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The Galaxy line of phones are awesome.  A removable battery plays no small part of that as you can always have a charged battery with an inexpensive separate battery charger and never again have to plug your phone into the wall.  With the huge screens on Galaxy phones along with Google Maps you’ll also never need to buy another GPS.  And Android Jelly Bean’s incredible Google Now service kicks Siri to the curb.

Samsung Galaxy Nexus: New customer: $0.01, Add-a-line: $39.99, Upgrade: $39.99

Samsung Galaxy S III (Blue): New customer: $0.01, Add-a-line: $59.99, Upgrade: $119.99

Samsung Galaxy S III (White): New customer: $0.01, Add-a-line: $59.99, Upgrade: $119.99

A Galaxy S3 sells for $199.99 with a new plan on Sprint.com

HT: Achas Veachas, via DDF

Update: A Sprint internal memo to employees confirms that this change is considered material and does justify opting out of your contract for free.

Starting on your February 2012 bill, Sprint will no longer offer an employee discount on any of the additional lines.

From your January Sprint bill:
“Important Information Relating To Your Sprint Bill
Discount Policy Change Notice
Effective your February bill cycle, Family and Business Share monthly plan charges will be billed differently.
Discounts will only apply to the monthly recurring charge of the primary line.
Line 2 will be billed at the applicable Add-a-Phone rate and will not be discount eligible.”

If you have more than one line and are receiving employee discount pricing you have the right to opt-out of your contract due to this material change in the price you will pay for your service.

In other words if you get 20% off your monthly bill due to who you work for (or where you go to college, etc.) that discount will now only apply to the primary line and not on the 2nd line.

Sprint may offer you a credit to keep your account, but you still have to right to refuse it and opt-out of your contract.

You will likely need to fight for this, but you should be able to get your account notated that your early termination fee will be waived when you port your number to another carrier.  Of course Verizon and AT&T already implemented this a while ago, so don’t expect to pay less by porting away, but you probably can expect better service than what you get with Sprint…

As is being discussed on the DansDeals Forums, effective 01/30 Sprint will be charging $10 per month per line that has any new (or used) smartphone put onto it. This currently is only charged on new 4G phones. This change was stealthily announced by Sprint just days ago, without any warning being given to customer in their previous month’s bill as is required per the Sprint contract.

The change even includes very old smartphones, like the venerable circa-2007 Palm Centro!

They won’t charge the $10 fee if you already have a smartphone on the line. However if you activate one on the line the $10/month charge will be incurred. Even if you just break your current phone and want to activate an old smartphone or buy another Palm Centro off ebay you will have to pay the $10/month fee.

It’s even worse for folks with legacy Sprint plans who are holding onto older plans that are much cheaper and have much better benefits than current plans. These plans aren’t compatible with the $10 charge, so you will have to lose your legacy plan (Free & Clear, Fair & Flexible, etc) and upgrade to an expensive everything plan just to activate even an old phone on your line.

Frankly, it’s a despicable move on Sprint’s part and I urge my readers to complain to the FCC about it. Charging customers that are locked into a contract or forcing them to give up their legacy plan just to activate an older phone that you own already should be illegal!

It’s unknown whether Sprint will let people out of their contract because of this change.  I’m sure they’ll argue they don’t have to (after all they’ll claim that you don’t have to pay the $10/month fee until you change phones.)  Balderdash I say, this is definitely a materially adverse change which clearly allows you to cancel your current contract for free.  If my smartphone breaks and I want to replace it with an older smartphone that I have lying around the house I’ll be subject to a $10/month fee!  If Sprint refuses to let you out of your contract be sure to write to your state’s attorney general office (a great place to file any complaints you have and expect quick resolution) as well complaining to the FCC about this new Sprint policy.

SERO plans are not affected by this change.

Read more here:
Smartphone Premium Data Add-on FAQ

Update: A commenter points out that the Samsung Epic 4G is also available for $99.99 shipped!

