Are Pay as You Go, Cell Phone Plans, Worth the Money?

I first began using a TracFone 15 years ago for talk only when I was called out of town for several months and needed a cell phone for communication. I went with TracFone brcause it was convenient, no contract and the price seemed to be what I could afford at the time. Back then there weren't too many options for pay as you go cell phone companies so it wasn't as if I had the same choices as today. There were no activation fees and setting up minutes on my phone was easy enough as long as I had a credit card. I could add minutes through the phone and were detected within minutes and was ready to go.

I learned quickly that my minutes were taken up with not only outgoing calls but with incoming, in and outgoing text messages. The 240 minutes that I initially had, ended up being cut in half due to me having to pay for incoming and text messaging that was already paid for by someone else. So it's like double paying. By the time the month was over, the cost of my minutes ended up well over $100.00. As for quality of service, half of the time I had none and had to drive several miles until there were a few bars on my phone showing the service availability.

I should have went with an unlimited service plan which would have cost me around $100.00 a month at the time anyway, especially since I had to use the phone a lot.

Today there are a lot more pay as you go cell companies and options where having to sign a contract is not needed. You still have plenty of alluring choices of inexpensive service plans along with inexpensive smart and flip phones. Be careful with the plan that you choose because they still charge you for all in and out calls including texts unless you go with unlimited. If you just plan on having the phone in the car only for emergencies, the plan doesn't matter, but I recommend that you have automatic refill. One of these days when you're going to need it, you might find out that you forgot to add minutes to your phone and the sim card is expired rendering your phone useless. It happened to my wife.

Depending on your needs, the memory and speed on a phone is like on a computer these days. There is so much filler crap built in to the phones that take up memory and speed so you need to have enough of it if you are planning on taking a lot of pics and going on the internet.

Another important factor to consider is whether a phone is compatible with the service feed in your area. If the phone is a G3 and the only service in your area is G4, it ain't going to work. I recently had to replace my wife's TracFone because of that. Some service companies put out all available services from G1 up, these guys don't. She couldn't even use the phone in our own house. I went with a different company, got a flip phone for about $30.00 and unlimited talk service for $20.00 a month. I am not being charged for any calls in or out and the phone works well anywhere she goes in the area.

For us, a pay as you go plan has worked well. We only use the phone for talk and have auto refill, not having to worry about adding minutes the following months is a plus. I'm not locked in with a contract and can change plans and companies anytime I want. The unlimited plan is definitely a way to go if you plan on using the phone.

Canon MG3022

Canon MG3022 wireless printer

I purchased the printer only because I needed a printer right away and was on a budget. I had just purchased a new lap top and had to print some stuff and get it in the mail ASAP. I knew that you get what you pay for and here it really is the case.

My printer is black and ivory a lot bigger than my previous Canon iP 90 which crapped out on me 2 years ago. This one is not portable and needs wi-fi to work. It could be wired but it doesn’t come with a printer cable. Any printer cable will do and I happen to have a couple lying around so that won’t be an issue should I want to use it elsewhere.

The set up for the wi-fi can drive you crazy if you don’t watch their video for every step on YouTube. Most of the time, even if you do what they show you, won’t work. If you use the installation disk that came in the box for the software and drivers, chances are your computer will freeze up like mine did. I ended up downloading the latest install file from their website. If using the disk happens to work for you, you will still need to download the updates so you’re just better off downloading the new install file. All in all I spent 3 hours setting this printer up.

The ink that comes with the printer will not last very long. I printed an alignment and a trial print and used up half of my ink on just 2 sheets. Expect to purchase Pixma 245 xl black and 246 xl color ink immediately. Don’t even bother getting the standard capacity 245 and 246, it’s a waste of money and you will end up buying new ink cartridges very quickly. They are not cheap!

You will need a better software for printing should you want to do anything beyond basics. Their software won’t have it. I couldn’t even print a 2”x2” photo for a passport using their software. The size wasn’t included nor could I add it in. I had to use trial software that came with my new computer to print anything beyond the basic.

The printer has a scanner which is controlled through the software installed on the computer.

I give this printer Canon MG3022 only * (1 star) for price which is under $45 in store and under $40 on the internet. I would not recommend anyone buying this one unless you are a glutton for punishment.

ASUS Laptop X Series X550ZE-WBFX

                ASUS Laptop X Series X550ZE-WBFX AMD FX-Series FX-7500
(2.10 GHz) 8 GB Memory 1 TB HDD AMD Radeon R5 M230 15.6" Windows 10 Home
 64-Bit

ASUS Laptop X Series X550ZE-WBFX

The lap top looks very sleek, attractive and the speed on the Asus is okay and works well for what I need the lap top for. It also has plenty of memory all around. Overall, though, I am somewhat disappointed. I should have remembered the saying “you get what you pay for” but unfortunately I was on a budget. 

The lap top comes with the bare minimum software and at first start up you have a choice of installing some useless trial applications along with a lite version of anti-virus software. Not knowing that most of them were useless trial apps to me and what actually came with the lap top, I installed a few. It was like malware with constant nag windows to buy. The Asus online storage is okay but don’t need it. It too has constant nag windows to upgrade. I uninstalled everything but the Windows program, Office and a free PDF file reader which I had installed at my first startup which I like.  I installed my own anti-virus which I’ve used for decades.

The batteries are sub standard and although it shows that they are good for 3hrs, I only get about an hour of use out of them. They will not charge to 100% , only to 99%. After about 5 minutes of use the available power has dropped down to 65%. I had the laptop fully charged, after plugging it in and powering it up, I noticed that the batteries were in the process of being charged. I had lost approximately 20% of battery power as it sat sat unplugged and power turned off. I never had that situation with my other laptop.

The key pad works well but the mouse pad is garbage and doesn’t work well unless I’m a bit rough with it. I’m just going to have to get myself a mouse. The DVD/R is cheap but for now it works.

Windows 10 is a little getting used to especially when upgrading from Windows Xp. I hate the menu setup along with their browser. Maybe I'm used to xp or just getting old and like things a bit easier to navigate through but dislike Windows 10. Others say they like it.

Had I known that this lap top was not what I expected, I would have purchased one much better than this after several more months of saving up for one.

I give this ASUS Laptop X Series X550ZE-WBFX only ** (2 stars) because of good speed and memory.