What is the cheapest T-Mobile plan available for the Nokia Lumia 521?

[Wild Bill Kelso]

I've looked around a bit more and have come across a few postings from people indicating they've been able to use a T-Mobile Nokia Lumia 521 on PTEL, straight out of the box, no unlocking required. I'll give that a closer look. I'm on wifi probably 80% of the time I have the phone with me, and with MetroTalk and a Google Voice number I'm not going to doing very much txting with the phone's plan itself. So something with cheap pay as you go voice minutes and data would be ideal...

 

[Wild Bill Kelso]

FYI... just finished a chat with "Sarah" at Ptel and she states a T-Mobile Nokia Lumia 521 has to be UNLOCKED in order to be used on Ptel... Of course she could be mistaken, but there you have it...

 

[SlantNGo]

FYI... just finished a chat with "Sarah" at Ptel and she states a T-Mobile Nokia Lumia 521 has to be UNLOCKED in order to be used on Ptel... Of course she could be mistaken, but there you have it...

That's the official answer that PTel gives for everything. I and several others over at Howard Forums are using Lumia 521 on PTel with no issues. Data works just fine on the standard T-Mobile APN that is set up initially when you purchase the phone, not the APN settings that PTel have listed on their website.

 

[SlantNGo]

I've looked around a bit more and have come across a few postings from people indicating they've been able to use a T-Mobile Nokia Lumia 521 on PTEL, straight out of the box, no unlocking required. I'll give that a closer look. I'm on wifi probably 80% of the time I have the phone with me, and with MetroTalk and a Google Voice number I'm not going to doing very much txting with the phone's plan itself. So something with cheap pay as you go voice minutes and data would be ideal...

This is exactly what I do. I have push notifications set up for MetroTalk so that runs on data, and I try to disable notifications and live tile updates almost everything else that runs on data without crippling the functionality of the phone. For example, I leave the live tile updates on for Weather and Outlook, but not Weave and Nextgen Reader.

 

[Wild Bill Kelso]

That's the official answer that PTel gives for everything. I and several others over at Howard Forums are using Lumia 521 on PTel with no issues. Data works just fine on the standard T-Mobile APN that is set up initially when you purchase the phone, not the APN settings that PTel have listed on their website.

It's good to hear from someone actually using a T-Mobile Lumia 521 on Ptel without it needing to be unlocked. Thanks...

So right now my phone is running with the micro-sim card that came in all the T-Mobile packaging, it's been activated with T-Mobile so I have that phone number, and I added a $10 pay as you go card to it that still has about $7 on it, and is good for another 2 1/2 months.

To switch over to Ptel I'm guessing I would buy a "COMBI CARD" and a "REAL PAYGO" card from Ptel. I'd then swap out my current T-Mobile micro-sim card with this new Ptel card, activate the phone with Ptel and get a new phone number, and then add the Ptel paygo card to the account. I should then be running on Ptel with phone number and have voice, text, and data being charged at the Ptel rates. Does that all sound about right?

 

[SlantNGo]

It's good to hear from someone actually using a T-Mobile Lumia 521 on Ptel without it needing to be unlocked. Thanks...

So right now my phone is running with the micro-sim card that came in all the T-Mobile packaging, it's been activated with T-Mobile so I have that phone number, and I added a $10 pay as you go card to it that still has about $7 on it, and is good for another 2 1/2 months.

To switch over to Ptel I'm guessing I would buy a "COMBI CARD" and a "REAL PAYGO" card from Ptel. I'd then swap out my current T-Mobile micro-sim card with this new Ptel card, activate the phone with Ptel and get a new phone number, and then add the Ptel paygo card to the account. I should then be running on Ptel with phone number and have voice, text, and data being charged at the Ptel rates. Does that all sound about right?

Sounds good. I personally use Google Voice with the MetroTalk app so I don't text--that's all on data. If you're buying PTel, check on the latest coupon codes at Prepaid Phone News -- I believe the unlimited PINs work also as Paygo fill-ups so you can get some nice discounts.

 

[Wild Bill Kelso]

Sounds good. I personally use Google Voice with the MetroTalk app so I don't text--that's all on data. If you're buying PTel, check on the latest coupon codes at Prepaid Phone News -- I believe the unlimited PINs work also as Paygo fill-ups so you can get some nice discounts.

Fantastic... I was able to set up a new "Real PayGo GSM" account using COMBI card and $40 top up card bought with the PTEL25BRAD promo found at Prepaid Phone News. My account on Ptel shows an "Airtime Balance" of $39.93 and "Access Expiration" of 12/26/13, which I'm guessing is 150 days from now. Used the phone settings information on their "Support" page to get data working, which seems fine. Added the new phone number to my "real" Google Voice number and all works well using MetroTalk on my Nokia Lumia 521.

 

[SlantNGo]

Fantastic... I was able to set up a new "Real PayGo GSM" account using COMBI card and $40 top up card bought with the PTEL25BRAD promo found at Prepaid Phone News. My account on Ptel shows an "Airtime Balance" of $39.93 and "Access Expiration" of 12/26/13, which I'm guessing is 150 days from now. Used the phone settings information on their "Support" page to get data working, which seems fine. Added the new phone number to my "real" Google Voice number and all works well using MetroTalk on my Nokia Lumia 521.

I'm glad everything worked out for you. This has been a pretty good solution for me. After 1 month, I've used only $10. The only slightly annoying thing is that MetroTalk doesn't seem to deal well with being tombstoned, which happens a lot when you're on a device with only 512 MB of RAM. For example, after it gets tombstoned, when you start MetroTalk using a pinned contact, it doesn't automatically take you to the screen to dial that contact, but rather to where you left off, so you have to go back to the home screen and hit the pinned contact again. Not a big deal, just slightly annoying at times.