Best Reviewed
Prepaid Cell Phone Plans
- Prepaid cell phone plan with advanced phones Virgin Mobile Beyond Talk *Est. $35
- Best prepaid phone plan for occasional use T-Mobile Prepaid *Est. $10
- Prepaid phone plan with international calling TracFone *Est. $10
- Best as an emergency phone T-Mobile Prepaid (annual plan) *Est. $100
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T-Mobile Prepaid (annual plan)
*Est. $100 for 1,000 min.
Reviewed
April 2012
Best as an emergency phone
Pros
- Low price per minute
- Above-average customer service
- 90,000 retail locations nationwide
- Minutes don't expire for a year
Cons
- No free nights or free weekend calling
If you want to keep a cell phone on hand for emergencies, but don't plan to use it on a regular basis, reviewers suggest the T-Mobile Prepaid Annual plan, which is a prepaid wireless plan with a long expiration. You get 1,000 minutes for $100 and a whole year to use them. Another top-rated prepaid provider, TracFone, offers a similar plan, but $100 gets you only 400 minutes.
You can get a good idea of the effectiveness of prepaid wireless cell phone services, such as T-Mobile Prepaid, by looking at large customer surveys like those conducted by ConsumerReports.org, J.D. Power and Associates and PCMag.com. In addition, PrepaidReviews.com allows customers to post their own reviews of prepaid wireless plans.
Where To Buy
Our Sources
1. ConsumerReports.orgDetails/Subscribe
ConsumerReports.org polls more than 66,000 magazine subscribers, asking them to rate their cell service for call quality, handling of calls and complaints and billing problems. Wireless providers, including T-Mobile Prepaid, are ranked accordingly.
Review: Prepaid Cell Phone Service Ratings, Editors of ConsumerReports.org, Jan. 2011
In this survey of about 6,400 prepaid wireless cell phone users, T-Mobile rates just above the industry average overall, but falls squarely in the middle of the pack of nine prepaid cell phone carriers reviewed.
Review: 2011 Wireless Non-Contract Customer Satisfaction Index Study, Editors of J.D. Power and Associates, March 31, 2011
This article addresses overall satisfaction with cell phones and cell phone service as reported by PCMag.com readers in 2012. T-Mobile gets the Reader's Choice award for prepaid carriers. A chart shows how each service stacks up in a dozen categories, such as price and handset choices.
Review: Reader's Choice Awards 2012: Smartphones and Mobile Carriers, Ben Gottesman, March 28, 2012
T-Mobile Prepaid ties for first place with two other carriers (Net10 and PlatinumTel Prepaid) in editors' rankings of prepaid wireless providers. Over 700 users posting comments to the site, however, give T-Mobile Prepaid only 3 stars out of 5.
Review: T-Mobile To Go Prepaid Cell Phones, Editors of PrepaidReviews.com
Prepaid Cell Phone Plans Runners Up:
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4 picks including: J.D. Power & Associates, MSNBC…
Boost Mobile *Est. $50 per month
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Straight Talk *Est. $30 for 30 days and up
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AT&T GoPhone *Est. 10 cents per min. and up
1 pick including: J.D. Power & Associates…