Prepaid Smartphones
Best and Cheap Choices

MAY 8, 2024 - Big news from Virgin Mobile prepaid. They are just announcing their first 4G LTE smartphone, the HTC Evo 4G. It will be released on May 31 for a price of $299. This is big news from one of the best prepaid smartphone providers! More details and images to come!

The 4G WiMAX news continues with Boost Mobile now adding a new smartphone, the HTC EVO Design 4G. It's going to cost you $299 and will be available in June.

April 30 - When we said the prepaid smartphone business is picking up we mean it! Today, US Cellular announced that they will be offering a new service in almost 500 Walmart stores. It's both US Cellular and Alltel Wireless joinging together. Yes, they are going to have an Android smartphone available which is the Samsung Repp. No details on prepaid data plans other than they said they have "multiple data options and plans". All plans are nationwide with no roaming charges. We like it! More details to come. Read more on US Celluar.

Verizon, on May 1, is introducing the smartphone Samsung Illusion for $169 which is powered by Android OS. Wondering about the prepaid plan? It's $80 a month for unlimited talk and text along with 1GB of data. Not exactly cheap is it? This plan is right now going to be exlusive to the Samsung Illusion. It will be available at Best Buy, Walmart, Target and Radio Shack.

April 26 - Things are really heating up with Republic Wireless. We suggest you read the latest news on the exciting beta. Check out the Engadget article here.

April 22 - Virgin Mobile and Boost Mobile will be getting 4G smartphones in June. It appears that they will be using the last generation Sprint 4G WiMAX network. Expect prepaid smartphone plans to include unlimited talk, text and 4G data with a throttle on data when exceeding 2.5GB. Folks this prepaid smartphone market is really starting to heat up. Have you noticed?

(more on this story at technobuffalo.com)

April 20 - Looks like Cricket is about to get a whole lot more exposure. You're going to see a couple of their prepaid Android smartphones in Target stores!

April 17 - ATT pay as you go smartphones are getting more data! Yes, pay the same price for your monthly data packages but you get MORE data. Sounds good to us. Check our AT&T page for more details.

April 13 - Big news for Ting. They are getting 4G LTE coverage very soon! They will be using the Sprint network coverage. Ting will introduce new 4G smartphones very soon. This is huge news folks! Check out Ting page for more details.

April 9 - We've just added H2O Wireless to our listings. They have a couple smartphones but what we like is there very cheap prepaid data plan. Well let's say it's not exactly for anyone looking to spend their time using data, but if you can rely on wifi connectivity and less on their data, you might like the idea of paying $25 per month. As you may or may not know, most prepaid smartphone plans are at best $45 per month. Sure you get unlimited but perhaps you could economize you dependence on their networks and rely more on wifi connections for you data use.

You're going to get only 80MB of data, but perhaps you can make it work for your needs. But it does get tricky because you get $25 worth of usage total only. This means use any combination of Talk, Text, MMS & Data up to $25. I wish they had a slider calculator on their site! The rates are 2.5 cents per minute talk, 30 cents per MB, and 2.5 cents per message. If you go heavy on data, then you run out of talk and text time in a given month. Make sense?

There is also news about AT&T allowing out of contract iPhones to be unlocked. A few requirements are required. With that said, there could be a flood of unlocked ATT iPhones which may hit the used market.

April 3 - If you're looking at MetroPCS prepaid plans, we can tell you that they are going to be increasing their unlimited LTE data plan to $70 per month. The other MetroPCS prepaid plans are also seeing the following changes: the $60 LTE plan will have a limit of 5GB, the $50 LTE plan will have 2.5GB limit and the $40 LTE plan will have 250MB limit. Go beyond the limits and you will have your speeds throttled. MetroPCS says that if you go above the limits, your speed will be more like the 3G network. Speed will however go back to LTE at the start of the next monthly billing cycle. Be aware folks! Read more details on MetroPCS here.

March - We're doing a lot of digging around the internet to find the most prepaid smartphone service providers. The good news is that more and more companies are selling smartphones! Expect a lot of new resources over the coming days and weeks. We are pretty excited to see some healthy compeititon in the pay as you go smartphone category. We noticed that Frawg Wireless, owned by nTelos, has quite an excellent variety of pay as you go smartphones. Windows phone and the Xperia Play which is rare to see on prepaid plans!

We're pusing out some new content and pages! We're going to add company specific pages with their full listings of smartphones. Check out our new Boost Mobile and Virgin Mobile page.