Related: Sprint adds 4G in New York, Los Angeles, and San Francisco

HTC EVO 4G Linky

Add the EVO to your cart and pick a plan and it will price out at just $99.99 shipped!

“Purchase a new Sprint device and receive an activation-fee credit for up to $36 for each qualifying line of service activated on a new two-year individual or family plan account purchased from Amazon.com between midnight PDT October 11, 2010, through 11:59 p.m. PDT October 18, 2010.”

If you have a Sprint family plan and receive a corporate discount off the plan you can opt out of your contract!

Effective last month Sprint eliminated the discount from applying to additional lines beyond the primary line. This raised the cost of service for people with multiple lines. If you are under contract you have until today to call up Sprint to get out of your contract.

While some reps may insist that you have to actually cancel your service to have your cancellation fees waived, you should be able to find a rep that will mark your contract as fulfilled, thus deleting your existing contract and allowing you to continue with month-to-month service.

If anyone tries this out let us know how it goes!

HT: aaa

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Sprint is increasing the cost of their “regulatory charge” to 40 cents per line effective 01/01/10.  This a bogus fee collected by Sprint as a stealth rate increase. The notice is being sent out in cell phone bills. You have 30 days from the date of receiving notice that this cost is rising to cancel your plan for free.

“Regulatory Charge
Effective 1/1/10, the Regulatory Charge will increase to $0.40/line. Visit Sprint Ts&Cs or sprint.com/taxesandfees for details; also effective 1/1/10, the Sprint Terms & Conditions (Ts&Cs) are changing. Please review them carefully at sprint.com or on request.”

According to Sprint’s terms and condition there is no way to simply cancel your contract, you must terminate your service and you will not be liable for the ETF.

It may take a few phone calls to customer service, but you should be able to find a rep to let you out of your plan for free.  If not you can always write to Sprint saying that you do not accept the new terms and you wish to end your contract.

If you want to port your number out of Sprint be sure to tell the rep this before canceling service so that they can notate your account to waive the ETF upon completion of porting your number to another carrier. If you cancel your plan before porting your number out of Sprint you may not be able to get your number back.

If you try to cancel be sure to let us know what happens!

Here are the relevant Sprint Terms and Conditions:

“When You Don’t Have To Pay An Early Termination Fee:
You aren’t responsible for paying an Early Termination Fee when terminating Services: (a) provided on a month-to-month basis; (b) consistent with our published trial period return policy; or (c) in response to a materially adverse change we make to the Agreement as described directly below.

Our Right To Change The Agreement & Your Related Rights
We may change any part of the Agreement at any time, including, but not limited to, rates, charges, how we calculate charges, or your terms of Service. We will provide you notice of material changes, and may provide you notice of non-material changes, in a manner consistent with this Agreement (see “Providing Notice To Each Other Under The Agreement” section). If a change we make to the Agreement is material and has a material adverse effect on Services under your Term Commitment, you may terminate each line of Service materially affected without incurring an Early Termination Fee only if you: (a) call us within 30 days after the effective date of the change; and (b) specifically advise us that you wish to cancel Services because of a material change to the Agreement that we have made. If you do not cancel Service within 30 days of the change, an Early Termination Fee will apply if you terminate Services before the end of any applicable Term Commitment.

Update 2: Alive again!

Update: DEAD

Originally posted on 07/29:

sprint.com/sero

Use email address: russ.s.mcguire@sprint.com
Use code: 383

The plans are not nearly as good as before ($30 for 500 minutes), but they do include more features now.

Included in the new plans are unlimited internet, 7pm nights/weekends, roaming, GPS navigation, Blackberry or mobile email, Sprint TV premier, unlimited text/picture/video SMS, and direct connect.

500 minutes is $59, 1000 minutes is $79, and unlimited minutes is $99.

Update 5-7:00pm: Yechiel M. points out that he was just able to order a SERO plan by entering the site through Google’s cache of the sero site!
Sero site via Google Cache Linky
YMMV…good luck, and please post a comment if you’re successful!

