Buying a new smartphone in Canada

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We have a cellphone but have never had a smartphone. We'd like to buy a new smartphone (a recent Samsung Galaxie maybe). We would use it very little and don't want to pay the exorbitant monthly rates of cellphone plans in Canada. Therefore we're thinking of a pay-as-you-go plan. So suggestions please for a reliable source for genuine unlocked cellphones, and a reasonable pay-as-you-go plan.
 
Check out Petro Canada wireless plans. For 30 days or less visits, we found their rates to be best and convenient to get started with SIM card. Looks like 30 days gets you 100 or so minutes for $25 CDN. Don't know if other vendors have better, longer term deals.
 
Phone plans are expensive in Canada, but a smartphone is mostly useless without a data plan. If you use wifi mostly at home and office, you will also need to decide where else your might use it using cellular data.

1. Do you travel a lot? Is it mostly local, provincial, all over Canada, US, overseas? Some cell phone services have limited coverage areas.
2. How much will you text?
3. How much will you call and where?

For a cheap talk and text plan - PetroCanada is pretty good. Around $15/mo
For a so-so coverage (GTA, Vancouver) unlimited talk/text + 1.5Gb/data ($24-29/mo)
For a national talk, text and data plan - PetroCanada $15-60 (see web site)
If you have a Saskatchewan billing address - see Saskatel
 
Thanks JayhawkRoy and NO2. I have to admit I've never heard of the Petro Canada wireless plan. I'll check it out further.

We've used a Rogers pay-as-you-go plan (for our ancient cellphone) that looks somewhat similar ($100 for 365 days coverage). We never use the whole $100. It's been a fairly good plan but cellphone coverage continues to be poor in many rural areas.

Sasktel does seem to have a good plan, probably the cheapest in the country.
 
We have a Rogers prepaid plan that is $10/month that use with an older flip phone. For your small usage stick with a non-smart phone and enjoy the small bill. Rogers and Fido have about the same plan costs.

If you are insistant on the smart phone route, the Petro Canada prepaid is as good as it gets at $45/month 3G data.
 
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