The Big 4: A breakdown by Price December 24, 2009
Posted by David in : AT&T, Providers, Sprint, T-Mobile, Verizon , 4commentsRecently a lot of noise on the internet has been made about which provider is better. Of course most of this noise is in fact made by the providers them selfs. And although the point of this post is not to tell you which one is better I do hope it gives you an idea what which provider would fit in your budget.
I will be looking at plans from Verizon, AT&T, Sprint, and T-Mobile. I will look at comparable plans for the individual. In each case I will be looking at smart phone plans. For Verizon I will be looking at the Motorola Droid. AT&T I will be looking at the HTC Tilt 2. With Sprint it will be the Palm Pre and T-mobile I am looking at the MyTouch. Although for the sake of the test phone price will not really be considered. I will get insurance with each of the plans and I will not pay for extra features like visual voice mail and ring back tones.
The plan I will look at first is minimum 450 anytime minutes. Unlimited mobile to mobile and unlimited text and picture messages. The plan will also have unlimited data. On a side note all 4 providers made me pick an unlimited data plans with these devices.
Verizon: 450 Nationwide Select Calling plan.
Plan includes 450 anytime minutes and unlimited text and picture messages. You also receive unlimited calling to any Verizon wireless customer. Unlimited nights and weekends. Nights start at 9:01 pm and ends at 5:59 am. Cost is $59.99. Unlimited data w/o exchange support is $29.99 insurance adds $6 a month. Visual Voice mail not included.
Total month Price (sans tax) – $95.98
Sprint: Everything Data with Any Mobile, Anytime (450 Minutes).
Plan includes 450 anytime minutes and unlimited text and picture messaging as well as unlimited data. Also as long as you are connected to a Sprint network tower unlimited mobile to mobile calling regardedless of the network you are calling. Cost is 69.99. Insurance $7 a month. Weekends start at 7pm and end at 7am.
Total Monthly Price (sans tax) $76.99
AT&T: 450 Nation plan with roll over.
Plan includes 450 anytime minutes with roll over as well as 5000 nights and weekends (don’t let the limit on nights and weekends fool you 5000 minutes is over 83 hours). Unlimited data is $30 a month and unlimited text and picture messages $20. You can get the the Smart Phone personal bundle for $50 which includes unlimited data and messaging. Insurance is $4.99 a month
Total Monthly Price (sans tax) $94.98
Quick note about T-Mobile, they have recently started offering two plans. The first gives you no discount on the phone but costs about $10 a month less and has no contract. The second gives you a discount but requires a two year contract. When shopping with T-Mobile you had to look at how much of a discount you are getting if it is more then $240 you will be saving money with the two year contract. Any less then that and you save money by not getting a discount on the phone. For the sake of the comparison I will be using the non contract price.
T-Mobile: 500 Even more plus. Unlimited Text+Web
Plan includes 500 anytime minutes and unlimited mobile to mobile, Nights and weekends and unlimited text and data. Insurance is $5.99.
Total Monthly Cost: $65.98
As you can see Verizon is the most expensive with AT&T close behind with just a dollar difference and Sprint saving you less then $19 dollars over Verizon and the less expensive is T-Mobile saving you a whopping $30 a month. Honestly not that big of a difference.
Finally we have full unlimited plans same phones same features, but will also included unlimited calling. All prices with be without tax.
Verizon Total Monthly for unlimited – $155.99
AT&T Total Monthly for Unlimited – $154.98
Sprint Total Monthly for Unlimited – $99.99
T-Mobile Total Monthly for Unlimited – $85.98
As you can see Verizon and AT&T are still very close and not even AT&T can argue that Verizon has much better coverage. Sprint does make it simple The simply everything plan gives you all the features without worry. Of course T-Mobile does the same and beats the price by a little more the $14, That being said T-Mobile also has better coverage then Sprint.
Blog rebirth December 24, 2009
Posted by David in : Technology , add a commentAs some of you may know recently I started posting to a new blog site. This site was tied directly with my gaming guild Covenant of the Phoenix which was good. I had a number of visitors from the guild and based on the stats I was bringing a lot of visitors to the page which meant potential recruits. Unfortunately due to a mistake by the guild web host the websites data base was corrupted and I lost about 2 months worth of posts. This however game me the prefect chance to revisit and rebirth the blog. I know I had a lot of people following the blog and since I am going to use the same means to notify my readers of post, I am hopeful that most will continue to read my ramblings.
However I want to do things differently. In the past I had posted when I felt like with no regard to a schedule. I would go days even week without posting followed by multiple posts in a day. The topics would range from a game review to some random video I once saw You Tube to an overly length account on some random thing that happened somewhere. These are the things I want to change. I want my readers to be able to come here knowing what they will see. And I want them to know they will see a editorial style blog focused on technology.
How am I going to do this you ask. First I will be starting a weekly review post focused on various subjects. New games, cell phone releases, impending device releases, completely baseless rumor mongering. Basic all the information I pull in from various sources during the week summed up by what I think is the most interesting (such as the possible Jan 5th release of the Nexus one). Second I am going to start writing reviews weekly. Sometimes the review will be from a game I have recently started playing, other times it will be of some app I just downloaded. In fact the first review I plan to do is going to be of the WP Iphone app I just downloaded for my ipod touch.
But really that is just the beginning, as you look over all the successful blog on web one of the first things you notice is the fact that they are not done by one person in fact with one or two exception all the blogs I read daily have at least 3 people posting. Sadly at this time it is just me but that is something I am hoping to change. As I am writing this I am currently considering two other people to contribute to the blog. What they will be able to offer is varying opinions and reviews and editorials of their own. Now at this time a lot of this is still being worked on. I can tell you that I will be posting again soon with the WP IPhone app review.