So . . . I just buy any old phone for calls only. Don't wanna text, take photos or make coffee. I pay $??.?? for some minutes I hope to never use and they will last forever? Or is it a use it or lose it proposition? I have been trying to figure this out for years and still can't get a straight answer.
I put choosing a cell phone up there with choosing a car - just as complex, just as riddled with hidden dangers and just as frustrating.
When the first Jitterbug - the Jitterbug J - was introduced it was a great concept: big, easy-to-see-and-use buttons for dialing, big display, a real dial tone and a simple flip-case. It had an activation fee of $35 and a monthly $14.99 plan for 50 minutes. There were bigger plans with similarly larger fees. Voice mail, texting and a bunch of other features were extra.
Now you have a choice between two models - the Plus, which offers an amplified speaker, a camera and a longer-lasting battery, for $99+$35 activation+$10S&H. You can still get 50 minutes for $14.99, 200 minutes for $19.99 or a few other calling packages.
Or the other model, the Touch, with a touch-screen interface (now it's getting complicated!) with data plans, apps and all the stuff that the original Jitterbug had sworn off. You can get Touched for $149.99 plus all the other fees, and their calling packages remain the same except that to make use of all the new apps you'll probably be forced into a more expensive plan.
Considering the market as a whole, $14.99 for 50 minutes is pretty high - that's $0.30/minute. The smallest package on my Tracfone is $9.99 for the same number of minutes - $0.20/minute. Of course, with any plan the more minutes you purchase the cheaper per minute they become.
You also pay indirectly for the privilege on having a no-contract phone, usually in the cost of your minutes. A "regular" cell phone such as you can pick up at Best Buy has extremely economical per-minute rates, but you're locked into a two-year contract. There are upstart companies such as
Republic, which advertise $19/mn for
unlimited voice, text and data, but as always there are catches - you have to purchase THEIR phone, which I believe is a Motorola DEFY - XT - and they haven't yet quite hit the big time, so caution is advised.
Reception is also always a consideration - certain models just won't work in certain areas. Each manufacturer has a website that offers a reception map, but you should only use those as a rough guide. Save your receipts, too, because there are a thousand little things that you might not like about the phone or that just flat-out don't work.
In the end, I think it boils down to what you NEED and how much BS you're willing to put up with. As with most other things in life, the less BS the more you'll probably pay.