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Carrier iPhone 7 on prepaid cell plan?

T

Tzipi

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Sep 8, 2016
7
0
First of all, I accidentally posted this in the wrong forum and couldnt delete my post there. Hope it's okay to be reposting this where it belongs.

I might just be jumping the gun in all this but I'm desperate for a new phone. Only issue is I'm currently with Virgin Mobile and would like to stay prepaid (though open to other options for sure within the prepaid plan realm). I've got bad credit and I'm disabled so saving money is important. I've had other iPhones in the past(on plan from AT&T and Verizon), alwsys been an Apple girl, but due to cost and blah blah have been with Virgin with a cruddy $20 smartphone. I'm going insane from how awful this phone is (amazed its functional at all as it's almost 2 years old).

I don't fully understand how all this stuff works. My understanding is many or most Virgin phones have to be bought through them but I'm unsure if that's still the case with iPhone?

I intend to buy a phone outright. Ive got some savings to work with and im also in the process of moving to another state so best to buy the phone now and pay up front and get the most cost effective plan I can manage because after the move money is going to be much tighter for the foreseeable future.

Can I preorder one tonight or not? If I buy outright would it work with Virgin? Any othet recommendations for prepaid plans with iPhone 7 (would just like to stay away from anything Verizon related since I still owe them money). Moving to a major city so I should be pretty good for coverage (even was fine there with Virgin/ Sprint surprisingly). Or should I maybe calm down, suffer it out with my crap phone, and wait another week or to to see what the prepaid carriers are saying about iPhone 7?
 
If you want an iPhone 7, you have to wait until Virgin Mobile comes out with them. Virgin Mobile will not allow you to bring an unlocked iPhone to their network unless it's a Sprint iPhone, but even the Sprint iPhone 7 isn't allowed yet because it's so new.
 
Freakonomics101 said:
If you want an iPhone 7, you have to wait until Virgin Mobile comes out with them. Virgin Mobile will not allow you to bring an unlocked iPhone to their network unless it's a Sprint iPhone, but even the Sprint iPhone 7 isn't allowed yet because it's so new.
Click to expand...

Darn, that's what I was afraid of. Any other prepaid options I could do this with instead? Or similar wait game either way?
 
Virgin Mobile already sells the SE, which is a very respectable phone at considerably less than the 6s (and the upcoming 7).

Is it too small for you?

I really don't think the flagship phones are really a wise buy for you on account of the price, esp. if you'll have less money after the pending move.
 
bufffilm said:
Virgin Mobile already sells the SE, which is a very respectable phone at considerably less than the 6s (and the upcoming 7).

Is it too small for you?

I really don't think the flagship phones are really a wise buy for you on account of the price, esp. if you'll have less money after the pending move.
Click to expand...

Eh, yeah. Size is a big iesue for sure. My macbook I'd having hard drive issues and I use my phone for almost everything all the time. That and frankly I've got a 32GB iPhone 5 just sitting around. So what would be the point. Because im such a heavy phone user, the orice is worth it to me. My time is worth more than that you know? And the phone ive got now freezes up and has the worst battery life, won't switch back and forth well between keyboards (and I'm studying s foreign language so that's a pain).

I can afford the phone outright at this time. What I can't rely on is my ability to throw down $90 a month for the nect two years. Ive considered buying a 6 or 6s but I know from past experience how with each iOS uograde older phones get more snd more problematic. So in my mind, knowing I'm going to be using the phone so much and for at least a few years, why not just buy the latest one? While I can manage it.
 
I do prepaid with Cricket. It's $40/month - $5/month if you have a credit/debit card they can auto bill. That is for unlimited talk, unlimited txt, and 2.5 gb of "high speed" (typically throttled at about 7-10 Mb down) and unlimited "slow" data after that. It's pretty easy ... order a micro-sim kit from Cricket and buy an unlocked TMobile phone online from Apple (or Att/TMo/Ver in store where I don't think they require conrtact info like the website).
 
Tzipi said:
Eh, yeah. Size is a big iesue for sure. My macbook I'd having hard drive issues and I use my phone for almost everything all the time. That and frankly I've got a 32GB iPhone 5 just sitting around. So what would be the point. Because im such a heavy phone user, the orice is worth it to me. My time is worth more than that you know? And the phone ive got now freezes up and has the worst battery life, won't switch back and forth well between keyboards (and I'm studying s foreign language so that's a pain).

I can afford the phone outright at this time. What I can't rely on is my ability to throw down $90 a month for the nect two years. Ive considered buying a 6 or 6s but I know from past experience how with each iOS uograde older phones get more snd more problematic. So in my mind, knowing I'm going to be using the phone so much and for at least a few years, why not just buy the latest one? While I can manage it.
Click to expand...

Then I'd buy a 6s...more bang for the buck than the 7, and now the base is 32gb for $550 (or get the 128gb for 5650) .

Make sure to get the sim-free phone ...will work w/any carrier so you'll be all set when you move to new city.
 
Can anyone say for certain that a "sim-free" iPhone will work on Virgin Mobile? I've had a iPhone 5s for 3 years it broke about 2 weeks ago. At this point I need a phone very bad. Between work, having a 6 year old son I don't live with, and school. It's quite a hindrance not having one.

I always thought (as was stated in another post in this thread) that you HAVE to use Virgin Mobile phones with them. That an unlocked Sprint phone still would not work. Virgin's customer service is abysmal and I'm not sure I could an accurate answer if I called them.

Any help would be appreciated.

Also I guess another question is how long does Virgin typically take to get new iPhone models after they are out?

Thanks, again.
 
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