[olug] [OT] Purchase new cell phones WITHOUT contract?

[Dave Weis]

Since the used/refurb phones are less than half the cost of new, 'insure' them yourselves and save the difference to buy a replacement used phone in the future. If they last 30 days and aren't abused, there's no reason they won't last a year.

-----Original Message-----
From: olug-bounces at olug.org [mailto:olug-bounces at olug.org] On Behalf Of Dan Linder
Sent: Monday, May 06, 2013 11:48 AM
To: Omaha Linux User Group
Subject: [olug] [OT] Purchase new cell phones WITHOUT contract?

(Delete this message if you're just looking for Linux/Unix discussions...)

My wife and I are looking at moving to Ting wireless (www.ting.com) - I estimate we'll drop to the $80-90 range with past usage of our two smartphones (Verizon DroidX Gingerbread).

Since Ting is a Sprint MVNO we can't bring our old phones over, but then we wouldn't want to: they have been dying strange hardware deaths (touch screen on my wifes dies and has to be powered off to reset, mine takes 30+ seconds to start a call, etc).

I was all set to pull the trigger last night and buy two refurbished phones via Ting, but my wife (The "Voice of Reason and Finance" in our house) got worried that we'd be trading in our old DroidX's for something else that only has a 30-day warranty.

Looking at new phones via Ting and Amazon (which I assume will have a year warranty), we're well into the $500-$600 range. :(

Aside from buying the phone from Ting.com or Amazon, are there other places to buy phones for Sprint that aren't tied to a contract and will have a decent warranty?

(I now return you to your regular Linux/Unix discussion.)

Thanks,
DanL

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