Customer Reviews

Samsung a107 Prepaid GoPhone (AT&T)

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(6)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(11)

 

 

I've just bought this phone over the past weekend at BB for $15 and bought $25 airtime.

Service:
So far, I have to say I am quite happy with it. I previously had T-Mobile prepaid but had to switch because I had no service in my house. After switching to AT&T, I can actually make calls/texts in my house. The service is quite cheap as well, I am on the Simple Rate plan. It costs $.10/min to talk which gets deducted from your prepaid balance. Standard texting costs $.25 per text, but I bought 200 messages for $4.99 that lasts for 30 days (Comes to $.02/text).

Cell Phone:
The phone was super cheap and yet it is quiet sturdy. There is no exterior screen, making it that much more stable/energy efficient. It is quite possibly the simplest phone you can buy new on the market. It does not have the capacitive touchscreen that you will find on an iPhone, it does not have an HD screen, nor does it let you scroll through the internet like you would on your computer. Instead, this phone lets you make calls and send/receive text messages. Crazy right? It is not made to be the shiny object that attracts the nearby fishes and sheep, it is simply a mobile phone for communicating. My only quip is that is has no volume control buttons on the side, not a huge issue, just something I would have liked. I also use the phone as my alarm to wake up.

Final Word:
I estimate that it will cost me about $10-15 a month for their service a month. I usually text a lot more than I make calls, but I spend no more than 100-150 minutes a month which equals $10-15. Now that I have the $4.99 texting package, I will probably reduce my minutes, making it go down to 50-10 minutes. The phone serves is purpose, I am very satisfied with it. I'd give it 5 stars if it had a volume control button the side, it doesn't so I'll live without it but it is not perfect. It meets all my criteria of needs, nothing else to say.

I bought this as an emergency phone for my mom, who has a tendency to leave her cell behind (at work, at a relative's house, etc) and no longer has a land line. As such, I expect she will use the phone for a few days every couple of months.

The payment plans available are extremely unfriendly for this purpose. All of the available plans are "use it or lose it" - minimum deposit is $15 monthly or $25 that expires in 3 months. When the billing period is up, AT&T eats all your unspent funds and you have to pump more into the account in order to use the phone again. There is NO option for people who want to pay only for time used.

I suppose I shouldn't be surprised by this, but the ATT reps are apparently coached to be dishonest when setting up the plans as well. I asked the rep I spoke with at least 3 times if there were any hidden fees or monthly minimums, and she said "no" three times. After making an additional deposit I get on the web site and learn about the "expiration date" on money deposited.

If you were planning to use this phone as a backup, plan to spend at least $100 a year in fees just to keep the phone accessible for emergency use.

My stepson lost his mother's cellphone. The phone, which my wife did not like much anyway, was on my family plan. My wife prefers clamshell phones so my plan to pass her down my IPhone 3GS was not met with any enthusiasm. So how did I get her a new cellphone, one she likes, put it on the plan, and not extend my plan by another two years?

This phone is the answer. First it's a clamshell. Second it is priced right. Third, AT&T will put in a new SIM card for her family plan number. Finally none of this extends my existing plan should I want to switch providers (and I am not sure I do since AT&T is getting better).

Now please note that by installing a new SIM card, this becomes a regular cellphone on my plan. It is no longer a prepaid phone.

The voice quality is quite good. It has a camera, which my wife is unlikely ever to use. It has what it calls "Apps" was are a few limited and unimaginative mini-programs. It can text, another feature my wife won't use, and has a means to download a few MP3s.

An iPhone it's not. My wife can use it, and we can communicate, and that's all that really counts.

Just got this phone for when my mom-in-law is visiting from Taiwan.

Looks like a good basic phone. Voice quality during test calls in our house was decent.

My main issue is with the included $15 Airtime Credit. There was no Pay As You Go card included, after activation I could not make any calls, and AT&T's web site claimed "Need Initial Refill," so I "refilled" my phone account via credit card with $15. About *two hours* after activation, I received an SMS that the original $15 Airtime Credit was added to my account. Had I known, I would not have "refilled" my account.

I opted for the pre-paid plan that charges $2.00 for only the days I use the phone. Sounded like a cheap way to have a cell phone without a monthly bill. Wrong.

First, the packaging fails to advertise that your pre-paid minutes expire if not used within certain time frames and non-use will deactivate your phone which can never be reactivated or used with another provider. So if you let it lie dormant for 3 months, you can throw it in the garbage.

Second, the packaging fails to advertise that AT&T will call my phone every few days and leave voice mail messages. You cannot tell who left a voice mail until you retrieve it, so I must "use" the phone to retrieve the voice mail, and get charged $2.00 to find out that AT&T left a baloney message about billing cycles ending or beginning -- I DON'T HAVE a billing cycle since I'm pre-paid!!! Or they leave messages "reminding" me that the money I have left is "getting low" and other useless baloney messages.

Customer service refuses to have AT&T stop calling or texting my phone, since they say it's their policy.

Third, I live in a metropolitan area, yet the sound is lousy. Voices cut in and out, sound warbly, people can't hear me and I must repeat myself.

