Give the Gift of Affordable Wireless with a No Contract Unlimited Plan

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Do you know a family member that doesn’t have a smartphone or just has a basic prepaid plan? The holidays is the perfect time to start looking at a chance for them to get an upgrade phone and save some money with unlimited talk, text, and web plans at the faction of the cost of most unlimited plans.

It’s always hard shopping for family, especially the in-laws. I have been dwelling over a few holiday gift ideas for the in-laws and figured they could really use an upgrade to their prepaid cell phone they currently use.

The key to this gift will be a phone without a contract and very affordable wireless plan that is easy to pay each month. A simple smartphone would be nice for the additional features, as surfing the web for information, a basic camera, and GPS  with maps for directions. Later teaching them about some of the various apps available to make their life easier from the Google Play store will be a nice addition to the functionality and convenience of this phone.

Shopping for Walmart Family Mobile plan is simple and easy in the store. Look through a plethora of phones choices, pickup an activation kit, and  choose the plan that works best for you (or the person you are giving the phone as a gift).

The Samsung Exhibit 4G seemed like the right choice for for my in-laws, who aren’t the most technology savvy folks. The Samsung Exhibit 4G is a medium-size phone that stands 4.7 inches tall by 2.3 inches wide by 0.5-inch thick, and it weighs 4.2 ounces. The Exhibit doesn’t look premium, but it is comfortable, thanks to the soft-touch finish on its black back cover and rubbery material surrounding the phone face.

 The 3.5-inch touch screen has a 480×800 WVGA resolution and support for 16 million colors. The screen itself feels nice and smooth, and looks bright and colorful, as long as you’re not trying to use it in direct sunlight.

Samsung has bestowed its custom TouchWiz interface on the Exhibit. Translation: you get five customizable home screens preloaded with various widgets, shortcuts, and app icons. You can add two more screens, too, and pinch the home screens for a thumbnail view of all your screens. There are four static onscreen buttons for the dialer, address book, texting, and applications. Instead of scrolling vertically as you would with stock Android to view your apps, TouchWiz has you swipe horizontally. There are also Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, GPS, and other controls you can access by pull-down menu at the top of any home screen.

Above the screen is a VGA camera lens for self-portraits and video chats. Below the screen are three light-up touch-sensitive buttons that correlate to the menu, back button, and search. Just south of those is a central Home button. Press and hold it to see your most recent apps, and to access the preinstalled task manager app.

The Samsung Exhibit may not be the highest-end smartphone, but it is chock full of features and apps. There are all of the usual Android services, like text and multimedia messaging, Wi-Fi, GPS, and Bluetooth support, plus e-mail that can merge your inboxes for Gmail, Web mail, and Exchange. There’s also an accounts system that lets you sync contacts, calendars, and other information with social networks like Facebook and Twitter.

Google’s app and services are all on it: Gmail, search, maps with turn-by-turn voice navigation, Places, Talk, and YouTube. There’s a clock, a calendar, a photo gallery, and a calculator, as well lots of apps in the Google Play app store.

The phone was only $99.88, $25 Walmart Family Mobile Starter Kit (Sim Card), and Walmart offered a 2 year replacement warranty for the Samsung Exhibit 4G for only $9.

The sales associate explained how easy it was for someone to pay for the monthly service via the web (https://www.myfamilymobile.com/), phone, or in store. It’s billed monthly, $39.88 for unlimited talk, text, and web or $29.88 for unlimited talk and text, with the option to save $5 on Additional Phones (5 line maximum). I haven’t seen many cheap wireless plan that can compete with this offer and don’t have a contract.

Make sure to research the coverage area for 3G and 2G speeds to make sure this is the best wireless plan for you or your family. You can explore all about coverage, unlimited rate plans, and phone choices on the  Walmart Family Mobile  site.

Since this was going to be a Christmas gift, I didn’t get help with activating the phone in the store. The sales associate said it would be easy to activate and install at home through the web. Can’t wait to share what they thought of the gift and it’s options after Christmas day.