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Best Ultra Mobile plans in 2024
Ultra Mobile is a prepaid carrier with a focus on international features and even offers support in English, Spanish, and Mandarin
Ultra Mobile is a prepaid carrier with a focus on international calling and multi-month savings. Ultra Mobile includes free calls and texts to 90 international destinations, including China and India. Ultra Mobile even offers customer support in English, Spanish, and Mandarin, making it a great fit for those that have recently moved to the U.S. that don’t want to try to troubleshoot problems in a second language.
Best Mint Mobile phone plans in 2024
Mint Mobile has a wide range of data plans starting as low as $15, plus great deals on the latest handsets
Mint Mobile’s combination of clever marketing and cheap prices have kept it relevant since it launched with its unusual multi-month plans. While many carriers now offer multi-month plans, Mint’s plans are still some of the best value on the T-Mobile network and their straightforward layout makes it easy to understand what you have to pay.
The big three wireless carriers — AT&T, T-Mobile, and Verizon — offer premium experiences with great deals on new phones, but for many people, the deals are not worth their high asking price and multi-year commitments. Instead, a prepaid plan provides all the speed and coverage most people need for a lot less. And since prepaid carriers use coverage from one or more big carriers, you won’t need to give up coverage to save money. Whether you’re a light user looking for a cheap plan or a heavy user needing an unlimited connection, there’s a prepaid plan for you on every major network.
MobileX MVNO review: It's all in the app
MobileX is an MVNO on Verizon's network that predicts your usage to build the perfect plan for your needs.
If you’re shopping for phone service, it can feel like every carrier quietly pushes customers toward its pricier plans whether that’s through promotions on new phones or by tempting customers with features they can’t fully utilize. MobileX feels different from any other carrier I’ve used; there’s a trial period designed to help you understand how much data you actually need, and an app that’s both clean and useful. Once you’re up and running, MobileX works like any other Verizon-based MVNO, but the app makes the service feel unique with fine controls over how you use your data, and how much of it you’re actually using.
Are Visible phones unlocked?
If you buy a phone from Visible, you have to use it on Visible for at least 60 days
Visible by Verizon is a prepaid carrier that sells a wide range of Android and iOS devices. These phones are designed to work on the Verizon network that Visible uses for all its connectivity. If you know you'll be sticking with Verizon for a while, buying your phone from Visible could be the right choice. On top of that, Visible often has discounts or bonuses like prepaid gift cards for phone purchases.
Verizon reworks its prepaid plans, unceremoniously kills its budget tier
Who can get by with just 5GB a month these days?
Verizon offers a handful of great service plans through its branded carriers like Visible, which has consistently had some of the best prepaid plans in the business, and the recently rebadged Total by Verizon. Because Big Red already has those prepaid operations on its rolls, we're a little surprised proper Verizon Prepaid plans are still a thing. Well, they are and they've just been remade.
Newly rebranded Total by Verizon shares some tempting multiline discounts on prepaid plans
And if that weren't enough, have some Disney+
Verizon is relaunching one of the prepaid carrier brands that came as part of its acquisition of TracFone Wireless. With Total Wireless becoming Total by Verizon, customers will be getting used to new ways to pay for phones as well as interesting new service plans that are generally less appealing than what Big Red offers on another prepaid carrier it owns. That said, Total isn't exactly for Visible's audience.
AT&T doubles the data on one of its plans while keeping the same price
You need to pay for a year of service that you'll use one month at a time
Having to shop around for a new wireless carrier plan these days? We don't envy you. If you're looking at what the Big Three have to offer, you're going to find plenty of mentions of the word "unlimited" and bundled-in streaming services that you may or may not want, especially when you consider the asking prices for some of these plans. But the iceberg spans wide and deep and this promo from AT&T's own-brand prepaid division should give you some pause, especially if you can afford your cell service on an annual basis.
