Cell phones forum: Costs of Android phones

I am a certified Land line phone user only. I keep reading and seeing all the hype the company's are doing in trying to sell their latest revised editions of their phones and have to admit it has aroused some interest in me. The one thing that seems to be a stumbling block for me, is the total costs of having one of them weather it be under contract or not. So i suspect that on a monthly basis it would be either comparable to a television cable account at the minimum or more , and if possible to hear other members here what they usually pay monthly

Generally, that depends on what you do with them. Personally, I make 2 (prepaid) calls a month on the average, so the costs are 50 to 75 cents per month on the average (apart from having to buy one 9 years ago for $ 75, which nearly doubles the overall costs).

But you might want to do more with it.

Kees

Well, i am paying now around 42 bucks for a land line phone, which $14 dollars of it is to the NYC verizon fees and tax's ... I hopefully to avoid some of that. I do get unlimited calls, domestic and long distance for that price...which other than those fees, i feel its reasonable in today's market. Would I have to pay "more' for a gps app included as an example? I am not into texting. Email is OK, but not necessary..Also, I heard that one not only has to pay by the minutes used in making a call, but one has to also pay for the recipient for answering? Is that true?

If you use a carrier branded/installed GPS software system, yes, there may be an extra monthly charge involved. But if you had a data plan and a smartphone, there are free GPS apps available or free, sometimes including turn-by-turn directions. So you would have to prorate the cost of monthly GPS vs maintaining a data plan. A (more expensive) data plan might make sense depending on features you required in total.

There are Plenty of cellular taxes involved, so that will likely be a moot point vs landline.

A few carriers, such as US Cellular, do not charge for incoming calls that you receive. Most carriers (if not all) charge for outgoing calls tough, with some exceptions that can save your minutes. Calling a relative who's on the same system might be free i your plan included free mobile to mobile calling. Some carriers also allow you to specify a group of contacts (regardless of their cellular carrier) who you can call for free. You have to determine what sort of calling patterns/plans suit your needs in this regard to pick the right carrier that could return the lowest cost. Most of my family's on ATT, so it was a no-brainer. I call everyone for free via M2M (mobile to mobile). And we switched my wife's line so her company would reimburse, making it even easier.

If you can find a Verizon based pre-paid service (=MVNO) you might be able to stay around the same general price point that you are now w/ a landline. The data is the sticking point though. Post paid is nearly always better if you plan on using very much.