I did a bunch of research since my older kid needed a phone. Turns out Mint is a pretty good deal. Ryan Reynolds is a weirdo on screen, but apparently he's a good family guy behind the scenes and pretty humble. So he gets points for that. I think Mint uses the same network as Verizon. Not great, but it's decently large. More on Verizon below. I hooked up my kid for basically $15/month for a year and it went by with absolutely no problems. His connection does all the stuff and decently fast. Told my kid to try to make sure he was always on WiFi whenever he was using data and since the plan came with unlimited text messages this isn't a problem. I think he gets 5Gb of data in the plan per month. Doesn't sound like a lot, but with plenty of WiFi around it's fine. I've actually thought of switching from AT&T to Mint myself just to save a bunch of money. I'm still on the old OLD grandfathered TRUE unlimited data plan. But I'm a tech guy and I use it. For a simple plan at a low cost, I like the Mint thing. And Ryan Reynolds doesn't bother me. He's an actor. His characters are annoying but like I said he's apparently cool enough as himself. More on Verizon: I worked for Verizon Wireless for a short time. It wasn't short enough. Verizon Wireless is the single most corrupt company I've ever encountered. They lie about every damned thing. "Most reliable network." Not even close. They're pulling the jew trick of getting you to think one thing: That your calls will never be dropped. But that's not what they're referring to. As far as reliability, THEY are talking about the battery backup systems they have on their towers. And here's the hilarious thing: Verizon only owns about 10% of the towers their network uses. And on top of that, AT&T has just as much battery backup on their towers. So this is all just so much bullshit. "Verizon Wireless uses military technology." Yes they do. But it's military technology of the 1960s. Here, they're referring to their packet compression. Basically they use the same packet compression as the US military back in the 1960s. And it suuuuuucks. Make a call on a Verizon phone, then make a call on an AT&T phone. Hear the difference? The Verizon call will sound muddy. This is because the compression they use drops off the highs and lows of the signal to save space. In the 1960s this was considered efficient. Now? It's just low quality. I've personally tested this one many times with many different phones. It's not the phone. It's the network. "Fewest dropped calls." I have no idea where they get this. The Verizon system actually forcibly drops calls. One reason they use the shitty 1960s compression is because they have much less bandwidth on their network than AT&T. And they designed the system such that when a tower is taking too many calls, it actually intentionally drops calls so as not to get overloaded. Now, I'm sure AT&T does this too. However, Verizon has so much less room they drop calls all the time. Verizon Wireless designed a billing system which intentionally fucks you over. Again, I've seen this with my own eyes. When I was working there, we had all kinds of complaints from customers telling us their plans weren't set up correctly. Most often, the customers said they'd requested unlimited texting and wound up with a first-tier text plan, charging them hundreds and sometimes in the thousands of dollars a month. There were plenty of other similar issues with plans, but the texting thing was the most common. In every case, these "mistakes" made money for Verizon. and the resolution from Verizon? "Sorry this happened. We'll correct your plan. But you're still liable for the charges up to now." I saw this so often I did some checking of my own. Not only did I verify that customers had indeed (in writing) requested unlimited texting, but I saw as I was setting up new accounts that the software intentionally changed things after plan selections were made. They wrote the software which sets up plans to intentionally fuck people over. Again, seen it with my own eyes. Finally, Verizon is NOT a communications company. Verizon was literally started by a small group of fraternity brothers who were sitting around one day kicking around ideas on how to make money. Their scheme is to market a service as the Cadillac of wireless services, but actually offer minimal services. In contrast, AT&T was born of a communications company and was always set up as such. This is why the core of Verizon is so thin and their network is so shitty.