Overall, I HIGHLY DO NOT RECOMMEND. Seriously, don't even consider this. When I finish up my minutes, mine goes in the trash.

This is a very basic phone, which is what I needed for my daughter going to camp. The "Product Description" says it includes $15 of airtime. When I didn't see the $15 in my account after activation I called AT&T, who said this phone does not include any airtime. I then called Amazon who confirmed the $15 airtime claim, but the Amazon rep told me I had to contact Samsung. Unfortunately, the number she gave me was for directory assistance.....I had to call India (I mean Amazon) back. Samsung said I had to deal with either Amazon or AT&T.

I have since sent an inquiry to Amazon via email and will update this review.

Sounds like someone is lying on the Amazon website.

Update.....

I just talked with Amazon who said they will give me $15 credit for future Amazon purchases, and will update the product description. When I asked why the 1st rep didn't offer the same solution, which would've saved me an hour of calling (and being on hold), he basically said that that was Amazon's policy and wanted the customer to exhaust all avenues. So, it's better to let customers do all of the legwork for an Amazon mistake and hope they are so frustrated that they simply give-up. Doesn't sound like good customer service to me.

I bought this as a temporary replacement for a much more expensive phone which died well before its time. Sad to say, this little phone has better call quality than the one it replaced. If you're looking for a calls-only, absolutely no-bells-and-whistles phone just for emergencies, you can wind up spending a lot more money for far worse phones than this one. It'll also fit into the watch pocket of your jeans, which for me was actually important.

The one downside is that if you want to put a game on a phone to pass time on the bus or subway, you need to pick a different device. I went to the AT&T site, found exactly three games I was told were compatible for this device, bought one, and then found out that it wasn't compatible at all - leading me to spend far more time with AT&T customer service recovering the cost of the game than the time was worth. I let a more knowledgeable friend of mine mess around with the phone only to learn that there is apparently no game or app which this phone can host. As such, I repeat my earlier use of the phrase "NO bells and whistles" - you can't even BUY any for this device. Calls and texts, that's about all you can hope for (the phone does feature predictive texting).

Features I really liked were that the phone has Spanish AND French language settings (I far too often see only Spanish offered as an alternative to English) and the fact that one of the default ringtones is the "classic ring" - which means that when it rings, it sounds like a real telephone instead of a high-tech torture device. This is a tremendous plus, because almost all of the other default tones are intolerable.

One other thing: you can put pictures on the phone (note: it has no camera of its own) to use as wallpaper if you know how, but the screen quality is so low that if you're using a picture of Michelle Pfeiffer it may well come out looking like Joan Rivers. So not only can you not put a game on it, but it isn't even worth the trouble to try to personalize the phone at all.

I give it three and a half stars, which I've rounded up to four, because it delivers a lot for pretty much the lowest price you can pay for a new cell phone these days. I'd have given it four and a half rounded up to five if I could have put so much as one lousy game on it.

I purchased this phone as a stop-gap since my old phone broke after four years and I wasn't due for an upgrade with my service for eight months.

It's not exactly fair to pick on a $9.99 phone but since all I expected were basic functions and this one failed to deliver, I thought I had to comment. Most importantly, the phone I purchased started to shut off by itself after a few months causing me to miss incoming calls and texts. Then, even when it was on, texts sent to me in the morning would show up late in the day, as would voice mail messages and missed call indicators.

I ended up replacing the phone and all of these problems disappeared so I can't seem to fault my network provider. Again, $9.99 is not a lot to pay for a phone, but making and receiving calls when I wish is not a lot to expect from a cellular device at any price. You'll save money with this phone but you'd be better off saving yourself a lot of aggravation by purchasing a different product.

I thought I was getting some minutes with this prepaid phone. Not so. I inserted the SIM card, charged the battery, and chose a plan according to the instructions, but it would not receive SMS (text) messages. I called customer service, who told me that my account was empty and that I had to purchase minutes either right there with my credit card, or go to an ATT store. I went to the ATT store where they told me that I could have bought the exact same Samsung phone there, same deal, same choice of calling plans, for TEN BUCKS! So I paid over THREE TIMES too much buying it here! Thanks, Amazon!

For my parents visiting, I ordered this phone from a vendor named "classicsale10". The shipping was fast. The phone is completely out of date but still meet the basics - calling and texting. The battery lasts long. And it feels good to touch the "real keys" again...touch screens are just cold and hard. I only hope this phone would have volume control...and the sound to be louder.

Real problem is, the product detail said that this package contains $15 airtime credit. So I activated the phone...and, nothing. Then I waited to see if any msg will come later, like the other buyer said in his/her comment. A night was gone, and still nothing. Then I contacted the seller. They replied by saying that "AT&T has withdrawn this $15 airtime credit for the devices launched in the market in recent times. The listing was created when the AT&T was giving the free airtime credit. " Well, although I don't completely understand this but it's not my resposbility for the $15 loss. So after negotiation the seller quickly agreed to refund me $15 though they will lose money. Sorry about that. Blame AT&T, maybe.

Anyways, it's a good deal.