cell phone providers - Mobilicity/Wind/Telus/Rogers/Bell

[calgaryrocks]

Hi everyone
I am looking at getting a smartphone (right now i have a LG rumour 2). I want a good contract with data, voicemail etc. I have looked at wind and mobilicity as they are the more budget providers. I can get the samsung nexus S with most of them and it seems like a good phone so I am comparing using that one. basically it is $500 at all of them. with Wind I can use a tab and pay $150 off over time. with Mobilicity, they have a deal for this saturday where you get $200 towards your new phone if you switch providers and join them (my contract with solo runs out next month, so it's good timing). It seems like I can get similar contracts with both Wind or mobilicity.
So my question: how does mobilicity compare to wind and how do they both compare to the big 3 as far as reliable network and other things I may not think of?

[manwiches]

I got my wife a wind plan during christmas. 99% of the time, she loves it. I would suggest getting Wind if you only stay within the city to use your phone. My wife doesn't travel outside the city other than for vacations etc, when a phone is not needed, which is why it worked best for her.

I found from researching that Wind plans are really fair and quite a bit cheaper in comparison to Telus or Rogers. However, Wind's network is also far less superior than Telus and Rogers. That being said, as i said earlier, if you plan on staying within the city, you should have no problem most of the time. The data speed etc is nothing short of great. I have a Telus phone, and I find my wife's phone is sometimes better at browsing than mine.

On the odd occasion, if you are far inside a building, it may flip to Wind Away mode, which in essence is Roaming... however, this doesn't happen all that often, and is as simple as walking outside to get Wind Home again.

Hope that helps...

[T I M]

In Alberta Wind might also still offer the unadvertised "Incredible" plan which is 35$ month for unlimited everything. I have the Nexus S on wind, and so far I'm happy. I've found a couple rough spots as far as coverage goes, but it hasn't been too bad.

http://www.coveragemapper.com/windmap.php

will give you an idea of reported signal strength around the city, as well as their tower locations.

[calculoso]

Be careful with Wind and Mobilicity. They only work in certain zones, and outside of those zones there are expensive extra roaming fees.

[I_H8_Crawford]

Just wanted to bump this to help out my friends who are having a pretty good promotion tonight at their store...

$40 All-in plan, plus get 2 HTC Panache (MyTouch 4G) for the price of one, and receive $200 in bill credits, no contract:

[Rathji]

^

That is actually a pretty good deal.

Is the MyTouch any good though? I once saw it shamelessly promoted on an episode of some show my wife was watching (some kids on a beach, One Tree Hill?) and my opinion of it dropped based on that.

[I_H8_Crawford]

Originally Posted by Rathji

^

That is actually a pretty good deal.

Is the MyTouch any good though? I once saw it shamelessly promoted on an episode of some show my wife was watching (some kids on a beach, One Tree Hill?) and my opinion of it dropped based on that.

Really depends if you like the HTC UI on top of Android.

It is on Gingerbread, is pretty damn fast, and has a good screen.

Other thing I like about it is the metal (not plastic!) backing on it, and the fact it has physical buttons at the bottom so I can still use it when wearing gloves, etc.

[OBCT]

Originally Posted by I_H8_Crawford

Just wanted to bump this to help out my friends who are having a pretty good promotion tonight at their store...

$40 All-in plan, plus get 2 HTC Panache (MyTouch 4G) for the price of one, and receive $200 in bill credits, no contract.

Crap... wish I visited this thread yesterday.