How to Choose the Best Phone While on a Budget

With all of the fancy and advanced smart phones on the market today, from every manufacturer and carrier, one can easily get caught up in thinking they will need to fork over hundreds of dollars on a cell phone every couple of months; this is not the case. Take a look at these tips and learn how to choose the best phone for you while on a budget.

The first thing any budget phone shopper needs to do is to evaluate what features they actually need as opposed to what they desire. A big example of this is the enormous price range between the original iPhone, the 3Gs and the iPhone 4; if you don't need that little extra speed boost and storage capacity for having 50 DVD quality movies at a time you can get a great phone for a fraction of the price if you can identify what you actually need.

Another great way to get the best phone out there to fit your current budget needs is to shop around a bit. Instead of going to your carrier's store consider looking for second hand or even brand new but privately sold phones. Your options range from Craigslist and eBay to a simple Google search and will often yield you with a huge price advantage over what your local phone company store or big box retailer will command. This has another great advantage of allowing you to find an unlocked phone so you can use network specific cell phones with any service provider.

If you must buy a phone in store then be sure to do when your upgrade is available. This means that you will be able to get that $200 or $300 phone for as little as $20 and on a budget you cannot beat that!

An additional tool to use when shopping in store is to check other providers, many times they will give you a huge credit towards or possibly a free cell if you switch from your current provider and sign a contract with them. This may also lead to a reduced monthly payment.

The final thing that you should do is to watch the market, especially if you have decided that you need a rather expensive smart phone but want to make it fit your budget. When there are rumors or announcements of next generation phones coming out the current ones drop drastically in price even though they are still the best thing on the market. This was illustrated when rumors of a pending release for they iPhone 4 dropped the price of iPhone 3s by 33%, even though they were still the fastest and most sought after around.