Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

Are there much better Android phones available right now? Of course there are. There isn't, however, anything that I would more highly recommend for a Tracfone user who wants to use it for the things that I want to use mine for. A few years ago, reps at some major mobile service providers would almost become hostile at the mention that I wanted to have a smartphone but I didn't want to have a data plan. They would parrot off some stupid lines about not using the phone to its potential or some other garbage as justification for the fact that their company would not allow you to activate and use a smartphone without paying for their expensive monthly data plans. I have had a plan like that before, and I only ever used data a few times a week. For the most part I have access to wifi 90 percent of the day, and I do like to be able to pull out my phone to check email, look something up, and use/update a few apps that I like. It It was not worth 30-40 bucks to me to have all kinds of available data usage I would never make a dent in. I felt like someone wanting to grab a quick snack like an apple and the only options available were pricey all-you-can-eat buffets. Between that, not being super fond of texting (so I made no dent in my available texts either), and having a Magic Jack at home that I use to make any long or business type calls, even my relatively low-priced grandfathered plan from 2006 was looking like a huge waste of money. So I switched to Tracfone and have been more than happy that I did. I spend less than 20 bucks a month for 2 phones and always carry over some unused minutes. One thing I kept saying I would love was to be able to have a smartphone that I could use with wifi when I wanted, load on useful things like a graphing calculator (for Calculus class that I am currently in, backup contacts with google, and have the option to use a little bit of data on the occasions where I wanted/needed to do something and didn't have wifi available all without a contract or hefty monthly fee. A couple of weeks ago I went to Best Buy and bought the ZTE Valet right after they because available to use on Tracfone. I typically expect to find a few things that disappoint me when my expectations are high for something inexpensive, but I can honestly say that every criteria I had come up with before buying the phone was exceeded. I can turn off 3g easily and not worry about accidentally using my data. I can download and use every app that I used to use on my deactivated Samsung Galaxy S (which I occasionally carried in addition to a cell phone needing two separate devices to be able at that time to do what I now can plus some with one), it is very fast and responsive (even if I had paid twice as much my expectations would have been surpassed), the camera is way better than the other phones I used with Tracfone before (nothing amazing but certainly good enough to post online or set as a pc screen background), and the battery life is fantastic. If I have it on but use it infrequently (maybe 10 minutes of web on wifi, 5 minutes on the phone, and 10 minutes just doing whatever) it will last several days without needing a charge. One day I used it to download apps and updates over wifi, surf the web, used the calulator for over 5 hours (you get a lot of homework in Calculus), and I had wifi turned on the entire day. This was 3 days after I had last charged it and I still had almost 40 percent of my battery left at the end of that day. I don't expect this to last forever, but this is about the best I have seen so far with any phone. I can't say anything regarding the call quality, so look elsewhere for that. The reason is that I just don't make many calls, and in the last 2 weeks I haven't actually used it to make any. I do see bars all day long, and I have ignored a few spam calls from some number that I recognized from answering on my previous phone with the same number. Texting works great. For me, splitting my tripled minutes into 60*3 = 180 minutes, 180 texts, and 180 MB has been great. Switching and transferring my old minutes (I had 420 minutes and got 420 minutes + 420 texts + 420 MB) was simple as well. The main thing that makes this a good fit for me is that I was already in these usage habits before (though using one phone and one Android device), so upgrade was 100 percent an enhancement. What I don't use my phone for is to constantly let everyone know where I am all day long, update and alert me about updates to every stupid thing that happens on Facebook or Twitter or whatever, check in on foursquare or whatever it's called, or anything like that. I have a TomTom in each car, but I did make sure the navigation works with google maps (it does just fine) just in case. If you are the type that actually could burn through multiple gigabytes of data every month, this phone would probably still be good, but what you care about and what I do would just be different... so you would likely find something else that better met your needs (though not while still using Tracfone). The point of this post (as I am not going into any technical details) is to help people who might have about the same usage desires as I do to make a decision by confirming a few areas that I considered when deciding if I would get the ZTE Valet. I would give it 5 stars for what it is and for what it isn't even if I had paid as much as $300 for it. I have yet to find one thing that causes me the slightest unmet expectation. Sure, it would be nice to have a front camera, awesome speakers, HD video capture, etc. but then I would have paid a lot more than 99 bucks and I would be a lot more worried about something happening to it. I have one piece of advice for anyone that decides to get this phone. Unless you really want all of that google stuff (like Google+ , hangout, and half a dozen other things) running because you use them all the time, save yourself a lot of Ram and battery power by disabling them. To do so you have to remove the updates first. Just hit the menu button, go to Manage Apps, scroll through to find the stuff you don't plan on using (make sure you know what things are at least though before stopping them), then remove updates and disable from there. Advanced TaskKiller or something like it is helpful too for keeping stuff off that you don't want running when you aren't using it. There is nowhere near as much of this junk as you get when you buy a phone from a dealer with a contract and it comes full of bloatware, but I still prefer to maximize my battery life and speed.