Rogers selling Nokia C3 prepaid for $89.99 | Page 2 | Phone/Device Issues and Features | Consumer forum

Last week, I bought a Rogers Nokia C3 at London Drugs (on sale for $79.99). Charged it up, put in my SpeakOut SIM, turned it on, and it worked fine. I can make and receive calls. I've also tried other functions, such as the Bluetooth and Wi-Fi, and they worked too. I have not yet activated the $10/month data plan; I may do that in the new year, just to try it out, but it was the WiFi I was most interested in.

If you're really anxious, and can't wait for Future Shop, Best Buy has it on sale this week, until Dec 16th, for $79.99. You can order on-line, and shipping is free for orders over $20. They are in stock, too!

I bought a C3 at Best Buy for $80. Worked out of the box for calling and browsing.

I should say however, that I am on my third C3. The first two had charging problems. The first charge was okay, and lasted for about a week. The second charge would take several hours (overnight). The screen would then alternate between "Charge complete, remove phone" and "Charging". When I did remove the phone from the charger, it showed one red bar, and endless "Battery low" warnings. Indentical problem for both phones. No amount of charging would correct the problem. The phone I have now is charging the way it should, and I am quite happy with it.

You can buy the C3 online from Best Buy... and they ship free anywhere. Picked one up last night. I love Boxing Day sales ! I ordered from the Source, NCIX, Best Buy and Dell last night.

In today's weekly sale flyer for London Drugs, they are advertising the Rogers Nokia C3 on sale for just $69.99. A pretty good price for a pretty good phone that works with SpeakOut.

You are correct. I got the C3 at X-mas from Best Buy. So far I love it. I activated the free phone I got with the SO $100 of air time, then put that sim card in the C3. Worked right off the bat. I haven't even upgraded the firmware or anything. Wi-fi works on my home network as well as at work with no problems. Its cool having my gmail updated when I am at work for sure.

The big plus IMHO of the C3 is the fully qwerty keyboard. I have big fingers, but the letters are raised and really easy for me to type on. I can type really fast with this phone... it makes texting fun. I of course went with the unlimited texting for $10 a month.

Using my favourite songs for ringtones is also pretty sweet. I edited my mp3's with Audacity (its free), and dragged the files onto a micro SD card, stuck the card in the phone... instant ringtones. I am currently rocking the first 30 seconds of 'Intergalactic' by the Beastie Boys ! lol

telefone said:

....
Maybe I'd be lucky and someone would offer a SIM card for sale, too.

If I miss the sales, I guess an extra $40 for an extra phone is not too bad but it would be cool to just get a phone from Rogers, a SIM card from here and then need to buy the air time. But, I'll see what's available.

Edit: Hey, if I buy the phone with the air time ($50 of air time means the phone is $40 - so $20 off), that means the air time worth $50 is tied to the SIM card, right? So, transferring the SIM card to a Rogers phone I buy, say, gets me the phone + $50 air time? I think that works out to a decent deal compared to buying the card on here? I think people are asking $30 for the card?

Did I calculate that right? It gets tricky...lol.... not sure I'm working out the details accurately but I don't think most SIM cards being sold will have air time already on them?

Right now, the Nokia C3 is shown as "sold out" on the Best Buy website. I would guess it will now stay sold out until the end of the sale (2011-02-03). If it's sold out, then Future Shop probably won't price match.

Quite a few SpeakOut SIM cards for sale in the Buy/Sell/Trade section of this forum.

You mentioned $50 in airtime... Where does that come from? When you buy the Rogers Noka C3, it does come with an unactivated Rogers SIM card, and it will have some minimal amount of airtime (10 minutes?), but definitely not $50 worth. In the London Drugs ad, they say you can get $30 of bonus airtime if you sign up with their monthly pay-as-you-go plan.

Anyway, it seems like the lowest-cost plan is:
- Buy the Rogers Nokia C3 at London Drugs or WalMart, or some other place that has it on sale.
- Do not activate the Rogers SIM card. Sell it separately. You might get $15-$20; I'm not sure what the going rate is.
- Buy a SpeakOut SIM card from someone on our Buy/Sell/Trade forum.
- Install the SpeakOut SIM in your Rogers Nokia C3. It should work right away. You do not have to "unlock" the C3 in the conventional sense ---- SpeakOut uses the Rogers network.
- Go to 7-11 and buy a top-up voucher, if the SIM card you bought has airtime that is expiring soon.

The Nokia C3 specs say that it will take a 8GB MicroSD card. Has anyone tried a larger capacity card?

I'm hoping it will take a 16 GB card. The Nokia 5130 would work with a 4 GB card even though the specs said 2 GB max.

Thanks for the info bobman90

Picked one of these up at the local Best Buy on Thursday night for $69.99. Then hit the local 7-Eleven, got myself a 1661 for 39.99 (with $50 air time purchase), popped that SIM into the C3, then activated online. Voila! Phone recognized SpeakOut SIM immediately and in seconds had the Wi-Fi up and running. All I had to do after that was call customer service to port my Virgin Mobile number over (which was done in less than 24 hours!).

First impressions -- love the C3 -- makes my old Blackberry Curve 8330 that I was stuck in a 3 year contract look like ancient tech in comparison. This is a great texting phone -- lots of apps can be downloaded from Nokia's Ovi store, fully customizable - ringtones, wallpaper, etc.., media player and expandable memory, and with the Wi-Fi you have email, Facebook, etc...

Question -- has anyone tried the C3 with SO's data plan? Interested to know what works, doesn't work, etc... compared to using at home on the wi-fi.