Verizon Wireless has announced a new $50 unlimited talk, text, and web prepaid plan for price sensitive new customers who don’t mind being stuck with a lower-end feature phone.

The new Verizon Unleashed unlimited plan has been test-marketed since April to prepaid customers in southern California and Florida, but will now be available nationwide from Verizon stores, Best Buy, Wal-Mart and Target.

Although existing Verizon Wireless prepaid customers may be able to sign up for the plan on their existing phones, new customers in test markets were limited to a selection of just a handful of “feature phones” that make web use and texting cumbersome:

• LG Cosmos™ 2 — Now into its second generation, this basic feature phone slightly improved its slide-out keyboard.  The phone was rated “adequate” for an entry-level feature phone, but CNET’s detailed review notes it lacks 3G EV-DO service.  That means you will be web browsing on Verizon’s painfully slow 1xRTT data network.  Verizon has no worries customers using this phone will chew up a lot of wireless data.  Customers rated the build quality as adequate, but found the keys on the first generation of this phone did tend to wear out with a lot of use.  It’s a true “throwaway” phone once the warranty expires.  Repairs always cost more than buying a new phone.  Verizon’s website prices the phone at a stiff $189.99 for month-to-month customers, but it will probably remain priced at around $99.99 for prepaid customers choosing the Unleashed plan.
• LG Accolade™ — A real workhorse basic phone for Verizon Wireless, the Accolade is much better for making and receiving calls than doing anything with texting or web use.  The phone has no QWERTY keyboard to type on, and no 3G service either, so its usefulness for data and texting is extremely limited.  But it is cheap, routinely selling for under $40.  CNET has a video review.  We suspect this phone will not be major part of the nationwide rollout of Unleashed, as Verizon appears to have discontinued it recently.
• Pantech Caper — A front facing tiny keyboard features prominently on this phone, which would have been considered cutting edge five years ago.  Now, it’s considered a ho-hum “feature phone” for the non-smartphone crowd.  It received a fair rating from most reviewers, with the biggest complaints coming from unintentional pocket dialing and button pressing, and a lousy built-in camera.  No 3G service.  The Caper also won’t win any awards for its ergonomics.  Verizon Wireless had been selling this phone in test markets for $80 earlier this year.  CNET’s video review is here.

There is a good chance a few different, more current feature phones will be introduced for the Unleashed plan later this week.  But they will all likely dispense with support for 3G service and lack features many customers increasingly seek on smartphones.

Verizon Wireless has traditionally done poorly in the prepaid market, because its plans are considerably more expensive that those offered by competitors, especially T-Mobile and Sprint.  Verizon Wireless had been charging $95 a month for unlimited talk/text prepaid service plus $0.99 per day for web use.  At those prices, Verizon has been losing prepaid customers, now down to 4.4 million.  Many of those customers fled to providers like Sprint’s Virgin Mobile, which saw a 23 percent increase in its customers, which now number 13.8 million.

Verizon’s $50 unlimited plan matches AT&T’s $50 prepaid unlimited GoPhone plan.  Analysts suggest both companies have set prices (and limitations on the phones that work with the plans) at a level that allows them to compete with lower-priced rivals, but does not encourage their contract customers to switch to a cheaper prepaid plan.

For data-hungry smartphone users, there is little here to persuade anyone to downgrade to a $50 prepaid plan.