I have a creepy relationship with my Blackberry. It comes with me on bike rides, playing NPR while I circle the lake or follow the trail. It gives connectivity to my laptop when I travel thanks to an app called Tether. I poop with it while browsing NICO and catching up on Facebook. It sleeps with me in bed next to my pillow. It lights up the dark when I use the camera flash in video mode as an obnoxiously bright flashlight.
It really is an extension of myself, so it pains me to think I'd be parting with my Blackberry Tour. Here's what I'm considering:
OPTION 1: Virgin Mobile is offering unlimited data and text with 1200 minutes for $40/mo. That INCLUDES federal telecom taxes but in states you have to pay the state phone tax.
OPTION 2: Currently with Sprint, I'm paying (with tax, with 15% university discount, plus $4/mo roadside assistance) $74/mo for 450 minutes BUT that comes with unlimited data, unlimited mobile to mobile as well as weekend/night minutes.
HOWEVER: I use less than 500 minutes a month, 65% of which are mobile-to-mobile free minutes [usually phone calls from mom, she talks a lot]. So, I'm only using 130 minutes of my alloted 450 with Sprint. That's less than half of what I'd use on a 1200-minute plan from Virgin Mobile.
MATHS: I can get a Samsung Intercept for $206 on ebay, new. There's a $180 fee to cancel my Sprint contract. In a year with Virgin I'd save about $396, making up for the cancellation fee and phone cost which would be $386.
If you throw in the $70 I'd get for selling my Blackberry Tour, I'd come out ahead by $80 at the end of the year and almost $400 the following year.
DISADVANTAGES:
No 4G -- I don't really need it.
No in-store service -- I did use it once with Sprint when my Blackberry had a software problem. They fixed it in half an hour and charged me nothing. I'd have the manufacturer's warranty and nothing else.
Phone selection -- There's only two offerings from Virgin currently worth looking at, and they're one product cycle behind the major carriers. The Blackberry they offer is the Curve which lacks my Tour's high-res display.
Syncing Android with iTunes isn't seamless like it is with the Blackberry, but its not impossible.
No discounted upgrades. I'd be a step behind on phone choices and you pay whatever the retail price is. There is no discount for contract renewal since there is no contract. Sprint currently offers me an upgrade discount each year since I pay over $69 per month for service. I'm not an early adopter of mobile technology anymore, not since the early 2000s, so I don't believe I'd feel much of a loss.
ADVANTAGES:
Virgin Mobile USA is now owned by Sprint and uses Sprint's 3G network, as they always have.
Monthly price
I can tether with Android using PDANet.
I can port my number.
No contract (not that it matters since I'd be paying each month anyway)
Should I do it?
Also, WILDCARD:
Get a Clear 3G/4G mobile hotspot device ($80) or Virgin Mobile Mifi 220 ($150) and an iPod Touch 4 ($230), then use Skype for phone calls.
Don't know how incoming calls would work in that case. I'd have to carry two devices around, and it would cost $55/mo for Clear 4G/3G or $40/mo for Virgin 3G. I'd have iPhone functionality for a very low monthly cost.
I just wonder how incoming calls would work. The Clearspot offers 4 hours of battery with continuous use, so if Skype was running on the iPod Touch in the background, how dependable would the connection to the mobile hotspot be?
I'd also have to give up my existing phone number (I dont think you can port a cellular number to Skype), which is fine, since my ex-girlfriend would be unable to call.
Hmmm...
