emergency cell phone

[dennis in se pa]

I recently experienced an iPhone death. My iPhone 6 Plus flaked out! Last November I experienced a situation where I needed to call 911. Can you imagine not having a working cellphone, no landline, and being in an emergency? Is there a cell phone available just for emergencies such as this? Any recommendations? Do all new phones call 911 even if not activated? Maybe the answer is just get a cheap TracPhone and don't activate it.

[GH85Carrera]

Buy a older iPhone for cheap, and don’t activate it. With WiFi only everything except regular phone calls will work. 911 call will work. Get Skype and make calls just fine as long as you have access to WiFi.

[John Rogers]

My iPhone 6Plus acted strange so I did some searching and it appeared the battery was the culprit? I called several places and they wanted $75 to $150 and two or three weeks and I found the repair kit IFixIt which happened to be in stock at our local Fry's here in San Diego. I bought a kit for my wife's older 5+ to test my ability and low in behold IT WORKED! I needed my magnifying visor from good old Harbor Freight and plenty of light on the phone and patience. Those kits had all the mini tools needed and their website had great images showing how to do it.

That was a year ago and so far so good. I'd suggest trying that before spending lots of money on another phone?

[biosurfer1]

Any cell phone that will power on can call 911, even without a service plan. Caveat is it must be within cell service to make the call, just like it would if you were making a regular call.

[dennis in se pa]

Thanks to all. I am too old to mess with these little things, so maybe a $29 unactivated Trac Fone is the ticket.

[pwd72s]

Originally Posted by dennis in se pa

Thanks to all. I am too old to mess with these little things, so maybe a $29 unactivated Trac Fone is the ticket.

That's how I finally caved...bought a cheap trac phone. Only because you can't find a pay phone these days. $100 per year buys more minutes than I use. An added benefit is that so far, only one spam call...probably because it's only on a few hours a week.

[Arizona_928]

Originally Posted by John Rogers

My iPhone 6Plus acted strange so I did some searching and it appeared the battery was the culprit? I called several places and they wanted $75 to $150 and two or three weeks and I found the repair kit IFixIt which happened to be in stock at our local Fry's here in San Diego. I bought a kit for my wife's older 5+ to test my ability and low in behold IT WORKED! I needed my magnifying visor from good old Harbor Freight and plenty of light on the phone and patience. Those kits had all the mini tools needed and their website had great images showing how to do it.

That was a year ago and so far so good. I'd suggest trying that before spending lots of money on another phone?

Apple has a deal on the 6 batteries. Was around 30$ to replace.