What Carrier Should I Get?

[Sara 4]

In your experience, which mobile carrier is good to get?

[Sara 4]

And I meant in the USA. What carrier is good to get to use in USA? The issue is that I am uncertain if I should buy a phone from here, or from USA. I want a nice android smartphone, along the likes of the latest Samsung Galaxy S, or the HTC.

The Galaxy S 6 is close to 800 dollars here. THe shopkeeper said it'll drop though. So I could get it then?

The other option is to buy a phone from the US. It will be cheaper. In fact, there are web only offers right now that are giving phones for freeeee!
The deal with that is that I'll have to get it on contract for 2 years. And the individual 2 year contracts are more expensive than the family ones which are more expensive than the monthly ones. Another thing is that when I come back, do those contract phones work outside the US?

How do the Monthly contracts work? They sound the cheapest, and I'll be going home for Dec etc so then I wont even have to pay for those months then (assuming this is the case for annual contracts).

Now what I want is a T mobil connection, and atleast 2 gb of internet. And if possible, free international sms.

Option 1. The monthly plans
http://prepaid-phones.t-mobile.com/monthly-4g-plans

1. a) The fifty dollars a month plan sounds good, but I'm not sure how much internet they will give. Does Unlimited mean Unlimited? Like for free? This plan will cost me 60 dollars a month, including international.
1. The seventy dollars a month plan. This will cost eighty dollars a month including international.

There wont be some benefits in this I think like T mobil hotspot usage etc, but I dont know how useful they are anyway. And the free nights, weekends, roaming charges etc ka bhi Im not sure.

Option 2. The individual plans
http://www.t-mobile.com/shop/plans/Cell-Phone-Plans.aspx?catgroup=Individual

2. a) 80 dollars a month. Unlimited talk+text+ 2 gb data. I dont think there is any international text allowance here
2. 70 dollars a month. 500 minutes+ text+ 2 gb data.

Option 3. The family plans.
http://www.t-mobile.com/shop/plans/cell-phone-plans.aspx?catgroup=family
I need to find a family   But these plans are cheaper than the individual ones.
A friend has a family plan with unlimited calls, texts, international messages and net and she pays only 80 dollars a month.
I didnt analyse these individually.


I can buy a phone from the US with Options 2 and 3 I think. Please advise

[Sundus 12]

Hey Sara,

 

I ended up getting a Galaxy S phone from pakistan. And I was using T-mobil's $50 a month monthly plan, with unlimited international sms in the beginning. But it was redundant as almost everyone I know has whatsapp now (including my mother ), so I switched to the $30 plan.

Best thing about monthly is that there isnt a fixed fee; so in months I was travelling internationally, I switched my plan to $2 a day for the rest of the month. This way I didn't have to pay for the whole month

[Sundus 12]

I had asked similar questions to a friend when I was leaving for USA. Please find his reply below. It may be a bit outdated but you'll get the gist of his recommendations
 

 

okay so heres the deal...you should DEFINITELY buy your phone from here...apart from it being cheaper here (maybe) ...its just a lot more convenient (warranty..plans...will phone work or not...etc etc etc). okay so buy phone definitely from here (plus more options here). 

 

Next up are the plans...I really think you should get a family plan...totally your choice... itll be cheaper for you. But...you only get 200 MB with it every month. Now..I have no idea what you wanna do with 2 gb worth of web but  I check my mail a lot in the mornings as well as facebook, wikipedia, cricinfo, google maps (A LOT) and a lot of other websites everyday on it and I never ever cross the 200 MB mark. A friend does more surfing on her mobile than me and she never crosses the 200 MB mark either. Also, you can download 40 songs videos on it (200/5) (if you dont use the web for any other reason of course)...I mean you can just download stuff on your laptop and then transfer it to your mobile...so no downloading needed on mobile. But if you absolutely MUST download episodes and tons and tons of song videos every month then yes you will need unlimited web or at least 2 gb. Then that takes me to the next point.

 

About the phone....yeaaaaaa I try to avoid contracts here in the U.S. until I'm absolutely positive I'm gonna be living here for at least another five years... apart from that you do know that your phone in a contract is not really free...they charge you higher rates for the contract. Now, t-mobile also offers monthly payments on phone WITHOUT a contract as well thus effectively making your normal rate plan a contract plan if you have monthly payments:D BUT for a samsung galaxy phone...I did the calculations...and the 2 year contract is cheaper if you want the 2 gb data.

 

Heres another catch...if you join a family plan...you won't be able to buy a new phone and have it on monthly payments (without a contract) because people have mostly exhausted their credit line on phones. But if it's a new family plan with new members, it's worth a check.