By Rick.BroidaGuest Blogger
at 11:56AM,
5 months ago
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under
Product Review
Remember the Cisco Umi, a fancy consumer-oriented webcam that turned your TV into a Jetson-ian video phone?
It was an intriguing idea hampered by a ridiculous pricing structure: $600 per unit, plus $25 monthly for Cisco's proprietary video-calling service.
Earlier this year, the company lowered prices a bit--but no way was anyone going to shell out that kind of cash when they could accomplish the same thing for free with Skype and a laptop webcam.
By Rick.BroidaGuest Blogger
at 10:53AM,
8 months ago
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Money Saving Tips
I've often said it's not the price of smartphones that bothers me, it's the monthly fee you have to pay for service.
AT&T and
Verizon, for example, charge $59.99 per month for 900-minute plans--not including the obligatory data plan for your
iPhone or
Android phone. And if you're a serious gabber, the unlimited voice plans will run you $69.99 monthly.
Wouldn't it be great if you could switch to the cheapest available voice plan, without giving up a single minute of talk time? Thanks to a couple amazing apps, you can.
By pmiller
at 7:54AM,
9 months ago
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under
Newsworthy
Photo courtesy of Kenneth Lu, via FlickrThis week the United States government sued to
prevent the acquisition
of T-Mobile by competitor AT&T. The reason given is that this
would lessen competition and, in turn, hurt consumers.
Anyone who has ever dealt with a major cell phone carrier knows that the
present state of competition isn't exactly producing a renaissance of
terrific customer service. The norm is two-year contracts, high
early termination fees, and steep charges when you go over your allotted
voice, data or SMS limit.
But there are alternatives. Read on to find a few tricks to owning and
using a decent smartphone without having to deal with the drawbacks of a
contract with a major carrier.
By Rick.BroidaGuest Blogger
at 8:57AM,
9 months ago
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under
Money Saving Tips
Planning to buy an
AT&T smartphone, either now or after next month's heavily rumored
iPhone 5 announcement? Here's something you should know: Starting August 21,
AT&T will offer only one text-messaging plan: $20 per month for unlimited messages.
That's over and above what you're already paying for voice and data. Gone is the $10/month option for 1,000 messages (
and long gone is the $5/month, 200-message plan), meaning you're now on the hook for an extra $120 annually if you want to send and receive texts.
That sucks, AT&T. So you'll forgive me if I tell readers how they can ditch your ridiculously overpriced messaging plan--but keep on texting to their hearts' content.
