Top 5 Best Web Sites for Free, Cheap Downloads

By Adam Fendelman, About.com

The second you unwrap your cell phone from its mass-produced state, your journey of personalization begins. Downloading cheap and free ringtones is one of the more popular ways we brand a phone to ourselves and identify our friends when they're calling. With a universe of merchants competing for your ringtone dollar, I’ve compiled a top-five free ringtones list. I explain why they’re such stellar ringtone havens and what cautions to keep in mind. You’ll see familiar letter grades (from “A+” to “F-”) and an overall point score out of 20 points.

1. Ringophone.com

Selection: A

Price: A+

Overall: 19

Ringophone.com is different. They want you to “stop paying for a single ringtone” and eat all you want for a set fee. Since six months of unlimited ringtones is only $14.99 and 12 months is only $19.99, you’ll easily start saving money over many other sites once you've downloaded only a handful. As of when this article was published, Ringophone.com had a large library of 250,756 ringtones for sale. The company allows you to pay once and download forever, which means you can download a ringtone again if you've lost it or if you change phones. You can even download to unlimited phone numbers, which means you can share ringtones with your friends once you’ve bought them.

2. RingToneJukeBox.com (view our full list of ringtones sites)

Selection: A

Price: B

Overall: 18

RingToneJukeBox.com, which is regularly updated with fresh ringtones, features a wide array of ringtones. The company supports many devices including Nokia, Motorola, Samsung, Sanyo, Hitachi, LG and Siemens. Most ringtones run $2.99 each or $1.99 each for more simple ringtones. Subscribers to AT&T, T-Mobile, Sprint, Verizon Wireless, Alltel, Cellular One, Boost Mobile and Virgin Mobile can be charged on your current cell phone bill and order via SMS (text message).

3. MatrixM (view our full list of ringtones sites)

Selection: B

Price: A+

Overall: 17

Don’t let the site’s unappealing design fool you. While it may look like one of those computer-generated sites without a regular human behind it, MatrixM features 42,970 free ringtones as of this article’s date. Did you notice the word free? Yes, they’re free. Its selection isn’t as large as others, though. The site supports many wireless carriers (including Verizon Wireless, Sprint, AT&T and T-Mobile) as well as many wireless handsets (including Motorola, Nokia, Sony Ericcson, Samsung, LG and Sanyo).

4. ‘Hot Ringtones’ chart from Billboard (view our full list of ringtones sites)

Selection: B-

Price: B

Overall: 16

The value of this ringtones list is its comprehensiveness and objectivity. The “Hot Ringtones” chart from Billboard Magazine is published weekly. Based on Nielsen SoundScan data, the ringtones are ranked by weekly sales from a comprehensive crowd of merchants representing 90 percent of the U.S. retail music market. While the data is there, though, purchasing them is limited. The service currently only supports AT&T (still listed as Cingular) and T-Mobile for ringtone downloads. That's a major drawback.

5. MTV Mobile Ringtones (view our full list of ringtones sites)

Selection: B

Price: C-

Overall: 14

The main perk is that the site freshens weekly with what’s deemed to be the most popular ringtones by the MTV universe. The site also has a large archive from many artists. Its pricing can easily be beat elsewhere, though. Downloading only one ringtone a month runs $2.99 a month (and you’re pushed to be locked into a monthly subscription plan) whereas two ringtones a month run a pricey $5.99. Four ringtones run $9.99. You can also opt for a-la-carte buying instead. While the service offers the sexy allure that is MTV and its recommendations, its pricing is highly undesirable.