Sim Card Compatability--Cingular SMT5600

[icallmedan]

My current cell phone service is Virgin Mobile. I am finding that I am spenind about $40/month with them, so it would be cheaper and more beneficial for me to get a plan with more minutes for the same amount of money.

I have a question though, I would like to stay with the pay as you go service, but this time get it from Cingular. (Thier 29.99/month no contract service). Their phone selection for the prepaid service is pretty limited, and I really want to get a smart phone. My question is, could I get a GoPhone from cingular for $29.99 and take that sim card out and use it in the Audiovox SMT 5600 smart phone, also from Cingular. Do I need one that has been unlocked? Would what I want to do work?!

[Mike Temporale]

You should be fine. The phone is locked to a carrier, so taking a SIM out of any Cingular phone and placing it in another Cingular phone should be just fine.

[Sven Johannsen]

You don't even need to get a GoPhone. You can just get a SIM and service from Cingular and put it in any unlocked, or Cingular phone you have. Trick is getting the SMT5600. I'm not sure Cingular will sell it to you without the contract, and if they do it certainly will be full price. An unlocked SMT bought from the Web, will be expensive as well.

Do be careful of Cingular's pay-as-you-go plans. One of them charges you a dollar each day you make a phone call, on top of the time charges. If you make a call each day, that's $30 minimum. The plan that doesn't have the daily use charge is significantly higher in the per minute price, $0.25 as opposed to $0.10/min. It appears you can only access data on Pay-as-you-go phones at the per-data rates, 1¢/KB. That can add up fast.

Pay as you go plans, are really only a good deal if you don't use your phone. Think about it, at 25¢/min, you get 160 minutes to equal the $40 you are spending now, a bit over 5 min/day, and don't be doing any data. I'm not a heavy data user in my opinion, but last month I used 11,228KB That would be $112.28 at 1¢/KB. Thank goodness for unlimited data plans.

So if you gotta keep your calls to a minimum and really need to stay away from data, not sure why you need a smartphone. That's why PAYG plans come with basic phones.

EDIT
Well, guess I was looking at different plans than you. I see the $30 one with 200min. Do note it still has the 1¢/KB data feature. Be careful. A Smartphone may tempt you to use the data features.

[dbob]

The Cingular and ATT sim cards are different. If you have the ATT version of smt 5600, according to what I've read and been told, you should not be able to use the Cingular sim card and vice versa.

[Mark Larson]

A Smartphone is not a Smartphone without data access. Why don't you try T-Mobile with the cheap unlimited data? It opens up so many possibilities...

[Sven Johannsen]

A Smartphone is not a Smartphone without data access. Why don't you try T-Mobile with the cheap unlimited data? It opens up so many possibilities...

Cingular's unlimited data is the same price, $20. Both carriers require a minimum voice plan to qualify for that cheap data. There is that $5 T-zones thing, but it is hard to tell just what you get with that.