So my wife's Droid is toast. Dropped in handbag with a bottle of rubbing alcohol. Bad idea.

Every time my wife ruins her phone, I celebrate by getting her a more expensive one. Why do I do this? I don't know. I must be crazy.

Just wanted to rub the lamp and see if anyone has any good tips to find a good deal on a phone with no contract (seeing as I live outside the US.)

If nothing else, I may just pick something up on Ebay, but figured I'd check to see if anyone knows of something more reliable.

www.clove.co.uk will export (and not charge VAT) and their prices are pretty reasonable. Expansys might do too, but their prices are not the cheapest. You might find some Hong Kong suppliers do good deals too, since everybody there buys phones sim-free.

Thanks. That's an option I hadn't thought of. I assumed I'd be buying in the US and having someone bring it down for me.

It's the "no contract" thing that will get difficult, as I'm sure you know. "Cheap" and "off contract" have never gone together with smartphones, sadly. More like "off contract" and "ridiculously overpriced to support the on-contract price."

I know it's not out yet, and I don't have an off-contract price to quote you, but it looks like T-Mo will have a super cheap phone at some point (at least it will with a rebate). I also can't attest to what the specs are, so it's probably a bit slow...

Off contract iPhones don't support the contracted ones. They simply allow Apple to make nearly as much money per handset. On-contract phones go for $199 at point of sale and then bring in another $800 or so later. Off contract phones sell for $700 to $1100 right off the bat.

Apple gets paid either way. I suppose the situation may be different with other companies, what with their low margins and comparatively low revenues.

I think you're misunderstanding me (and nothing you said applies only to the iPhone). What I mean is that the off-contract price seems designed to discourage buying it. I wasn't making a statement of fact or anything, just pointing out that you're not going to find an off-contract phone (at least not new) for a small amount of money.

In other words: sheesh, can't you let ANYthing go?

When I moved down here, Verizon let me out of my contract with no penalty because I'd moved internationally to a place where they couldn't provide service.

I still have a US address and could do this again (albeit with a different provider), but feel it would be dishonest. Sometimes morals are expensive

Nothing available from Belizean carriers?

The phones in the Smart store proudly display the Sprint logo. Not a single Android offering among them. Digicell isn't an official iPhone provider either, although I see people with them on DigiCell fairly frequently.

That's it. Just two providers here.

Virgin Mobile USA (Sprint network) recently started selling the Samsung Intercept. I have no idea if you'd be able to use that on another network, but Virgin has no contracts and there's no need to sign up for it at all; that is, you can just go into a store and buy one off the shelf. It's probably worth looking into.

If she is frequently destroying phones would it not be a sensible thing to get either a more robust phone - though can any handle a bottle of rubbing alcohol? Or a cheap dump phone? You know the only fashioned kind that just made phone calls and played snake.