My 2012 Verizon 4G cell phone died. What is a good cell phone to get?

[BigmanPigman]

I do not take it with me unless I think I might need it. I basically use it for emergencies (if the electricity goes out, etc) and to call long distance, no texting, no extra fancy stuff. What should I get....

1. A new phone for a few hundred $$$ and get a cell phone service separately through Verizon, Sprint, T Mobile, ...?
2. A phone that comes with a plan and is $0 bit costs $10 a month for 18 months?

Also, cam the people at the cell phone store switch my photos and contacts to a new phone if the old one is dead?

[Kali]

1. get a used samsung for verizon

lots of places to get them, I often use cellular country.com, but there are others even Amazon. don't know how up to date you want to be, but the Galaxy 5s have good functionality and cameras. I think the 7s are the ones that were catching on fire? or maybe it was the 6s and the 7s you can't replace battery? I don't remember now but there are even newer ones, that you can spend all kinds of $ on. I would never buy a new phone.

https://www.cellularcountry.com/

verizon has best coverage as far as I know, full no limit data, calls, text, and Mexico too for about 45/mo.

[mr_lebowski]

2. Getting stuff off depends on just how dead it is ...

'Dead' can mean a variety of things.

Did you ever put an SD memory card in it? If so maybe your pics & stuff are on that, in which case you're golden, just pop it out and move it to the next phone.

If you ever plugged it into your PC via USB you may've backed them up at some point also. A lot of phones have an automated process to do so when plugged into a PC.

Check the Motorola phones, they have a few decent, inexpensive phones and if you buy one like on Amazon TTBOMK they are 'unlocked' and can be hooked up to your choice of carriers including Verizon. SOME phones on Amazon say 'unlocked' but have limited carriers, when this is the case, IIRC typically they'll work on AT&T and T-Mobile (these ones are unlocked but GSM networks only) but not Verizon (CDMA network).

Not sure WRT unlocked phones working on Sprint, but Sprint kinda sucks IMHO ...