It is a quad-band GSM phone so it worked in Australia,
easy. Just dropped in a SIM and I
had data and voice.
I've known for a long time that with AT&T cell phones, I
can receive emails as text messages.
For instance, my cell phone is with AT&T's prepaid GoPhone service
now. An email sent to 3602593915@mms.att.net
will send that email as a text message to my phone. When I am on the road, I have Gmail automatically forward
all business emails to me using this email address, and I get them as text messages.
I've had other cheap phones and got the emails as texts,
but they were truncated and messed up.
I could generally figure out what the email was about, so that was OK,
but not great.
With this phone, however, the texts come through formatted
clearly and just like emails. I've
even gotten someone's profile picture associated with an email. The really amazing thing is that I can
reply to an email through my phone as a text message, and that email will go to
the proper email address. The only
downside is that person will see that email from a mysterious email address,
something like 3602593915@mms.att.net.
So I am paying $25 every three months to keep my plan alive,
and pay $0.10 per minute for voice.
I rarely send or receive calls through my cell; everything is routed
through Google Voice which makes everything free. I rarely use any funds from my GoPhone account since I rarely make calls or take calls through my cell phone. Every three months, the remaining
amount rolls over and gets added to the new $25 fee. For instance, my balance is $53 right now since I hardly use
the phone for incoming or outgoing calls.
I get my emails as part of a text package (200 texts for 30 days) which costs $5 per month off the $25 per three
months.
If you retire and must go frugal, this is the way to
go. About $8.33 per month for
voice calls, texting, and emails too!
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