February - Prepaid iPhone anyone? Read the emerging story here. Straight Talk prepaid is going to be making headlines in the coming weeks. The competition is about to get amazing for prepaid smartphones! Straight Talk will have a $45 per month unlimited voice and data plan for used AT&T or T-Mobile GSM smartphones, excluding BlackBerry.

We've updated out current prepaid smartphone listings table. Updated content and reviews coming up next!

January 7- Since we're into 2012, we should talk about the prepaid smartphone forecast for the year. We're expecting a lot of new smartphones to show up in the pay as you go category. The last quarter of 2011 was excellent and that trend will only get better! Join us for the lastest prepaid smartphone news in 2012.

2011 Previous News Updates

November 1 - Currently a pretty nice deal on the prepaid Motorola Triumph from Virgin Mobile at Amazon.com. Here is the link:

$259 (save $40) Motorola Triumph Prepaid Android Phone (Virgin Mobile)

October 24 - We are just assembling a prepaid smartphone reviews page. We are going to provide photos, specs, pros and cons of all the available prepaid smartphones on the market. This will be a one page summary which you can look over to find details on all available pay as you go smartphones. We hope you like it!

We've just noticed a new pay as you go smartphone coming to Boost Mobile. They have a product page and have on listed it as "coming soon". Well it's coming Novemeber 2 for a price of $249.99. As Boost Mobile boasts, the ZTE Warp has the largest touchscreen and the highest megapixel camera in the Boost Mobile Android smartphone lineup.

Details of the upcoming ZTE Warp prepaid smarphone:

• Android 2.3 Gingerbread
• 1GHz processor
• microSD up to 32GB (2GB card included)
• 5MP camera with auto-focus and LED flash
• GPS-enabled
• Stereo Bluetooth® technology
• Easy access to Gmail and Google Talk
• Wireless Web enabled
• Mobile ID and Boost Zone

Check out official screenshots and detail on the Boost Mobile product page here.

October 13 - Cricket has just announced today a new prepaid smartphone to their line-up! It's the Samsung Transfix which is a slider smartphone! Check out MyCricket.com for details. It's available for $179.99 and should be up on their site tomorrow. According to the press release today, it's available now.

Details of the Samsung Transfix from Cricket:

• full slide out QWERTY keyboard
• Android 2.3 Gingerbread
• 800MHz processor
• 3.2-inch touchscreen
• 3.2-megapixel camera with camcorder
• microSD slot with up to 32-gigabyte expandable memory
• includes all of the popular Android apps like Gmail, YouTube and Google Search, plus the Android market that now features more than 200,000 applications and games.

October 2 - Rumors keep persisting about a new cheap model iPhone 4. Does cheap mean prepaid? Read more here.

August - CNET has done a story about the second quarter financial results for prepaid providers and it's bleak. It's a bit more than traditional seasonal down turns. Our comment? If these prepaid providers like Metro PCS, Tracfone and Leap Wireless don't increase their smartphone selection, guess what? Of course customers have to look elsewhere. If the customers and public out there is in smartphone mode and those companies don't offer them, people have no choice but to move to a prepaid carrier that does have smartphones. It's pretty simple. I'm sure as these companies increase their selections of Android prepaid smartphones, the customers will not turnover to the extent they are. Bulletin: Sell more prepaid smartphones and you will stop losing customers. Simple!

July 29 - The new Motorola Triumph prepaid smartphone from Virgin Mobile USA is now available! It's priced at $299.99. Check it out on the official Virgin Mobile USA website

Video Review of the Motorola Triumph:

June 12- New details about the Virgin Mobile pay as you go smartphone that was announced a few days ago. Have you heard of Motoblur? Well, the Android experience will not be decorated by Motoblur. This means you get Android as is. They are calling this a "true Android experience". This is sounding like a top choice in the prepaid smartphones market.

June 9 - Add another prepaid smartphone. Virgin Mobile has just announced their first Motorola smartphone for their no contract pay as you go service. No exact release date but we have a few details. This prepaid smartphone is the Motorola Triumph. Here is a breakdown of the specs:

• Price - $25 per month with 300 voice minutes or unlimited voice is $60 per month
• Release date - Summer 2011
• 1 GHz Snapdragon processor
• 4.1-inch WVGA display
• 800 x 400 pixel resolution
• Android 2.2
• 2GB storage
• 512MG RAM
• 5 megapixel camera
• 1400 mAh battery
• 143g (5.04 ounces)
• 4.8” x 2.5” x 0.4”
• HD Video capture (720p)

We will have more detail coming up! Read a mini review by PCMag.com.

[ click here for all our previous news updates ]