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Does anybody have any experiences with any of the prepaid cell plans, specifically I'm looking at Virgin or Boost? My contracts come up very soon with Verizon so the wife and I are looking at trying to cut monthly costs and be able to get smartphones. We are both using basic phones right now with no data. Looking at Virgin, I can cut my monthly cell bill by almost $40 plus add unlimited data on either android or iPhones. Even factoring in the cost of the phones, we'll still come out ahead by the end of the year, depending on which phones we were to purchase, but I don't have any experience with any of these companies so thought I'd check to see if any of you do. Thanks.

Ken, you travel quite a bit, have you run into and coverage issues with Straight Talk? If I do go with one of these pre-paid plans, I'll partially do it because I can get a smartphone for less than I'm paying for basic service right now, but at $45 on Straight Talk, I'd still be saving money, my only concern with them is they use older android phones running version 2.3 where Boost & Virgin are running androids with 4.1 (with Virgin offering iPhones as well). The advantage Straight Talk has is a larger coverage area.

With Straight Talk, you can go with a used T-Mobile, AT&T, or international GSM phone. TMO phones use a different frequency for data but many of them also support AT&T frequencies.
With Virgin or Boost you're rather stuck with their phones. They both work on native, non roaming Sprint. If you're in a strong Sprint area or near wifi most of the time and plan to keep that phone for a long time it can be a deal. Unlocked GSM phones are a safer long term bet.
The new Nexus 4 phone at 300 unlocked is probably the best bet. You'd then have several possibilities for a plan. I have the $30/month 100 minutes/unlimited text/5 gigs of 4g T-Mobile on my T-Mobile S2.

I had Boost with a flip phone and Virgin with the Optimus. Boost seemed to have better coverage than Virgin (lots of internet chatter about how Sprint treats these two). T-Mobile prepaid (also no roaming) has faster speeds than either and better coverage.

PS, Virgin 3g is pretty damn slow and their quasi-4g network (Wi-max) is pretty limited.
Another idea is just to stick with simple phones and get a Nexus tablet; you can get the wifi for for 200 and the unlocked 3g for 300. You really can do a lot with a flip phone. Email me if you want to hear more of my ranting ideas.

Less than a month to go on my Verizon contract and still researching more prepaid companies. Does anybody have any experience with Page Plus? They operate on the Verizon network and I can bring my own Verizon CDMA phones to this carrier. I have my old LG Ally android plus I was just given a slightly beat-up, but good working condition, iPhone 4 so I would save the cost of new/used phones. $29.99 for 1200 mins, 3000 texts, and 250 mb of data seems like a pretty good deal. I recently discovered through my reading and playing with the iPhone that you can go into the settings on most smartphones and turn off "cellular data" so they don't do anything except call and text. As I have wifi access most everywhere I go that means I would only need the cellular data when I'm on the road so if I'm careful about what I do then 250 mb should be alright. Page Plus appears to have better coverage in my area, and in the areas the frequently travel so this seems like a good deal to me. Most of the reviews I've found online seem to be positive, but as always I like to check with real people (or at least internet people I regularly interact with ) to see what their experiences have been.

No experience with Page Plus, so I'm not really answering your question.

But, I've been extremely happy with Wal-Mart's MyFamilyMobile plan (a similar one) since I switched almost a year ago. I have the same 250 mb limit (shared between two phones), except that with my plan, after I hit that each month the data just slows down to 2G speeds until the new cycle starts.

With two lines sharing, as long as we don't do any streaming over cellular, 250 mb usually lasts us until about five or so days before the end of the month. Because we don't pay extra (just have to live with slower speeds for a few days), my wife and I aren't as diligent as we could be to make sure we're always using wi-fi when we can.

(And Wal-Mart sells some decent, not newest-best-brightest, Android phones for around a hundred bucks, actual price with no contract or cancellation fees.)