Goodbye expensive iPhone 1st gen. Hello money saving Nokia E63!

I’m not feelin’ the love for my first generation iPhone anymore. Don’t get me wrong, It’s been a great phone for the past three years and we’ve had some fun times; however, now there is a new device in my life that provides a much better mobile Internet experience. That device is, of course, the iPad (as demonstrated by several of my most recent posts). It was time to replace the iPhone with another phone. So what lead me from the iPhone to a shiny new Nokia E63? Click the link below and I’ll be happy to share the technical and financial reasons this phone was the perfect replacement for this budget conscious gadget freak.

Let’s discuss finances before we dive into the technical reasons for my change in mobile chatter boxes. When the iPad Wi-Fi + 3G came into the household, it also brought with it a $30 per month fee for unlimited bandwidth. It’s a great deal and I don’t have to maintain it monthly. I can cancel and add at any time. The problem is, that plan cannot be shared with any other device. So right off the bat, the iPad raised my monthly budget by a maximum of $30. I needed to recoup that somewhere. I refuse to play this game with the carriers where every device requires a separate monthly charge. Not gonna happen. I’m tempted by the MiFi devices with their $60 per month charge that includes up to five device connections, but there are a couple of problems. It is yet another device I would have to keep up and it is not unlimited. There is a 5Gb cap. So that isn’t an option yet.

The obvious choice was to kill the data plan from the iPhone. Sadly, you cannot maintain an iPhone on the AT&T network without a data plan. AT$T (yes, I know that’s a $ in between the two t’s and I promise that’s the last time I use that acronym in this post) requires a data plan along with your calling plan. Another wrinkle is that I am eligible for a monthly military discount for all my AT&T phone services except for...yep...you guessed it, the iPhone. That meant no discount for either the data or calling plan. I pay full price. And I do not like to pay the full price on anything!

The obvious thing for me to do was to cancel the iPhone data plan and get another phone. This would also be a good time for me to review my current voice plan. My previous plan included 770 minutes with roll-over and I had banked over 4000 roll-over minutes shared between two lines. I definitely didn’t need that much air time. So I jotted that discussion point down in my Moleskine binder. I also added another discussion item – text messaging. I text frequently, but it can be very handy and I don’t want to be charged 20¢ for each message. Before visiting the AT&T store, it was time to decide what phone I would be using in place of the awesome iPhone. Let me tell you, that was a long, long search.

I began the search by logging into the AT&T website to check out my phone options. I looked at all the basic phones. You know, it is hard to look at a regular phone after having used the stylish iPhone for so long. As I browsed the brick and slider phones available I was very unimpressed. Another issue concerned text messages. I was not going to send a text message using those clunky numeric keyboards where you have to press each number 1 to 4 times to get the character you need. So I moved on to smart phones with full keyboards. After reviewing their site a bit more closely, I discovered that AT&T will not let you connect one of “their” smart phone to their network without a data plan. What was I to do. And then it hit me...an unlocked phone!

Unlocked phone you ask? Yep, there are phones available for purchase that do not require a contract. You pay full unsubsidized prices. All you need is a SIM card. Unlocked phones are not crippled since they have never been handled nor modified by the carrier. All features are live and active. The rub? They are usually expensive since they are not being subsidized by the mobile phone carrier. I went into my search thinking a reduced phone plan with no data plan, might allow me to recoup the cost of the unlocked phone rather quickly. If the price was right.

I began my search on Amazon and looked for unlocked Android phones. Wow! No luck there. They were all WAY out of my price range and it would take some time to recoup their costs. Time to review Nokia phones. What a stroll down memory lane. Every phone I owned before the iPhone was a Nokia. I loved them. They were all well built and lasted forever. So I searched Amazon for unlocked Nokia phones. Nokia has entered the touch interface business, but again, too much cash needed.

Then I saw this ruby red Nokia E63-2. Now that’s stylish I thought. Sure, it doesn’t have a touch interface but check out that price – $143.00 with no tax and free two day shipping with my Amazon Prime account. {The phone is currently selling for $160 and three days ago it was $199. The price changes more often than gas prices!} The phone received a 4.5/5 stars by owners. And check out the feature list from the Amazon site:

• Compatible with GSM carriers like AT&T and T-Mobile. Not all carrier features may be supported. It will not work with CDMA carriers like Verizon Wireless, Alltel and Sprint.
• U.S. version unlocked quad-band GSM cell phone compatible with 850/900/1800/1900 frequencies and US 3G compatibility via 850/1900 UMTS/HSDPA plus GPRS/EDGE data capabilities
• Access to corporate/personal email; QWERTY keyboard; Wi-Fi networking; Bluetooth stereo music; 2-megapixel camera/camcorder
• Up to 11 hours of talk time, up to 430 hours (18 days) of standby time
• What's in the Box: handset, battery, charger, wired headset, user and quick start guides
• FM Radio {not listed on the site but I added because that is just so cool}

