Second phone needed
 

I need a separate unlocked phone from my main phone. Are there any decent deals around currently?

tia

What’s the price range? New or used? Which carrier since AT&T and Verizon have more restrictions aka whitelist which limits the options.

Have you checked online at Swappa? I have found used phones on Facebook Market Place sold by independent companies such as a kiosk in a Mercado store.

Sam’s Club has a Motorola G Power for $140 for my Freedom Pop T Mobile sim.

New, <$150, no carrier (unlocked.)

No, I haven’t looked at Swappa or anywhere other than Amazon. I’ll look now.

If you will use the phone on AT&T or Verizon including an MVNO, you need to select a phone on the carrier’s whitelist in order to have service. Carrier unlocked doesn’t mean the phone is whitelisted for service. Some unlocked international models have been flagged as non compliant by those 2 carriers.

Amazon has phones not on the carrier whitelists.

I didn't know that AT&T has an actual whitelist of IMEI numbers. I thought any unlocked phone compatible with their network would work on AT&T. I see from searching what they call a whitelist is a list of phones models known to work on their network, but it's not like Verizon's list where the actual serial number or IMEI number (Is it IMEI or something else?) has to be on their whitelist for the phone to work on their network.

Am I missing something? It's been decades since I've used AT&T.

-David

I will second that Swappa is a great used phone resource. I have bought several devices from them without any issues. I keep an iPhone 8 as a spare/travel phone since I am an Apple fanboi. It is small & light, plus I am very familiar with the use. Swappa is currently showing the i8 starting at $120 and the i8+ at $160. Either of these might suffice.

AT&T published a whitelist of phone models after requiring LTE capable devices. AT&T will send a warning text if you switch to a device not supported and may terminate service.


https://www.att.com/idpassets/images...TT-Network.pdf

Another vote for Swappa. I’ve bought many secondhand phones from there and have had fewer issues than the likes of eBay/Amazon.

If you’re leery of marketplace type sales, you’ll pay more, but refurbs straight from Apple are IMO as solid as brand new phones.

Third'd for Swappa. You can also get a 2020 iPhone SE for $130-140ish, or you can pick up an older Pixel or Samsung device (e.g. a Pixel 4a for $100). Both my regular phone (a 12 mini) and my backup (a 2016 SE) were Swappa purchases. You'll pay a few bucks more than eBay but you're far less likely to have issues.

The sub-$150 market for new phones is basically nothing but low-end phones running versions of Android that are already outdated with little chance of an update to the current version. Motorola and Nokia are really the only reputable players in that space; otherwise it's a bunch of no-name Chinese phones that don't even get security updates, let alone new versions of Android..

Also, if you're going to travel with this phone, low-end phones often have only the bare minimum LTE bands for their intended region, so you may find yourself without coverage elsewhere in the world. iPhones have the widest support, with Pixels a close second.

So some phones allow dual sim, and a few new ones have the 2nd sim capability as esim.
Not sure if that might fit your use case, but saves you from charging and keeping track of two phones

I second the suggestion to make sure the device (Exact model) is on that AT&T white list. Otherwise they will send a text and disconnect the device from the network instantly. I have a Xiaomi Mi Mix 2 and Samsung Galaxy A50 (Latin American Version A505g), both fully compatible with AT&T and were working on the network for a couple of years, until they got disconnected sometime early this year, due to not being compatible.

3 versions for the Samsung Galaxy A50 are whitelisted but not the A505G version. That’s why it is important to know which carrier/MVNO for the OP’s request.

Thanks, no travel, I just need it for notifications in my home if someone is looking for me and I’m not in front of my machine.

Got this for well under budget. Appreciate the tip.

https://cimg9.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...dfdbb0a8dc.jpg

+1 for Swappa. My T-Mobile business rep actually recommended we use the website, and we have! All of the phones in our office have been purchased of Swappa now. We only had one bad phone, something definitely wrong with the phone as it wouldn't connect to any carrier we tried it on. Swappa.com made the seller make it right in under a week. I've had worse experiences dealing with carriers directly w/r/t bad phones.