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ZTE Valet
Tracfone
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I just recently got a "smart" phone, the ZTE Valet 3G phone. Sure, it's not as fast or new or beautiful as the Moto X, but then again, I only paid $50 for the phone. And the service, using Tracfone, is just incredibly cheap compared to the national carriers (which typically starts at $40 a month for talk and data).
Tracfone's rates (using the 'triple minutes' phones) are about 180 mins, 180 texts, and 180 MB of data, for the cost of $20. The best part is that this also buys you 90 days of service, which means if you don't talk or use data that much, you don't actually have to pay another $20 until three months later. Also, your minutes and data also carries over. Compared to other prepaid services (including Tracfon's Net10), Tracfone is the most convenient and affordable service, at least in the U.S.
Again, I should stressed that the ZTE Valet phone is not the best, and definitely not the fastest, phone on the market. You are only using this as a budget phone, as it barely runs Android Jelly Bean, with its Qualcomm Snapdragon S1 MSM7625A chip, and terrible low pixel screen (165ppi), and the 3mp camera quality is simply terrible ... still, for $99 (retail), it's actually not bad! Especially if you consider that a standalone GPS device costs about the same (the phone comes with GPS and Google Maps).
The phone comes with 4mb internal and a 4mb micro SD card. The first thing I did was swap out the SD card for 16mb so I can store games, movies, and music on it. Movies playback is not good or smooth, but to be fair, it's not like you're going to be watching a full feature film on a tiny 3.5 screen.
Battery life is not great either, they lists "6 hours", but it's more like 3 hours on normal use. Standby mode should last you the full day, though.
Testing the phone out on the field, I love the ability to easily turn on and off the data service using the "power bar" on the phone. This bar also lets you turn WiFi and GPS on and off to conserve battery life.
On the positive side, since it's Android, there are a few free SNES emulator you can download. If you have a Moga controller, you can connect it via Bluetooth and play some games on your ZTE phone. You can grab the pocket Moga controller for $12 via Groupon now.
Tracfone's rates (using the 'triple minutes' phones) are about 180 mins, 180 texts, and 180 MB of data, for the cost of $20. The best part is that this also buys you 90 days of service, which means if you don't talk or use data that much, you don't actually have to pay another $20 until three months later. Also, your minutes and data also carries over. Compared to other prepaid services (including Tracfon's Net10), Tracfone is the most convenient and affordable service, at least in the U.S.
Again, I should stressed that the ZTE Valet phone is not the best, and definitely not the fastest, phone on the market. You are only using this as a budget phone, as it barely runs Android Jelly Bean, with its Qualcomm Snapdragon S1 MSM7625A chip, and terrible low pixel screen (165ppi), and the 3mp camera quality is simply terrible ... still, for $99 (retail), it's actually not bad! Especially if you consider that a standalone GPS device costs about the same (the phone comes with GPS and Google Maps).
The phone comes with 4mb internal and a 4mb micro SD card. The first thing I did was swap out the SD card for 16mb so I can store games, movies, and music on it. Movies playback is not good or smooth, but to be fair, it's not like you're going to be watching a full feature film on a tiny 3.5 screen.
Battery life is not great either, they lists "6 hours", but it's more like 3 hours on normal use. Standby mode should last you the full day, though.
Testing the phone out on the field, I love the ability to easily turn on and off the data service using the "power bar" on the phone. This bar also lets you turn WiFi and GPS on and off to conserve battery life.
On the positive side, since it's Android, there are a few free SNES emulator you can download. If you have a Moga controller, you can connect it via Bluetooth and play some games on your ZTE phone. You can grab the pocket Moga controller for $12 via Groupon now.
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ZTE running Mario Brothers with Moga Controller |
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