Author Dishaw sounds like a clueless idiot. I went with a TracFone years ago. Anonymous and cheap. Costs me about $8 a month for a $100/year service card. And I can do text and voice, and have internet access. And it takes pictures. $8 a month. They have deals where you get double minutes or more for life, and it's plenty enough time. You need more minutes, buy a card at any drugstore and add them. For the last 5 years I haven't needed extra cards.
Mr Sneakers and I both have tracfones as well. We got them when there was a triple minutes offer. He has 1500 or more minutes since he rarely uses his. I am down quite a bit, but I pay approx. 19.99 every three months to keep it up. Works great for us. We have a landline at home and only pay $3.85 and month for that (no cell service where we live) and both have phones on our desk at work. Who needs a fancy phone?