Samsung's LTE-only Galaxy A13 debuts with a better screen, more cameras, and a 50% off deal
AT&T will sell you Samsung's latest for under $100
Samsung released the A13 5G earlier this year, and we liked that phone a lot. There's now another phone using the A13 moniker, but this one doesn't have 5G. That's not the only difference, and it's actually better in some ways, but the result is a phone that costs less than its sibling -- much less if you take AT&T up on its 50% off launch deal.
You can save $400 on a Galaxy Z Flip3 if you're willing to give Boost Mobile a try
Dish is hoping this deal will give its carrier a boost
Pre-orders for Samsung's most affordable foldable smartphone yet are over, but the deals screaming out at us about free Galaxy Z Flip3 devices are still fresh in our minds. If you're willing to make some compromises, though, you can get a Flip3 for just $600 right now. No kidding.
AT&T graciously offers free device downgrades for customers affected by 3G shutdown
Free is free, but is free always good?
AT&T is shutting down its 3G network next February and is prepared to give its customers a new phone for free lest their current one becomes useless —that is, they can't place calls over LTE. Just don't expect the carrier to go to great costs for your replacement.
Verizon's new prepaid plans get cheaper the longer you subscribe
Starting with a $5 discount after 3 months
It's been at least a few months since Verizon changed its rate plans, and you know what that means. Yes, we are long past due for new Verizon plans. The carrier's latest prepaid plans offer several data tiers as usual, but now you get $5 discounts after three and nine months as a customer.
After some whiplash, Dish set to acquire Boost from T-Mobile
Virgin Mobile and Sprint's own prepaid customers will also move over
One of the laces left untied in the closure of the Sprint and T-Mobile merger was the condition that the combined carrier would sell prepaid entity Boost Mobile to Dish Network. Now, after a blip of a possibility that the satellite company would back out of negotiations, the two have officially locked into the divestiture deal.
One of the key pieces to our digital identities, whether we like it or not, is our mobile phone number. You likely use it one way or another in a two-factor authentication login (you shouldn't). Thing is, as it's been demonstrated quite a few times, they can be easily hijacked in a few easy steps by malicious actors ringing up carriers' customer service representatives — many of whom are all too understanding in helping users out of what's supposedly a stressful situation. So, just how easy is it to steal someone's phone number on a prepaid network? Researchers at Princeton University say extremely so in a recently published whitepaper draft.
If you're a T-Mobile prepaid customer and have just received an email from the carrier, you might want to read it instead of sending it straight to trash: the company said it has blocked off unauthorized access to some of its subscribers' private information and that notified customers may need to take action.
If you break phones the same way you breathe air — as in you do it very often — having an insurance plan for your device might make sense to you. Manufacturers might offer policies, though most customers will go to their carriers... well, postpaid customers anyways. Prepaid customers haven't had much of an option in that aspect until when AT&T, with its partner Asurion, began offering its Mobile Protection plan back in April. This month, the carrier is working on boosting customer buy-in by offering open enrollment.
AT&T has a hankering to get more customers onto its network, so it's offering a double-data deal on one of its prepaid plans for the next three months. Instead of 8GB of high-speed data, new customers will get 16GB for $40 per month after autopay.
T-Mobile is a bit strange in that it has two prepaid branches: T-Mobile prepaid and the newly-renamed Metro by T-Mobile. Alongside its name change, Metro introduced two new plans with unlimited LTE at $50 and $60. T-Mobile has just added a new prepaid $50/month unlimited LTE plan of its own, though it doesn't seem quite as appealing as Metro's.
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Verizon's prepaid service used to be of questionable value, but the carrier has aggressively lowered pricing in recent years. In 2017, it announced simplified, cheaper pricing for prepaid, and now it's making prepaid plans an even better deal with more date for fewer dollars. You can even get unlimited prepaid data for as little as $65.
As Google Pay continues to add support for American financial institutions at an almost silly pace, the service is building international support a little more slowly. The mobile payments platform took another baby step today: Google Pay now supports Suica and WAON, two widely-used Japanese e-money cards.