Read this before you buy a cell phone

In many countries, you can go to your local convenience store, buy a prepaid SIM for relatively cheap, and you're ready to make calls in minutes with no contract. The downside? Often you'll need your own phone. With a contract, carriers often subsidize the retail value of a phone in exchange for a fixed commitment from the customer. You're basically paying for the discount. So what's the real price you're paying for that two-year contract, as opposed to going prepaid?

Examine Your Habits
Before you make any decision about going contract or going prepaid, you need to know your talking habits well. There are a variety of prepaid options: You can pay for X number of minutes, or you can pay by the day that you need access. Things to consider include how much in-network calling you do, and whether you call during nights and weekends. So, look at your recent phone statements, and look at them well.

The Money and Phone Issue
You've got several reasons to consider prepaid. If you suspect that what you pay in contract is more expensive than what you could pay prepaid, looking into this option is a valid alternative. (You might also want to try BillShrink to see other ways to cut down on your phone service.) Even if you're currently out of contract, but your talking and data needs have changed, changing your plan will often obligate you to commit to a new contract for another two years, regardless of what provider you use. For the commitment-phobic, early phone adopters, or constant phone switchers, contracts can be huge detriments.

Keeping Your Number
While contract plans can seem like the adult grown-up version to the prepaid equivalent, this option isn't just an alternative for unwieldy teenagers. The major carriers will allow you to port your existing number to prepaid plans, and if you're already using a Google Voice number to manage your existing numbers you won't have to change a thing to get started.

Note: For the following non-scientific comparisons, we compared the features of the contract version to the prepaid version that each carrier offered. To simplify things, we did not account for SMS and data packages. Since the cost of a cellphone could vary widely, we opted for a free non-smartphone whenever possible and noted this circumstance wherever we could.

Read this before you buy a cell phone
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