Sprint Cell Phone Sales

What Sprint Has to Offer

When you purchase a Sprint phone, you will usually choose a Sprint cell phone plan (that excludes cases where you have to buy a replacement phone for an existing plan). You may choose a pay-as-you-go plan or a contract; the choice is yours.

The Phones

You can check out the phones available in your area by entering your zip code on the Sprint website. That means the phones you see will be the ones that work in your area, so think of it as a custom-made shopping site. Whatever you see will work for your location; it's up to you to whittle down the choices based on what you need and want: picture and video capabilities, PDA functions, and so on. Here are a few examples of what Sprint has to offer:

• M300 by Samsung: This one has a camera, Bluetooth capabilities, and you can even email with it. It comes in sleek red or silver.

• i265 by Motorola: This one is a link between Nextel and Sprint. Though some of Motorola's most popular phones are of the flip phone variety, this one isn't. It has Nextel Direct Connect to offer, plus voice dialing, speakerphone, and email capabilities.

• LX160 by LG: This one is a flip phone. You don't have to open it to check the time or see who's calling, though, thanks to an external display. It has Bluetooth, email, and Web capabilities.

• KATANA II by Sanyo: This will be a popular one among the girly-girls since it comes in a bubble gum pink shade. There's a camera for instantly sharing your pictures, plus Web, email, and Bluetooth capabilities.

• Similarly, the Katana DLX by Sanyo comes in Pink Satin, Champagne, and Platinum Ice. It has advanced music and even TV functions. In addition, it has the camera, the speaker phone, and the Web capabilities of the KATANA II.

Find Sprint Cell Phone Sales

Check your local freestanding Sprint stores, but don’t forget about the independently owned Sprint kiosks in malls in your search for Sprint cell phone sales. Sometimes they don't run the same specials. Popular times of the year to find a great deal on a cell phone:

• Valentine's Day
• November to December (for the Christmas rush)
• August (when the kids go off to college, they need phones to keep in touch with their families)

Generally, Sprint cell phone sales include freebies -- that is, you get one or more free phones when you sign up for a contract. Cell phone sales are better when you opt for the contract over the pay-as-you-go method. In most cases, free phones are only offered when you sign up for a two-year contract.

How Sprint Sales Have Been

Despite an optimistic outlook for the merger between Sprint and Nextel in 2005, they still haven't topped the competition. Verizon and Cingular/AT&T still top the cell phone charts. In October 2005, The New York Times said that the companies' first post-merger report was barely above Wall Street's projections. Combined sales were still much lower than those of both companies' together in previous years. The accumulation of new customers also decreased significantly after the merge, but the CFO of the company, Paul Saleh, claimed that there would be an increase in marketing toward the young people in the country who did not have cell phones, boosting the numbers back up. Refer to the article, Sprint-Nextel: Anatomy of a Failed Merger, for an update (written October 2007).

Pushing Push-to-Talk

Before Sprint and Nextel became one, Sprint had a few push-to-talk phones. Now, they're pushing them harder than ever so that you may talk instantly with other Sprint/Nextel customers simply by pushing a button, much like using a walkie-talkie. Some of the best Sprint cell phone sales include handsets with this capability.