You can buy an unlocked phone from ebay and then get the SIM card from your phone providor of choice, this would be pre paid of course, but it would be cheaper for you.

Usually you do it the other way around; find a network with a price plan you like / can afford, then pick a phone from the ones they do. No point having a nice handset if the call charges put you off of actually phoning anyone. Also, don't forget to consider whether the phone you want = the phone your parents are willing to pay for
[quote name='Splych' post='1871859' date='Apr 3 2009, 02:59 AM']I am wondering, if you are getting a phone, and you pick on the monthly section, pick a phone with No Contract, will you be paying monthly? It sucks, since I want to go with Telus since they are the only ones with the phone I want...[/quote]I think you'll have to send them an email and ask them.
The "no contract" phones in the pay monthly section are different prices to the identical models in the prepaid section, so it's no wonder you're confused. At a guess I'd say "pay monthly with no contract" means you've buying just the handset on it's own, which is set up to work on their pay monthly settings. You would therefore have no connection to the network and would have to buy a SIM card pack separately. Whether this handset would work with a Pay&Go SIM card, well I have no clue how networks lock their phones in Canada. This is usually a very expensive way to buy a phone, usually getting a phone with a contract / Pay&Go SIM card included in the box is much cheaper (the companies cover part of the cost of the handset because they've won you as a customer) than paying the whole cost of the handset yourself.

@ mcp2 ~ Parents don't trust EBay, or Amazon. Or any of those kind of sites in this matter. They only trust the sites that are very popular/known such as Fido, Futureshop etc.

@ Psyfira ~ I will send em' an email. I asked my parents to be sure and they told me, when you are going No Contract they said you own the phone now. So you can do what ever. Then they said, you can go get a Pre Paid/ Pay&Go Simcard, and it should be Pre Paid.

I would go with a monthly contract quite frankly, I have had prepaid ones and they are a real pain in the ass because you always run out of credit just when you need it.

Well you gotta keep in mind... First cellphone and have a older sibling. I got to elementary school, and am quite popular in my grade and a few others. So then I will have a lot of people to talk to, but since it isn't Secondary school, not much people will have a cell phone. Other than that, going monthly is also a hassle since my only source of money is my weekly job and I get paid $10 each week...

i didn't read the thread but basically:

prepaid: you pay for a certain amount of minutes (like 100) and i think u have to buy a new one every month. when u buy the 100 minutes, u get a certain rate with it. so if u paid $10 for it, then each of your minutes cost u 10 cents.

monthly: pretty self explanatory. can either be via contract or not. whatever your plan is, u have that many minutes, text or web access. if u go over, they start raping with (with charges )

[quote name='UltraMagnus' post='1879981' date='Apr 5 2009, 11:02 PM']I would go with a monthly contract quite frankly, I have had prepaid ones and they are a real pain in the ass because you always run out of credit just when you need it.[/quote]It sounds like the Canadian system works a little different to ours, so I'm not really sure if this applies but I'll reply anyway;

Depends on how you use it. My current network send a note every time I use the phone telling me how much credit is left afterwards so you always know when it's getting low, and you can top up online now so you can do it anywhere. A few years back the schemes were awful but now you can get some pretty good deals on Pay as you Go, if you take the time to do the math. I mainly use my phone for text messages; each time I top up £10 I get 300 free texts which last for a month. So my phone bill comes to about £70-£90 a year . Much cheaper than a contract, and if I do make calls it comes out of the money I've paid (my credit) rather than being added on top.