsheet from Virigin, though they leave to you to figure out how many minutes you've used.  As noted to me by other board members, you'll use it more then you think.

Now that you've used it for a bit, have you found you use your phone more than you thought you would?  I've found I use mine less than I thought I would, although I'm not carting around to hockey arenas every weekend at the moment...

I printed out the FS product page, gonna see if the Southpark location has one they can put aside for me for the end of the day.

Thanks for all your research, hopefully I'll benefit from it

For me, the real deciding factor in buying one phone over another is the form factor - how does it feel in my hand, against the side of my head, when I'm using it for it's primary purpose, or in my pocket when I'm just carrying it?  Although phones nowadays have lots of extra gadgets built in, after the honeymoon phase is over those gadgets don't get as much use as you'd think.  For me, short phones with little buttons drive me nuts - that's why I went for the longest-when-open flip phone available.  For others, long and wide phones might not be comfortable for them.  So I suggest that you try out a few models to see how they feel when holding them to the side of your head, or try to imagine them in your pocket all day - if they're not immediately comfortable, try a different model.

PS: some other info/reviews for this model:
http://www.nokia.ca/english/products/6275i/6275i_features.asp
http://www.prairiemobile.com/nokia_6275i.html
http://www.phonescoop.com/phones/user_reviews.php?phone=1025
http://www.cellphones.ca/cell-phones/phone/513/

Keep in mind, too, not *everyone* is happy with Virgin Mobile: http://theweaselking.livejournal.com/2146269.html.  I wonder how much juice will get sucked up playing the radio/MP3 player...  That's the problem I have with convergence - when multiple devices are converged into one device, there's only one battery to do all the different jobs of all the different devices.

[Thorin]

Ust, do you find you listen to the radio/MP3 player a lot, or take a lot of pictures with the phone?  Do you do a lot of text messaging, or is it mostly voice calls?

Darren, keep in mind that Virgin Mobile lets you set up "auto top-up" which will reduce the likelihood that your minutes expire, if you go on straight pay-as-you-go.  Also, you don't have to mess around buying cards.  Also, I'll suggest the same to you as I did to Ust - do the math to see how much money you'd save if you get a big plan for the mobile and cancel your landline.  Since you claim to be miserly...