Sam

Are those tracphone cell phones good? I might get one.?

wernerslave

No, my nephew has one and it sounds like doo doo.

tammiavery2003

It depends on where you live, where you are trying to call and what company that you get. Do some reserach

morgan_loves_polina

If you don't want a phone bill. But texting costs 1/2 a minute and every minute is well one minute. They are pretty good.

Cassor

Tammiavery2003 makes a good point. From my experience, I've been very happy w/ tracphone. I use mine in major cities and rural areas. I've been able to get reception when others couldn't and yet to have a call dropped, something I can not say about the companies I've had contracts with! Tracphones are best when you do not use it as your main contact number. My phone is turned off most of the time. It's used for emergencies and pressing situations that require immediate phone access but a public phone can not be found. When I activated my Tracphone, I paid $130 for a year's service that came with 400 any time minutes and double-your-minutes "coupons". When I needed additional minutes, I paid $80 and got 800 minutes + carry over on my service date. Compared to what I would have paid if I was under a monthly contract plan, I've saved over $350 so far. Again, if you are going to use it as you main contact number, you are better off signing a contract with a company that provides the best service in your area and caters to your needs. But, if you are going to use it wisely and sparingly, Tracphone is the best pre-paid around.

Earl Camembert

If your nephew would wash his ears it might sound OK.

TracFone is a virtual cell phone company. They don't have a network they buy wholesale form Verizon, at&t and several other carriers.

The phones are made by Mote, Nokia, and LG mostly. I have more TracFones then you have fingers and toes many different Phone models from many manufactures and three different carriers.

Most of the phones are referb and I have only has a problem with two. As the phones were free, they came with a great air card deal I did not send them back.

Just for the record I would go with Verizon but the bastards won’t give me a discount.

iansltx

About Tracfone, it really depends on what provider\phone you get. All the Nokias are good phones, generally no matter what the provider is under it. The Motorolas are a bit less than 100% great, with the c139 being basic and maybe even losing minutes due to a software glitch. LGs, which you'll se e more of (the only one right now is the 3280) are not Nokias, but they're solid phones...

As far as service goes, now there's no price difference between the better-coverage CDMA phones (LG 3280 and Nokia 2126i are the "new-gen" SingleRate no-raming-fees-and-cheap-text phones) and the maybe-better-battery-life and maybe-better-features (like web and picture messaging on the newer ones) GSM phones. Problem is, GSM usually runs on Cingular...which is fine, unless you're actually using Cingular's junktastic native network lol.

So it really depends with Tracfone. I've had GSM lines with them on Nokia 1100s (basic but good), 2600s (better), Moto c139s (junky), c155s (slightly less junky) and a c261 (beautiful but got washed and never came back). All of those were on Cingular, roaming in my area on what is now part of Dobson CellularOne. I've also (or my parents) had the LG 3280 and the original Nokia 2126 on CDMA, and they're fine, on Verizon, roaming on pretty much everyone when needed (the LG roams for free, at least mine does). Oh, and my dad used to have a Nokia 1221 on TDMA (with Five Star Wireless as its home carrier, a local outfit with a fantastic signal).

So, bottom line is, things depend but mostly you'll get a positive experience with Tracfone. At least now you will; everything's gotten better with them :).