Originally Posted by
wphamilton
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It's an intriguing idea to just do away with the cell phone service entirely on the smartphone, having no data plan, using pay-go: Internet on the Go or the T-Mobile broadband pass with just internet phone. The same thing could be effected with a tablet that has no capability for data broadband. A few services that bundle something like this are starting to pop up already, none really better than do it yourself but close, and all are more cost-effective than a mobile plan with 3G or 4G/LTE. If there's a cheaper option for light usage I'm very interested. But I don't see beating it unless you really need one of the unlimited plans, watching youtube or netflix or things of that nature.
For cell phone, I use a vintage cell that was made before they started to put cameras in phones. No data plan, just a pay by the minute plan.
And, I have a smartphone running android 4.1 but I have no cell plan for it. I only use it where I have wifi. Thus it is basically a wifi device for when I want to check e-mail or the latest news at a restaurant with wifi. I also have the mapping GPS apps on it. And I have Google Voice and Groove IP Lite which allows me to use VOIP for phone purposes when my regular cell is out of range, but that means that I only can use it where I have wifi, thus I only make calls on this, do not receive calls on it.
I use dedicated GPS devices for most of my GPS duties, my GPS units run on AA batteries which I prefer. I usually carry about 5 or 6 days of AA and AAA batteries that I recharge when I have power for an overnight.