Best 5 Prepaid Cell Phones in USA Market

Mobile phone contracts suck. Buying a cell phone is more than a matter of choosing a handset--you also have to pick a service provider, or carrier, as well. Each carrier in the United States offers a different selection of technologies and services, so it's important to think about your needs when making a choice. The selection of pre-paid phones is poor and off-contract phones are expensive. But perhaps you simply aren’t willing to accept a contract, however, or simply don’t use much mobile data or many cell minutes. If that’s the case, a pre-paid phone makes a lot of sense even when compared to a non-contract monthly plan. So what are the best options?

T-Mobile

T-Mobile offers numerous pre-paid plans including monthly, daily and pay-as-you-go options. You can also purchase smartphones directly from T-Mobile even if you just want a pay-as-you-go option.

AT&T GoPhone

 

Pickings are slimmer at AT&T, which offers prepaid under the brand name of GoPhone. Plan options are not bad, however, and include monthly, daily and pay-by-the-minute options.
Unfortunately, there are not any affordable smartphone options sold for pre-paid users. You’ll want to look at another carrier if you want a solid but inexpensive pre-paid smartphone.

Verizon

 

You’ll only find monthly and daily pre-paid plans at Verzion, and if you go for the monthly unlimited or daily plan, your phone selection is reduced to “basic phones” – either flip-phones or feature phones. This is obviously not going to be acceptable to many geeks.
However, you’ll be paying for a monthly minute allowance regardless of how often you use them. If you want to go pre-paid because you don’t use many minutes or much mobile data, these plans aren’t going to save you any money.

Boost Mobile

 

Created specifically as a low-cost, no-contract carrier, Boost Mobile offers a number of plans with monthly, daily and pay-as-you-go options. However, the pay-as-your-go and standard monthly options lock you into basic and feature phones. You need to go for a daily or Android/BlackBerry monthly plan to obtain a smartphone.
Unfortunately the phone options aren’t going to blow you away. There’s only a few smartphones to choose from regardless of plan.

Virgin Mobile

 

This low-cost carrier only offers no-contract monthly plans. Virgin Mobile’s PayLo plan is the least expensive, offering 1,500 minutes for $30/month, but the phone choices are terrible.
If you go with a regular plan, however, you can buy some of the best value-oriented Android phones on the market.