Interested in a new Phone - Questions

[s0me0nesmind1]

With Black Friday in a day or so I've been looking to upgrade my age old Razr. All of my family members have been upgrading their phones recently, and I think its about time I do the same.

-I Currently have a Verizon Plan consisting of me, and 2 family members with the "Add a line" feature. Thus we have a "family plan" where Im guessing we all share minutes and such.
-I believe I am the "main phone" on the bill, meaning I have the plan, and the other line's share it.
-Im debating between the LG Chocolate Touch (which is free on BF) or the new Droid which is $200 on BF. Anyone have a preference in which would be the better choice?

My questions are:
1) Can I upgrade to a new phone with no troubles, (namely, the LG Chocolate touch that is going to be on-sale at Best Buy for Free with contract on BF?
2) If I were to pick the new Droid - would I need some kind of data plan in order to get internet capabilities, or could I just connect to free coffee shop Wifi's and get access to the internet, without any change to my plan?
3) Can I do this at Best Buy with no problems on BF?

[vantastic]

i could be wrong, but i think the chocolate sucks
droid should be a much mor einteresting product

[s0me0nesmind1]

Originally Posted by vantastic

i could be wrong, but i think the chocolate sucks
droid should be a much mor einteresting product

Yeah, but im not really interested in the Droid if I have to pay more for some type of data plan. But If I can just use free wifi's, id be cool with it.

[wilse]

as long as your line is upgrade eligible you should be fine
although i dont think the prices you are quoting are for upgrades
i think they are for new lines only
but i could be wrong

you cannot buy a droid without having the data plan added to your account
if you have a droid active on the verizon network, they will add the minimum $30 data plan to your bill whether you sign up for it or not
it is absolutely required if you have a droid

no problems on black friday at best buy? depends on your definition of problems. if you don't mind showing up early and waiting a long time, then there should be no problems (other than those i mentioned above)

[s0me0nesmind1]

Originally Posted by wilse

as long as your line is upgrade eligible you should be fine
although i dont think the prices you are quoting are for upgrades
i think they are for new lines only
but i could be wrong

you cannot buy a droid without having the data plan added to your account
if you have a droid active on the verizon network, they will add the minimum $30 data plan to your bill whether you sign up for it or not
it is absolutely required if you have a droid

no problems on black friday at best buy? depends on your definition of problems. if you don't mind showing up early and waiting a long time, then there should be no problems (other than those i mentioned above)

Ahh thanks - much more understood - Yeah the price for the chocolate touch was $50 upgrade, I assumed that meant if you were buying within the contract period or something.

$30+ for a data plan sucks balls mang, and last i checked our bill was a bit over $115+ for the three of us, neither of which are chatty and more prone to txting if anything (which is unlimited). I wonder if our plan is just a bad price in general. Ahh well, data plan would honestly be so I could browse the internet in class and inbetween Any thoughts on the LG Chocolate touch? Seems simple enough, my Razr is just age old and like a Windows 95 PC.

[Pudah]

You will have to pay $30/mo for a data plan for the Droid. There is no way around it. You could compensate by lowering your voice plan. I previously had a dumb phone with a premium plan that included unlimited texts, 700 something minutes and unlimited data using mobile web (and it included VZ navigator, VCast, etc.). I dropped down to a 450 min. plan with unlimited text and none of the other stuff as it is covered with the data plan for $30. If I didn't text so much I couldve gotten a cheaper plan without the unlimited text messaging and add a small text package to save more money. This would balance out the added cost of the data plan. Furthermore, I could drop the texting down completely and get the lowers possible phone plan and use the Google Voice app to hanlde my calls, voicemail and texting, and save even more money, so the $30 wouldn't be so bad. This will not work for you if you're sharing plans with other people, though, as you likely can't change it enough to compensate without screwing over the other people.

Beyond that you need to ask yourself if you want a smart phone or a feature phone (dumb phone). What do you use it for, what do you want to do that you can't, what do each of the phones have that you would likely never use? You may be able to find a regular feature phone that covers all of your wants/needs, and some have built in wi-fi and full html browsers for internet at the coffee shop. They won't, however, let you customize like the droid, or run all the applications, multi-task, use the internet to it's full capabilities, etc. like the droid or a smartphone.

[s0me0nesmind1]

All around good advice - just one last question: My mom got a Blackberry as her last one, and had to pay that $30 data plan monthly fee, would that discount me on a droid plan being on the same family plan?

[wilse]

Originally Posted by s0me0nesmind1

All around good advice - just one last question: My mom got a Blackberry as her last one, and had to pay that $30 data plan monthly fee, would that discount me on a droid plan being on the same family plan?

no, data plans have no family plan discount mechanism
5 smartphones on a family plan account?
5 full price data plans

[diearzte2]

Yeah, the data plan is kind of depressing. I pay more for internet on my phone every month than I pay to have internet at my apartment. It is worth it, though. I have an iPhone 3G

[s0me0nesmind1]

Originally Posted by diearzte2

Yeah, the data plan is kind of depressing. I pay more for internet on my phone every month than I pay to have internet at my apartment. It is worth it, though. I have an iPhone 3G

Yeah depressing as fuck. Christ I just wanted to leech the university wifi while bored in classes like finance, or in awkward situations where I act like im on the phone. Ah well, im thinking of going to Best Buy for the LG Chocolate touch tomorrow.

[wilse]

Originally Posted by s0me0nesmind1

Yeah depressing as fuck. Christ I just wanted to leech the university wifi while bored in classes like finance, or in awkward situations where I act like im on the phone. Ah well, im thinking of going to Best Buy for the LG Chocolate touch tomorrow.

well you could always get a cheap phone
and an ipod touch