Gear Review - Tracfone

I have a regular credit-based, get robbed blind... I mean BILLED at the end of the month cellphone plan, however between the fact that it's with AT&T , and that the phone is question is an Apple iPhone I have concerns about always having my cell available. AT&T's network isn't bad in most major areas, but when you start getting off of the beaten path, it gets real spotty, real fast and any Apple product pretty much has a giant "steal me" sign posted on it by default. On top of that the iPhone's screen is a giant touch-sensitive piece of glass, so if I break it, I'm SOL.

Enter the Tracfone:
I picked this bad boy up at Wal-Mart for $9.88, I paid in cash, and no one even asked my name. This is how buying a phone should be. Now the per-minute cost is INSANE, but minutes can be bought for as little as 10.00 and last 3 months base, you can add a card to make them last longer, or double the minutes at additional cost. All of the fees are pretty up front, and your individual usage will dictate which plan works best for you.

I opted for the Tracfone for a few reasons.
1: It's pre-paid
2: I can buy it and time in cash
3: When I activated it, shy of giving them a name (any name) and a zip code where I plan to use it (to choose the area code for your new number) they asked for no personal information.
4. It's cheap.

To be honest, for ten bones I was expecting a crappy phone. This little Samsung is pretty solid. The battery easily lasts fully charged a week, when the phone is turned off, and holds a charge just fine. (I charge it on Sundays and store it in the GHB the rest of the week.) It's fairly rugged, I've dropped mine a few times with no damage to note. And it works decently well, I can hear and be heard on it fine, which is more than I can say for some cellphones.

Also, I found this little gem about it :

The phone has a lanyard hole on the top, which with a bit of steel wire, the lanyard from an old MagLight solitaire (the light itself has long ago gone to the great trash bin in the sky), and an el-cheapo 'biner I was able to fashion in to a clip. Ask anyone who has even in passing met me, I loves me some clips.

Additionally, the only exterior opening has a little slide up door to cover it, which helps keep dust and general crap out of it.

Now, in a solid SHTF scenario, cell phones are going to be a no-go in all likely hood, but in anything more minor, cell service can remain either uninterrupted, or be restored more quickly than landline service. Additionally, cellphones are by their nature mobile, so lend themselves to a number of C3 applications.

Interesting side note: After hurricane Katrina hit the gulf-coast people with New Orleans phone numbers that had fled the area discovered that their phones could make, but not receive, calls. Turns out that the way the cell networks route call data, outgoing calls were leaving on the local networks just fine, but incoming calls were trying to be routed through the New Orleans area first, and getting stopped there by the devastated networks.

To counter this threat, when we activated our Tracfones, my wife and I each picked a ZIP code where we had family, in low-threat areas, that were far enough apart that a regional disaster would not effect both. Ideally even if our local network gets taken down, we should be able to use the Tracfones as back-ups.

Even better, I was able to pick up an emergency charger for about 12 bucks that uses regular AA batts to charge your phone should you find yourself in a bind, which I think could come in handy.

All in all you wouldn't get me to change over to the Tracfone for normal service, but as a backup phone goes, $9.88, plus $10.00 every three months or so is cheap insurance, and I think it's a good buy on any budget.