Gadgetory

prepaid phones get a bad rap it's partly because the industry is treated the prepaid market as a dumping ground for phones you couldn't pay me to use but they also take a PR hit every time Walter White needs to make phone call to take care of some unsavory business but things have changed instead of being the last refuge of the desperate prepaid phones that recently become a great choice for those who are both tech savvy and money savvy I'm Donald Bell and this top five I'm counting down the best reasons to ditch your contract and go with a prepaid plan starting off at number five Cash Money how many times is a cell phone bill overdrafted your checking account it's brutal not only are you reminded of how much you're overpaying for your phone but now you have an overdraft fee to pay on top of it prepaid phones keep things real simple you pay upfront for what you get and if you want to pay by cash check or credit card that's up to you cash payment is also a way to kill off any paper trail so whether you're a part-time pimp or maybe just live with an apple fanatic and you want to keep your secret Android phone off the books just walk into your local prepaid carrier and make it rain at number four no credit checks maybe the real reason you want to keep this phone off your credit card is because you can't be trusted with one anymore by going prepaid so long as you've got the money upfront you're good to go now there are some exceptions if you're not buying your phone hardware upfront but having it broken down into monthly payments well then yeah they're going to check your credit but if you can pay upfront for your phone and your plan there's nothing the man can do to shut you down coming in at number three service when you need it and money in your pocket when you don't not everybody needs a 4G smartphone twelve months out of the year so whether you're heading away to the Cayman Islands or maybe a couple months on Rikers Island you can rest assured that you're not on the hook for a phone you don't need take a month to try your luck at messenger pigeons or smoke signals if it doesn't work out you can just pick right up where you left off reason number two to go prepaid painless upgrades want to upgrade to that latest phone go buy it carrier doesn't support it change your carrier if prepaid turns out not to be your thing just toss it aside and go with a standard postpaid contract plan the point is whether you're fickle or maybe you've been burned by an awful phone or a ruthless carrier going prepaid gives you the ultimate freedom to change your mind now before I get to the number one reason to get prepaid cell phone service a try let's consider some reasons why it might not be right for you you're often dealing with fewer store locations fewer phones to choose from especially when it comes to hero phones like the galaxy s4 less coverage and most of all higher upfront cost there are no subsidies so you pay the real price for your phone for a good smartphone that could be $500 upfront or more kind of sucks but it may all be worth it when you account for our number one reason to go prepaid lower lifetime cost we ran the numbers on what it would cost to have the Samsung Galaxy s3 on two-year contract with Verizon compared to prepaid with metro pcs and for the same two years the total savings is a little over a thousand dollars it's not chump change now is the metro pcs Network as fast and robust as Verizon's probably not is it worth the extra thousand dollars and the shackles of a two-year contract well that's up to you so there you go five reasons to at least consider going with a prepaid cell phone plan for more analysis check out our senior editor Jessica dual courts post on scene at dialed in blog called prepaid or post paid the fight for your cell phone dollars more top buys like this top 5c Netcom Donnell Bell thanks for watching you