FreedomPop has become an official carrier, offering a free mobile plan to buyers of their smartphone. It is the first service of its kind, and already it is making other mobile companies sweat.
Here is how it works:
You pay for the smartphone, which right now is a a refurbished HTC EVO 4G for $99. That phone will come with an automatic 200 minutes, 500 texts and 500 MB 4G/3G data plan. Alternatives include a $7.99 per month plan on 500 minutes, unlimited text and 500 MB data, or $10.99 per month unlimited voice and text with the 500 MB data.
You can also do a free trial for 1GB data plans that after the trial will become $0.01 per MB over the allocation, and $2.49 optional visual voicemail.
Already, this has become a huge deal for mobile users who are tired of paying high monthly costs for ala cart or badly bundled plans from overpriced providers.
It is only compatible with the one phone, which will be the drawback for those who have their own smartphones like iPhones. But for anyone who hasn’t yet gotten onto the smartphone bandwagon, or who is wanting something more simple for a budget friendly cost, this is the perfect choice.
For those who are curious about the phone itself, here are the specs:
The HTC EVO comes with a 4″ 960 x 540 touchscreen display. So it isn’t the super powered high definition of other models, but no one is probably expecting it to be for the price.
It is build with a 1.2 Ghz processor, 768 MB of RAM, 4 GB ROM and decent battery life. You should be able to stream media fine, if not with perfect speed.
There are two camera, the rear 5 MP, the front 1.2 MP.
Final judgement? Not bad for anyone looking for a basic, affordable smartphone, and worth it for the service that is running it. Plus, it is an Android Gingerbread model, and that wasn’t a half-bad release.
If you want something that is totally up-to-date and feature heavy, skip this. But if you want to pay less (or nothing) for a mobile plan, and want a smartphone that can do some good things and is compatible with Google Play, this is a great option.
Source: FreedomPop