Update 4-6:45pm: SERO is now dead!

Update 3-1:20pm: Mordy reports that SERO plans will soon be much more expensive.  Sign up now to lock in at the $30 price!  The savings@sprintemi.com email address is still working as a valid address to get a plan!

Originally posted on December 12th, 2005:

Update 2: Alive Again! Use savings@sprintemi.com as the email!
Update: DEAD!
sprint.com/sero
Email: savings@sprint.com

Sample Sprint Sero plan:
-free phone
-500 Flexible nationwide anytime minutes
-unlimited roaming onto verizon towers
-unlimited sms.
-unlimited nights/weekends
-unlimited calls to sprint and nextel phones
-unlimited internet access(including high speed internet with a capable phone!)
-unlimited picture mail
All for only $30/month!!!

It will be available 10/14 and it will be a Sprint exclusive.

Sprint Teaser Site Linky

It is currently available for pre-order from the Palm Store.

Don’t get your hopes up too high-but it’s a cute ad…
www.sprint.com/islandoffer

Offer Linky
The plan includes unlimited phone calls, sms, picture mail, walkie-talkie, and internet access.
It is currently being tested out for phones with area codes in the following markets: Philadelphia, Tampa Bay, Minneapolis, and the S. Fransisco/Bay Area.

Related Post:
A New Way How To Get Out Of Your Cell Phone Contract (Posted 06/06/07)

“These were the customers that had nothing to do but call us every single day demanding credit. And they were getting it because customer care was getting exhausted from arguing with them. So a nickel at a time these customers were collecting literally thousands of dollars in credit balances.”

HT: Consumerist

Warning: This is an advanced user hack, only attempt this if you are confident in your Palm OS skills!
Use at your own risk!!!
Also be sure than you are on an unlimited data plan, like SERO, so that you will not be charged per kilobyte!

Before Sprint launched Power-Vision(EV-DO) all phones could be used as a modem.
After the launch of power-vision it became a little trickier.
Samsung phones can be used as a modem pretty easily.
Originally there was a generic code that I outlined back in March of 2006.
Then Samsung got a little sneakier and changed the generic code to your phone’s unlock code. Luckily that code is fairly easy to get with Sprint.

At any rate Palm takes it one step further-you actually need to add a file to your phone to make it work as a modem.

The easy way is to pay $34 for Pdanet.

The following is for those of you out there who are up doing a little more work to get something for free…

Step 1: Download and install Resco Explorer onto your treo. Here is the application link for a 14 day free trial:
Resco Explorer .prc Linky

Step 2: Download and install the following hack ONTO AN SD/MINI-SD CARD. You can do so either by putting the .prc file directly onto the memory card using a memory card reader, or via Palm Desktop quick install and putting the file into the expansion card file. Hack Linky

Step 3: Launch Explorer on your treo and open up the SD card file for Palm, and then launcher to find the hack file. Highlight the hack file, go to the edit menu and select copy to and then copy it to RAM.

Step 4: Download Sprint Connection Manager. Install the files for the treo.

You should be good to go, if you have any problems connecting you may want to close down hotsync and/or try connecting to the internet from the treo itself before dialing out as a modem.

Just call 866-250-2221 or 866-881-9571 and ask for the free text messaging promo to be added to your SERO plan.
If you have any problems just tell them that it mentions the promo on the main site at sprint.com/sero
HT: R.R.

As I let you guys know over 2 months ago, there is a new treo for sprint that finally has an internal antenna!
755p Cnet Review Linky
This treo adds built-in push-email and IM support, a more stable version of bluetooth, a 320×320 high-res screen, and 128MB RAM.
Unfortunately it only accepts mini-sd cards.
According to cnet the cost is $429.99 outright or $279.99 with a 2 year contract.
Apparently, at least according to the sprint website the 755p is $579.99 outright, or $279.99 with a 2 year contract.

Now the question is will a letter from your yeshiva’s secretary be enough to qualify…
Offer Linky