H'okay, here's the deal you might say:
I use Walmart's Straight Talk service since my income is unreliable at best for now. I hate to admit I need a phone, but I won't get a job post-partum or be able to coordinate with people if I have an emergency dealing with school/scheduling or...
Every 30 days I spend $30 for 1500 minutes/5000 texts/2GB of data. Not bad and I never use it all because I'm lame and have no life. It works because I use this phone:
Not great for web surfing, so I barely even touch data.
Now, I have found that this model is starting to have problems making/receiving calls and delays texts after about a year of use. Some people upgraded the phone with improvement, some blamed the service and switched with improvement. Seeing as I intend to stay with this horrid provider because of financial restrictions, I'll probably have to upgrade between the new year and LO's arrival.
My options as far as I can tell:
1) Stick with the crappy dying phone designed to break on the crappy service until it actually stops functioning.
2) Get another cheap, new phone for the crappy service, continue paying $30 monthly for service.
3) Get a nice-er, refurbished (smart)phone for the crappy service provider, paying $45 monthly for unlimited everything.
I wanted some suggestions on what to look into as far as models go. I try not to sit on my phone like a mindless drone. I've owned smartphones before, and liked being able to play games or use the internet wherever, especially for my commute. The convenience was wonderful, but my dependence on the device upset me in the long run. If I start taking the bus again when I'm working/in school, I'll want another one for the games/music/apps for learning Spanish/etc. If I'm not and I'm just working around the house or taking care of LO, it'll probably prove more than distracting for me. (ADHD + lazy + no willpower = no productivity) I haven't been too bad lately about staying on task, but I'm trying to be realistic about how I'll feel once I have a baby to provide for and providing stress to me.
Do you guys have (or have you formerly owned) a particular smartphone that gave you the most bang for your buck? What do you look for in a phone? Is there a better non-contract service I'm unaware of? Why is something so trivial so stressful? (Side question: Do your kids take over/demand your phone in a tantrum because they want to play on it? If not, how do you prevent it?) Is a $200 cap for a refurbished phone unreasonable?
Thank you for reading and helping me!
TL;DR - 1st world probz, I want/will eventually need a new phone. Suggestions for specific models to look at upgrading to? TIA, lovelies!
BFP: 01/10/2010, EDD: 10/10/2010, Loss: 03/16/2010
BFP: 07/14/2014, EDD: 03/04/2015


Re: The Great Hyper-Intelligent and Simple Cellular Telephone Debate of 2014
DD will see my phone on the floor, and sometimes she'll poke around at it for maybe a minute or two… But then she hands it to me. So far, she has not had a tantrum so that she could play with it… And I'm not that kind of parent anyway. She hasn't bothered to play with my phone since I removed fruit ninja… Because I needed more storage space for photos... Lol... That's another thing you're going to have to watch out for… You're gonna take a whole bunch of photos of your kid and then you're going to be like "oh shit, I don't have enough storage on my phone but I can't delete any of these pictures!"
I know I didn't answer all your questions… But I hope I helped a little bit, at least...
BFP: 07/14/2014, EDD: 03/04/2015