Tech: A Really Cheap, Off-The-Shelf Cell Phone

My sister has a penchant for damaging or losing personal electronics (sometimes her fault, sometimes not). When she lost her cell phone, there were a couple options we could have taken - buy a whole new phone at reduced cost (but with the caveat of having to renew the plan), or purchase a new phone outright, no strings attached, but at a high cost. I know you can get cellphones off the Net for pretty cheap, but she needed something now, not a week later.

I opted for an alternative - a $10 cell phone that I bought from the mall. It's part of the GoPhone packages they sell at FYE - a prepaid phone that you can pay as you go. However, it's easy enough to not use the SIM card provided in the package and to replace it with a SIM card containing my sister's plan (obtained at an AT&T store). Voila! A cheap phone that I bought conveniently at the mall, with no new plan necessary.

The phone itself is a Motorola C168i - pretty much the cheapest, most disposable thing you can think of. This being the modern era, though, even it has a decent-looking color LCD screen, multiple ringtones, and a rechargable battery. And if you drop it in the toilet, you don't shed a tear.