Yesterday, my housemate took me to SoftBank to try and get a phone. She was under the impression that SoftBank was the cheapest company to go with. After looking at all of the phones (one of them was $900...yes $900...for that price it better be as good as my laptop and make my breakfast). First, they don't have any "0 yen" phones. Second, if you don't pay for the phone up front, you can end up paying 2 - 4 x's more for the phone (one $150 phone was $600 if you paid in monthly installments). Right now, SoftBank is fairly famous for having foreign movie stars do commercials (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=as8M8POpzu8). They also have this rather humorous commercials for their WHITE PLAN: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mnz1QvmdQK4 (they're a family and the dog's the dad).
Needless to say, there is nothing inexpensive about SoftBank. The cheapest plan is 2000 yen ($20)...ah but Crysti, that's soooo cheap, what are you talking about. Yeah, but for 2000 yen you don't really get anything but 10 minutes of talk time. YEAH 10 MINUTES! That doesn't include email which is 315 yen charge to just have an e-mail name and then 1200 yen charge to have the ability to e-mail (which they charge you whether you use it or not). But you really can't e-mail, no to actually send and receive e-mails that's 4200 yen a month. But get this, the first month you have to pay 9550 yen for ALL of their services and then after that you can drop the services you don't want (like I'll remember or know how to do that). So for the phone and the first month it costs 20000 yen ($200) and that was for the cheapest phone and for basic service and no real minutes I'd pay 6000 yen a month (for what?).
Today we went to AU. I have no idea what it stands for, but it seems to be a common service (almost all the teachers have it). Their most expensive phone was $450, but it was also a tv/walkman/ and 8.0 megapixel digital camera. Au is hip with the times and has a whole wall of phones that are the previous years model for 0 yen if you sign a 2-year contract. The contract included 90 minutes of talk time (the most was 120) and then 1050 for 3000 e-mails. The phone has 5.0 megapixel camera and is a Sony Ericcson Walkman. All I had to do was fill out a piece of paper and I walked out with a brand new phone and service...FOR NOTHING! I asked to pay and the guy said they would bill me. Seriously? I didn't give them anything other than my address (which for all he knows could be fake)!! SUGOI! If I wasn't such an honest person I would have just gotten myself a free cybershot camera. Talk about trust! The only problem is it's all in Japanese, so it might take me a few days to figure out how to use it.
New Phone :http://www.phonemag.com/sony-ericsson-cyber-shot-w61s-01531.php
Needless to say, there is nothing inexpensive about SoftBank. The cheapest plan is 2000 yen ($20)...ah but Crysti, that's soooo cheap, what are you talking about. Yeah, but for 2000 yen you don't really get anything but 10 minutes of talk time. YEAH 10 MINUTES! That doesn't include email which is 315 yen charge to just have an e-mail name and then 1200 yen charge to have the ability to e-mail (which they charge you whether you use it or not). But you really can't e-mail, no to actually send and receive e-mails that's 4200 yen a month. But get this, the first month you have to pay 9550 yen for ALL of their services and then after that you can drop the services you don't want (like I'll remember or know how to do that). So for the phone and the first month it costs 20000 yen ($200) and that was for the cheapest phone and for basic service and no real minutes I'd pay 6000 yen a month (for what?).
Today we went to AU. I have no idea what it stands for, but it seems to be a common service (almost all the teachers have it). Their most expensive phone was $450, but it was also a tv/walkman/ and 8.0 megapixel digital camera. Au is hip with the times and has a whole wall of phones that are the previous years model for 0 yen if you sign a 2-year contract. The contract included 90 minutes of talk time (the most was 120) and then 1050 for 3000 e-mails. The phone has 5.0 megapixel camera and is a Sony Ericcson Walkman. All I had to do was fill out a piece of paper and I walked out with a brand new phone and service...FOR NOTHING! I asked to pay and the guy said they would bill me. Seriously? I didn't give them anything other than my address (which for all he knows could be fake)!! SUGOI! If I wasn't such an honest person I would have just gotten myself a free cybershot camera. Talk about trust! The only problem is it's all in Japanese, so it might take me a few days to figure out how to use it.
New Phone :http://www.phonemag.com/sony-ericsson-cyber-shot-w61s-01531.php
No comments:
Post a Comment