really dumb phone question

[Road Guy]

okay..

I have a decent internet, email phone for WORK, cough, cough..

I have an old Motorolla Razor phone for personal use, AT&T. I am not under a "plan" and dont want to be under one, so I want to buy a used phone that I can text with easily (keyboard) and just insert my sim card in and rock and roll.

So how do I know which used phones will work with my sim card?

I have a feeling work is going to axe the phones so I am holding off getting a new plan until that time...

 

[Bman]

You should be able to use any phone that uses a sim card. The only problem is you may have to upgrade your plan to include data, etc. I am looking at updating my iphone 3G in the next few weeks if you're interested in buying a used iphone.....

 

[roadwreck]

so you want a new phone to replace your Razor and upgrade to a new phone on your existing personal plan with AT&T without re-upping your contract?

You should be able to go out and buy any unlocked phone that works with AT&T's GSM band 900/1800/1900 Mhz network.

The specific details of activating the phone I don't know. I have heard rumors that AT&T tries to force you to have a data plan if you activate a smartphone on their network. I currently have a blackberry as my personal phone but don't have a data plan and don't get charged for anything.

When I wanted a new phone I actually bought a re-furb straight from AT&T. It cost me $50 out of pocket, but I didn't have to sign a new contract. That was some time ago, not sure if they would let you get away with that now.

 

[Road Guy]

so you want a new phone to replace your Razor and upgrade to a new phone on your existing personal plan with AT&T without re-upping your contract?

Yes, I have an existing text plan for my personal phone, my razor has a 3G sim card, I did order a new phone about 6 months ago, that phone didnt work so I returned it and kept the newer sim card cause the deactivated my old one. (no new contract)

i dont really want data just an easier texting feature, but not a blackberry...

I will look into AT&T online and see what I can get from them?

 

[MA_PE]

Not sure if it's true for phones but I activated a few celluar modems and each modem had a unique IMEI number. I believe that we needed to tell AT&T the IMEI number in addtion to the SIM card number in order to get activated/ recognized on the system. I think this is the cellular equivalent of a MAC number of a computer. so it may not be possible to just swap SIMs without notifying the carrier about the change in equipment. :dunno: