Motorola (cellular phone)

Pros: Coverage throughout the United States; airtime available online and at dozens of retailers; customer service is tops

Cons: promotional codes are fantastic but the best ones require a little effot to locate

Summary: I have the Motorola V60i CDMA version. It's currently TracFone's fullest featured CDMA phone and I certainly have no complaints. It's a super phone even though it may no longer be cutting edge.

As for TracFone, don't believe the negative reviews from purported users. If you have half a brain, you won't have any problems. RTFM! Customer Service is excellent and if you dig a little deeper, you'll discover that that TracFone's customer satisfaction rating is the highest in the industry.

I have the same carrier with TracFone that I had with my previous contract provider. Terrific reception, no dropped calls, a fraction of the cost of contract service, text messaging, voicemail.

Use the promotional codes, watch for sales on airtime, and make a few referrals to potential customers. As a result of a little research, I now have one year and 4 months of service with 1150 airtime minutes. That works out to 6 cents a minute -- including the cost of the phone which I purchased reconditioned from TracFone's website. Whoever tries to tell you that TracFone is one of the more expensive prepaid alternatives has just been too lazy to acutally cost it out.