The selling point for me was the included Wi-Fi. This meant that as long as I was in proximity of a Wi-Fi access point, I could still browse the web, check e-mail, download music, IM, Facebook, Tweet, etc. Granted, it won’t be as pleasant an experience as the iPhone, but I have the iPad now for those sitting around and browsing the web moments. I actually was always a bit frustrated by mobile Safari, but it was the best mobile experience at the time and changed the whole industry. So, it looks like I found my phone. Now the question becomes, can I buy the unlocked phone, take it to AT&T and get access  to their network even though it wasn’t one of “their” phones and I didn’t want a data plan.

I searched the web and it seemed that folks all over the country had been bringing unlocked phones to the party with AT&T. The E63 was one of the more popular phones being used for this purpose. Okay...let’s hope “the Internet is right” on this one. If not, I can always return it. So I plunked down the credit card and made the purchase. I also had them throw in an 8Gb micro SD for about $15 bucks (for storage) and an accessory kit that includes a silicone skin, micro USB cable, screen protector and car charger – all this for the amazing price of only $5.99! I pushed the purchase button and I waited for two days.

The box arrived and it was time to open her open. The phone was shiny, red, and had buttons. Check! All the features a gadget needs. I decided to try out a little experiment. I took the SIM out of my iPhone and placed it into the Nokia E63. Guess what? It worked. I also found that the iPhone still worked and wasn’t deactivated. A win-win. Back on the Nokia, I noticed that I was receiving 3G (the iPhone only supported Edge). I was sure not to use the 3G network for fear AT&T would charge me for accessing a network, they knew my current phone didn’t support. I made a phone call without any problem. So it seemed to me that the worst case scenario, should AT&T prove to be difficult with my new unlocked phone, was to simply tell them to give me the cheapest free phone they had, take out the SIM and drop it into my new phone. “Oh boy, this is going be a very interesting AT&T visit,” I thought to myself.

During my lunch hour, I headed off to a local AT&T store. First I waited in line for some guy to decide whether to buy a new iPhone now, or wait for the new version. And everyone in the store heard his ruminations because he was THAT LOUD! Once he moved on (do you really care? Okay…he waited to buy an iPhone.), It was my turn. I was met by a very pleasant young lady. I told her the deal. Have iPad, don’t want iPhone, want to lower my monthly fees. I was expecting numerous reasons why I should maintain my $104 dollar plan with my current iPhone or upgrade to an iPhone 3GS. I didn’t receive the hard sale treatment! Instead I received excellent customer service from someone who was genuinely interested in helping me get the best value with no grief about the unlocked phone at all. She left the old iPhone SIM in the Nokia, scanned the bar code inside the phone to identify what phone would be on their network, knocked down the cost on my plan, handed me back the phone and said, “there you go.” I didn’t have to pay any de/activation fees or even sign a piece of paper.

So how did I fair financially? Well, first, I dropped my voice plan down to a 550 minute plan (including free weekends and free mobile to mobile). I dropped my data plan. I then added 200 text messages per month for $5. Now that the iPhone was not on the plan, AT&T applied my military discount to the rest of the fees. So here’s the break down:

• Old Plan: iPhone with one additional line and data plan = $105/month
• New Plan: Nokia E63 with on additional line and no data = $56/month
• Savings per month = $49/month
• Savings per year = $588
• Time to recoup cost of Nokia E63 = 2.9 months

Oh yeah! That’s what I’m talking about. So how do I like my new phone? Again, this is no iPhone, but ya know, there’s something to be said about having a phone that’s…well…just a phone. Sure I can browse the web and send e-mail when I have Wi-Fi access, but by and large, it’s a phone. It is simple to use and has a nice feature set that provides me some advanced usage should the need arise. Maybe in another post I’ll spend some time doing a review. For now, I think I made a pretty wise technical/financial decision. That $588 saved per year will be well spent on other portions of the budget (like paying off that home mortgage) and if the past is any indicator, this Nokia phone will last as long as I enjoy saving money – or a shiny new gadget is released.

Anyone else made the jump away from the iPhone to save some coinage? Any other Nokia E63 owners out there? Drop a comment and share. Found an error, either grammatical or technical, read the item number 7 on the About Doc page.