Phone Solutions

This post was written, in part, for affordablecallingcards.net where Julia writes about her expat adventures, as well as on this blog. You can follow her in both places.


I'm in the U.S. for a little while, and while I am here, I'd like a cell phone to use. There are plenty of places that sell inexpensive phones with pre-paid plans. But I want:

1. A Querty keyboard, so I can text message easily because I'm a total boob at texting on a regular keypad.
2. A phone that I can unlock and has GSM quadband so I can pop in my Argentine prepaid phone card when I get back to Argentina.

That's it. I don't want email, Internet-- all that stuff. Just a phone. A phone that I can call and text with. And I want to take it to South America with me.

AT&T is the only place that has a pre-paid phone with a Querty keyboard, but you have to go to a third-party retailer to have it unlocked, which is risky. If they do it wrong, you freeze your phone and it's no good.

Solution: I bought an unlocked phone from Overstock.com. It's a three-year-old Blackberry. I can't use all the data stuff, but I don't care, because I just want a cheap phone. I bought a SIMM card from AT&T, and I have a pay-as you-go phone. And I can pop in my Argentine SIMM card when I get to Argentina and have my Argentina # work. Plus, I have my Skype-in number forward to whichever phone I am using at the time.


The best part? It cost me about $80 dollars. Cheaper than the AT&T pay-as-you-go phone.

The 16:20 in the pic was an accident ;)