Advice needed on phone for my brother.....

[StoneRyno]

We are signing my brother up to be on framily plan with us. We will have 8 lines with him and two friends who are joining the framily. But anyways my brothers budget is about $100 for a new phone. We have preliminary looked at some options. That being sprints certified preowned options. Of which the LG Viper 4G LTE was one of them. And appeared to be the only one with LTE vs the obsolete wimax (I still groan sprints waste of time and money on that but anyways). Before we commit to a final decision I wanted to ask in here for advice to make sure we make an informed decision. He up until now has not used anything but a very basic phone that does text and calls only. However he expessed the desire to have much more than that which I think maybe even a smartphone wannabe phone (one that doesn't have android, wp8, or iOS) might not be what he will want.

A couple possible points to cover: is there any reason not to get the LG Viper 4G LTE including an alternative model and or brand device that can be had for the same budget that would be a better choice? Note we don't have to get android since there is no established preference. And since I'm most familiar with android over the others what is the most recent official version of android that we can update to? if it is not already updated for us if we are for sure going with the LG Viper 4G LTE.

Thanks.

 

[B. Diddy]

When I look at the Sprint site for California, I see the Moto X, Nexus 5, and HTC One being offered for $100, while the Galaxy S4 is $50, and the LG G2, Galaxy S4 Mini, and Galaxy S3 are all free (with contract, of course). Are any of these excellent phones available where you are?

 

[ffejjj]

When I look at the Sprint site for California, I see the Moto X, Nexus 5, and HTC One being offered for $100, while the Galaxy S4 is $50, and the LG G2, Galaxy S4 Mini, and Galaxy S3 are all free (with contract, of course). Are any of these excellent phones available where you are?

Nice laundry list of phone's you compiled

 

[StoneRyno]

Because this is the framily plan we are dealing with no contract pricing. So he has to pay in full upfront or go with the pay X now and Y per month for 24 months. That pretty much eliminates buying brand new anything smartphone from sprint and possibly any retailer as long as the inflated pricing exists from the going the way of the dinosaur subsidized model. The only exception would be a pay X now an Y per month that totaled within the budget. As of my starting the thread sprint website does not reflect the pay X now and Y per month pricing and only shows you the inflated retail pricing. And there are no stores in the area that carry every single possible option he could get which makes the task of seeing all his options quite tedious. So I'm hoping perhaps some here have been in the same boat. I just don't want to commit to a specific brand, model, and OS and find out after he has it that we made a horrible mistake.

 

[thenameisnigel]

The LG Viper may or may not be the choice depending on whether you want an update past ICS, and also factoring in the fact that to date there hasn't been a major dev trying to get development on this device started.

 

[StoneRyno]

Seeing as this is his first smartphone I don't think having the latest version of android will matter to him. He said to me whatever device I thought would be good he would go with.