If you have any friends or family in your area who already use the prepaid carrier you're considering, ask about their experience. Mint uses T-Mobile (and is in the process of being acquired by T-Mobile).Boost Mobile uses AT&T and T-Mobile for now (it's switching to a combination of AT&T, T-Mobile and parent Dish's own network in the future).Each offers some version of 5G and I've broken this all down here, but to recap:
Before you sign up for one, it's worth checking what the underlying network is. Prepaid providers almost always use someone else's service. This makes it hard to give a blanket recommendation of any one carrier: T-Mobile's service in New York may be excellent, but if you're in, say, rural Iowa, Verizon is more reliable. As I noted when covering the best unlimited plans, to get the most out of your deal you need to make sure you have the coverage you need.