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Bring your phone number to MetroPCS and get a free phone for your trouble

MetroPCS channeled the holiday spirit into its latest promotion, which nets new customers up to two free smartphones, though there are some caveats to consider.

From now presumably through the holiday season, porting your number to MetroPCS gets you a free handset, while switching a second line will net two phones. The phones being offered include the Alcatel Fierce 4, LG K10, HTC Desire 530, Samsung Galaxy Core Prime, Samsung Galaxy On5, LG K7, Alcatel Tru, Alcatel OneTouch Fierce XL, and ZTE Avid Plus.

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For some context, MetroPCS offers plans that range from $30 a month for 1GB of 4G LTE data to $60 a month for unlimited 4G LTE data. Plans starting at $40 a month include Music Unlimited, which exempts certain music streaming services from using up your monthly data. Every data plan includes Data Maximizer, which lowers video quality to 480p in order for your monthly data bucket to last longer.

There is some red tape to observe for MetroPCS’ promotion, the most important being that porting your number from T-Mobile disqualifies you from the promotion, probably due to T-Mobile owning MetroPCS. Furthermore, it seems as if customers will not have to deal with mail-in rebates, since there are instant rebates at the time of purchase. These rebates are in the form of credit and cannot be used for anything else.

Finally, you will need to visit a MetroPCS store to take advantage of the promotion.

MetroPCS’ promotion seems more than decent, particularly if you get solid T-Mobile coverage, but we would be remiss to not mention other solid prepaid options, such as AT&T’s Cricket Wireless and Verizon’s, as well as Google’s Project Fi, Sprint’s Boost and Virgin Mobile, and MVNOs like Republic Wireless and Mint. In other words, there are plenty of options to choose from when considering prepaid.

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