Have you bought a cell phone other than from your provider?

[yy4me]

E-bay or another source? We need a new phone, preferably one with good size buttons and that will fold. Have had several accidental calls made because we forgot to engage the lock feature. It is carried around in the pocket. This time the accidental call was long and will cause a big overage on this months allowed minutes. I don't want to go to my provider for a phone and pay full freight. Any suggestions? Have a Nokia now but it is not a folding phone.

Source and model?

[Bjornsdotter]

1. My son did

He bought it off of ebay, saved money and it works great, no problems.

If you are interested I can ask him what model he has.

Cheers


Edit for:
spoke with the boy child....he bought a Sidekick 2

[blues90]

2. I got one off ebay

My old one did not fold and the lock feature was a pain . I had it in my shirt pocket one day , bent over to flush the toilet and in it went .

All you need is one now with the tracking chip whatever that's called (GPS) ? or most providers won't let you use it .

[Jonathan50]

3. My wife has a Nokia 6103

Works well, pretty decent camera, FM radio, folding.

http://reviews.cnet.com/Nokia_6103_T_Mobile/4505-6454_7...

[Pavulon]

4. ebay

just make sure it is provider specific. You can get a get smartphone like a treo 650 for around 220 with stuff. They will activate it with the ESN and put internet connectivity on it as well. (29.99) additional.

It is like a little computer.

You can get a treo 700 that runs windows mobile os and use the office suite and exchange if you like for around 300.

[lapfog_1]

5. I've been on the receiving end of an accidental butt call

buddy had his phone with him while fishing outside the Golden Gate... it called me and for a few minutes I got to listen in on a bunch of fishing conversation (very muffled) until I figured it out, hung up, called him up and told him to lock the buttons so I didn't get another butt call.

And then I got myself a Moto-razor with no ability to place calls from MY pocket.

[Richard D]

6. eBay

After paying insurance on a phone-company phone for 3 years, losing it and discovering that I'd have to make a 50.00 payment to get the same phone, used, from Cingular, I looked on eBay and found the same phone for 15.00. Worked like a charm. Then that one broke after having a too-close encounter with a cup of coffee (never, ever, balance your phone on a cup of any beverage), I bought another phone on eBay that was a considerable upgrade. Works fine.

[bluedeminredstate]

7. We've bought several from Ebay

because Verizon wanted almost $200 per phone to replace them (hubby, kids, me). Every phone we got from Ebay has been great, although you might want to invest in a backup battery since these phones are ususually reconditioned and the battery may not have a long life ahead of it...
Just be sure you check that the phone is compatible with your provider and that your seller has really good feedback. Don't deal with anyone who charges you outrageous shipping charges or has less than 99% feedback. I think the name of our seller was Trumpwireless. My Motorola flip phone cost less than $20, and my son's camera phone was around $40. My husband's phones were less than $10 each, but he likes the older models...
So far so good with the phones, and I would never buy one from a Verizon,T-Mobile, etc., etc. storefront again. Having been screwed by Verizon several times on broken phones (one time on a $600 blackberry-type deal) it's clear they're running a racket.