My wife was ready to go cell phone shopping since her 3 year term was about to expire in a few months. Last month I did some research into prices and features for the iPhone 4 vs. BlackBerry Torch, and after careful consideration my wife decided to go with the BlackBerry Torch for her new cell phone.
According to my research, Rogers was offering the best deal on a 3 year contract, however we currently have a contract with TELUS and they just happened to have sent us a special offer to upgrade the phone early (crafty marketers, right?).
Cell Phone Shopping For The Best Deal
Cell phone shopping can be a bit stressful if you aren’t sure what you want or need. Sometimes the sales associate will try and upsell you on a package with an unlimited plan, which may sound great at the time, but you may not need all of those extras.
We made sure to look up the total minutes and data that my wife used over the past year to determine what she would need with a new cell phone. If you only use 100MB of data every month, why pay for 1GB or more in your monthly plan?
Related: How To Avoid The Upgrade Cycle
These new smart phones are really expensive, so to purchase the BlackBerry Torch without a 3 year contract would have cost us over $600. Of course, the cell phone shop wants you to “lock-in” for a long term committment so they entice you with a deal for a 3 year contract.
Luckily for us, TELUS was offering an in-store deal that was better than what was advertised on their website, so we got the phone for only $149.
Being a fairly thrifty individual, what I was concerned about was the monthly recurring charges going up substantially over my wife’s last phone. However, this deal from TELUS was offering the following package:
- Voicemail
- 5 Favourite Numbers Free
- Conference Calling
- Call Waiting
- Caller ID
- Outbound Call Display
- Unlimited Messaging
- Free Local Nights and Weekends (from 6pm)
- Data Flex Plan (1GB per month)
This rate plan will cost us $63/month, which is actually down $3/month from the previous cell phone.
Of course the cell phone shop was not completely finished with us, as the sales associate brought over a new screen protector, a new car charger, and a variety of new skins to choose from.
Related: Why We’re Not In A Post-PC World
Not to mention the inevitable extended warranty pitch. I declined the extended warranty but made sure to make the purchase with my American Express card which has a Buyer’s Assurance Protection Plan that doubles the manufacturer’s warranty up to one additional year.
Cell phone shopping was actually a lot of fun this weekend. My wife got a great new phone that she really wanted, we managed to save a couple of bucks a month on the recurring monthly charges, and then we got to take our daughter to see Santa! Win, win, win.
How about the readers, any smart phone users paying much less or much more per month?
