The Nokia Tracfone 1100
The Nokia Tracfone 1100 is one of many prepaid phones available from Nokia. The Tracfone is hyped by Nokia for the obvious advantages of prepaid phone use, and many of these reasons are legit. For instance, if you only want a cellphone in your car for emergencies, why pay forty or more bucks a month for a calling plan? Or if you have kids dying for a cellphone of their own, but you don’t want them on the phone all the time, or don’t want to shell out for a more expensive phone or plan, you could give them a prepaid phone and make them budget themselves. If they want more minutes, it’s on them to put up for them.
Another reason Nokia promotes as motivation for buying a pre-paid phone is “no hassle of a credit check.” So, if you’ve got bad credit, you can just buy one of these babies, buy minutes as you’re able and you’re good to go.
Unfortunately, when I started using this cellphone, I thought I was going to be one of the above people who uses it only in emergency, but it turned out I suddenly needed to make or receive about 20 minutes of calls a few times a week. Suddenly, I was shelling out for the prepaid minutes cards – 40 minutes for $19.99- and this compact 1100, at about 50 cents a minute was fast becoming not worth it. (Well, actually, they usually throw in about twenty extra minutes, for some reason, so maybe it’s more like 30 cents a minuteâÂ?¦) In any case, it wasn’t such a great deal. In fact, if I bought into a $30.00-a-month cellphone plan with some reasonable schedule of minutes -I’d probably be better off. So, in other words, if you make a lot of calls this isn’t the phone rate you want to go with. And same goes if you receive calls. As long as you talking on that phone, they’re ticking away at your minutes.
As for the phone it self, having never used a prepaid cellphone before, I can’t really compare the Nokia Tracfone 1100 to others of it’s kind. I can say that it is relatively user-friendly. There’s a dash/select button for all major functions, then up and down arrows to move through the function menus, then you hit the dash again to pick what you want. It took me a while to get a hang of what you hit first, but I got it. Which isn’t to say I don’t wish they had just used buttons marked “talk” “select” “off” or “call” instead of “c” and “-“. But when you pay twenty bucks for a phone, you get what you get.
Adding contacts (up to fifty) is relatively simple, as is selecting ringtones. There are over thirty tones on the phone to choose from. I have no idea how to download more, but then again, as I am not a sixteen year old, I don’t really have a great desire to do that anyhow.
There’s call-waiting which beeps pretty distinctly when someone is trying to get through. And the phone will also register “missed message” as most phones do to let you know if you’ve missed a call. Other functions like voicemail are only available with the digital version of the phone. I may actually have the digital version, but I’ve yet to set up the voicemail. Apparently, I’m able to get incoming text messages, though, as of yet, no one has sent me one. I cannot text out on the Nokia 1100.
There are other functions too, like a clock, a timer, two sort of lame games, a flashlight, and a changeable cover. No other covers are included with the phone, which is blue, or at least mine was, non-flip, and nicely compact (the website says it’s only 3.3 ounces in weight.) It’s a cute little phone, no frills. It costs about twenty bucks and comes with up to 20 minutes of airtime on it already.
My one complaint about the 1100’s functioning is the “on” button which is difficult to use. You really have to push it hard, sometimes with your fingernail or a pen, to get the phone on or off. Maybe my phone was just a little screwy.
Airtime is monitored for you on the phone’s display screen when you switch the phone on. The screen’s maybe one inch by one inch. It tells you the date and also the date your minutes expire (if you don’t use them all, they eventually expire). There’s also a display to let you know how your battery is doing. Battery last for “three hours of talk time.” You can plug the phone in to recharge and still take incoming calls, which I guess isn’t too exciting, but it was to me.
Getting new minutes is very easy. You go to your local store that carries the phone cards, in my cases, it’s a CVS, you keep the receipt, which has your airtime minutes code on it, you go to the website: www.tracfone.com and basically follow the prompts. You need your airtime minutes code from the receipt and also your phone code (I suggest you right it down some place, but there’s a way to get it off lineâÂ?¦). Plug in the numbers, and the phone quickly receives the minutes. You’re good to go. Again, they seem to throw in an extra twenty minutes everytime with the forty minute card. Not sure why. I guess to make you feel like you’re getting a deal.
Overall, for an emergency user and want to go prepaid, I’d recommend this phone. It does the job, is simple to use once you fiddle with it a little, and getting new minutes is simple.
However, if your kid is going to be yapping a lot, why have them yap at 50 or 30 cents a minute? Not sure that’s the best way to go. And if you’re a regular cellphone user, this is not the phone or plan for you.
