verizon iphone 5 out of contract: best options?

[d21394]

hello.

I have a black iphone 5 with verizon. Leaving a family plan and starting my own. Looking to switch carriers (Sprint unlimited is looking like a good deal). My credit is not great (grad student), so I will likely have to pay a deposit (OK with this, would obv prefer to find one w/ a reasonable amount).

I've spent a couple of weeks researching options online but none of them seem to jump out.

Hoping to get some advice between:

-Selling phone on CL for 400-something and starting brand new plan or alternatively doing some sort of trade-in
-Keeping phone, unlocking when 6.1.3 is an option, then going month to month?
-Is there another route I'm not considering?

It seems like I should keep my phone since the value of an unlocked phone is greater but I also have no experience jailbreaking an iphone (only the 1st gen ipod touch) and I currently am without cell phone service so I'd like to get service sooner rather than later.

Thank you in advance.

 

[lordofthereef]

The verizon iPhone is already gsm unlocked. Are you speaking of flashing to another CDMA carrier?

Tmobile would currently be an option for you. Plans would start as cheap as $30, but you would never have LTE, and 3G would be limited to reframed areas. Still, you get unlimited data, unlimited texts, and 100 minutes per month at that price. That's the cheapest and simplest option in aware of.

 

[CEmajr]

Sell your Verizon iPhone 5 for around $450-500 and use the money to get the Tmobile one. You could sign up for their $60 2GB postpaid plan. iPhone 5 is $99 upfront if you have good credit and $279 of your credit is not so good.

I wouldn't recommend Sprint unless you're in a strong LTE coverage area due to their slow data speeds on 3G.