The first and last stop for this is
7-11 Speakout.
- Pay as you go doesn't expire for 365 days unlike the others which seem to be 30 days (unless they changed recently)
- 25c a minute voice, 10c outgoing text, free incoming text
- Voicemail, caller ID, call waiting, 3 way calling all included
- I believe they use the Rogers network as it's GSM
- With GSM you can pop your SIM card out and use pretty much and GSM phone, many claiming they've had good success using locked Rogers phones.
There is a Canadian based "
unofficial FAQ site" which is a great source of info. According to them you can get unlimited browsing should you eventually want to go that route. Lots of talk in their forums about people using different phones including all the shiny new phones.
The phones 7-11 offers are quite basic, and I think some might not even have a camera.
The only drawback to Speakout is they aren't connect with any carriers outside of Canada so you're left with no signal in the US.
As far as cost, here's my experience. Like you I'm a light phone user. I bought the phone last September. It comes with $20 of credit and I bought a $100 phone credit as they had a promotion on where you got the phone for half price.
As of this September, I had $64 left! Yep, I used only about $60 in a year. My usage included using some roaming/long distance, and a number of calls back and forth with the company who did our renovations this summer including at least a 25 minute conversation over some "issues" we were having.
If you have unused minutes you simply need to but another $25 or more voucher and they'll roll your minutes over for another year. Again, I don't think Virgin or the other P-A-Y-G carriers do this.
I believe Petro-Can also sells phones which are on the same network and have the same features.