COOL

[dsclaiborne31]

I have a blackberry 9530 storm that I unlocked yesterday to work on any network. It is pretty cool I just take the sim card from another network and put it in there and the storm works on that network.

[tigwelder56]

I've been buying my cell phones on EBay for years and they have all been "Unlocked". That allows you to use any provider available in most cases. Well worth doing IMO! You don't have to keep renewing your contract and even though the phone is more expensive buying it this way, the convenience and lack of contract make it worthwhile.



DSC. did you have an existing Blackberry account? ATT was charging me an extra $50 bucks a month just to have it and I wasn't terribly impressed with it.

[dsclaiborne31]

At the time that I was employed I had a blackberry account (unlimited) plan through verizon. I think my phone bill was 103.00 a month. I could afford it easy. Now that I am unemployed I have gone back to my old cell phone and deactivated the blackberry. This has saved me about 30.00 a month. I may be getting a job with t-mobile here soon and if that is the case I can get unlimited everything including black berry for like 34.00 a month. So now that my storm is unlocked I can use it on t-mobile if need be. ATT sucks around here and always has. They are notorious for dropping calls. Around here verizon has the best service.

[GOANRA]

I have verizon cell service with no land line. No more trotting to the phone & finding it's for the wife.

Verizon uses the CDMA technology. Sure wish they used the SIM cards, instead.

I'm thinking about getting an 'older' CDMA cell on ebay, used to do it just to avoid contracts, without all the new "capabilities" so my battery will last 2-3 days like they did on my last phone.



I just don't need 300 functions on my little cell phone.

Me & the wife have a decent $60./mo retired state employee discount ... which means $75/mo with all the misc fees that no one can explain. 700 mins & 250 texts, between both phones, & free calls to any Verizon user. Good enough for us.

[dsclaiborne31]

Goanra verizone has several phones that have sim cards in them.

[GOANRA]

dsclaiborne31, thanks for the tip! I may have to look into that. Strange that the Verizon store never mentions it. [??]

[dsclaiborne31]

Goanra,





They won't mention it because they want you to use "their phone with their service" Heck people have been unlocking the iphones and using them on verizon.



If I am not mistaken just about every phone on this list has a sim card.



http://www.verizonwireless.com/b2c/store/controller?item=phoneFirst&action=viewPhoneOverviewByDevice&deviceType=3G%20Smartphones&lid=//global//phones+and+accessories//cell+phones

[dsclaiborne31]

Lots of people unlock theirs especially if they are going over seas. You can buy pre paid sim cards from cell providers over there. Put it in your phone and use it until it is used up so you are not using verizon, att etc and paying out the butt.

[GOANRA]

I knew about the SIM cards folks buy overseas for affordable use, but I never lived anywhere where I could use ATT. Been with Verizon about 12 years now.

I'll prob have to buy a phone on ebay [done it before]. Wife wants a keyboard for texting.

Myself, I'm good with 3 word sentences most the time so I don't really need anything but "small".

[tigwelder56]

This has to be one of the coolest websites (content) I've seen in a very long time. This is a picture painted by McNaughton, "One Nation Under God". You can move your mouse over the painting and get a name and the description of their importance to the founding of this country. It's followed by some comments that are a worthy read. I hope you enjoy it. Please share it.

http://mcnaughtonart.com/artwork/view_zoom/?artpiece_id=353