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Ok, so what's the best unlocked phone usable on Straight Talk AT&T or Verizon with ICS stock/upgraded for under $300? I've been told by folks that T-mobile isn't great in my hood. My signal and 3G speed on VM leaves much to be desired.
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Jun 4, 2012 06:04
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While I can't speak for Verizon, you could probably find an at& t compatible Nexus S for under $300 with some digging. That's pretty much going to be the only phone in that price range running ICS stock, period. That assumes a certain degree of luck in finding one to be honest with you. Most people will tell you to sell some plasma and just get a Gnex but I can totally understand having reservations, despite the huge spec bump for not a gigantic cost increase.
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Jun 4, 2012 06:48
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Rastor posted:Sorry, you have to order the SIM from straighttalksim.com, the sim-only kits aren't sold in Wal-Mart stores. I learned this the hard way yesterday and now have to overnight a SIM :facepalm:
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Jun 4, 2012 07:15
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mixitwithblop posted:Ok, so what's the best unlocked phone usable on Straight Talk AT&T or Verizon with ICS stock/upgraded for under $300? I've been told by folks that T-mobile isn't great in my hood. My signal and 3G speed on VM leaves much to be desired. If you can save up the extra $100 for the Galaxy Nexus, you might find it worth it to have done so, though I understand not everyone can justify spending $400 on a phone. cheese eats mouse posted:I learned this the hard way yesterday and now have to overnight a SIM :facepalm:
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Jun 4, 2012 14:26
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mixitwithblop posted:Ok, so what's the best unlocked phone usable on Straight Talk AT&T or Verizon with ICS stock/upgraded for under $300? I've been told by folks that T-mobile isn't great in my hood. My signal and 3G speed on VM leaves much to be desired. Wouldn't the new evo fit your bill? It has ics, sprint 4g network, and $300.
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Jun 4, 2012 15:20
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savesthedayrocks posted:Wouldn't the new evo fit your bill? It has ics, sprint 4g network, and $300. Sprint's 4g coverage is garbage. Poor in areas that have it, and still nonexistent in much of the country.
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Jun 4, 2012 15:44
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savesthedayrocks posted:Wouldn't the new evo fit your bill? It has ics, sprint 4g network, and $300. If it's a Sprint phone, then it's not unlocked. VV Ahhh, E3D...I was assuming the newer Evo, the Evo 4G LTE or whatever extra letters and numbers they added on. DrBouvenstein fucked around with this message at 17:23 on Jun 4, 2012 |
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Jun 4, 2012 17:17
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The EVO 3D has been made available on Virgin Mobile USA with a different name. However, he said that "signal and 3G speed on VM leaves much to be desired", so my assumption is he wasn't looking for a VM recommendation.
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Jun 4, 2012 17:22
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Rastor posted:The EVO 3D has been made available on Virgin Mobile USA with a different name. the Evo 3D is 4g on the WiMax network though, no? Is there anywhere (BBY, etc) that I can get a device and return it 48h later if the speed sucks? I've been okay with the service on VM where I am, but it's mostly pretty slow. If the new phones were significantly faster, it's probably enough to keep me on VM for another generation.
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Jun 5, 2012 02:28
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mixitwithblop posted:Ok, so what's the best unlocked phone usable on Straight Talk AT&T or Verizon with ICS stock/upgraded for under $300? I've been told by folks that T-mobile isn't great in my hood. My signal and 3G speed on VM leaves much to be desired. You should spend the extra 100 and get a new Galaxy nexus. Or buy an used Verizon Galaxy Nexus for under 300.
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Jun 5, 2012 07:08
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Re: T-Mobile monthly 4G For my 2nd month in a row, I've got a text message the day before my account is auto-renewed that I used up all my minutes and they disconnected my service. I used 4 minutes this month. Wish I could call customer support right now, but has anyone else had this happen?
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Jun 5, 2012 13:12
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Yes, I just got that text this morning. I used maybe 15 minutes this month.
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Jun 5, 2012 13:17
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Capt. Morgan posted:Yes, I just got that text this morning. I used maybe 15 minutes this month. I have no idea why but my plan finally auto-renewed about a half hour ago. Works fine now and my account online says paid.
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Jun 5, 2012 14:57
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I have never got that message, except for the one time I actually did use all of my minutes. However I keep a balance of $25 on my account so it just switches over to .10 cents a minute if I ever go over again.
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Jun 5, 2012 15:56
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Porkchop Express posted:I have never got that message, except for the one time I actually did use all of my minutes. However I keep a balance of $25 on my account so it just switches over to .10 cents a minute if I ever go over again. Well it's weird because I have $3 in my account left over every month after the $30. I got one text at 9:18am saying "thanks for payment!" and then one at 9:54am that said, "Your pymnt is past due and ur plan is inactive" despite it being active. WHAT THE HECK TMOBILE
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Jun 5, 2012 16:03
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Lblitzer posted:Well it's weird because I have $3 in my account left over every month after the $30. I got one text at 9:18am saying "thanks for payment!" and then one at 9:54am that said, "Your pymnt is past due and ur plan is inactive" despite it being active. WHAT THE HECK TMOBILE For a couple months T-Mobile has thrown out those same incorrect messages for me too. It seems to mean nothing.
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Jun 5, 2012 16:45
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Lblitzer posted:Re: T-Mobile monthly 4G I haven't received any unusual text. My renewal is tomorrow.
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Jun 5, 2012 19:01
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Rumors about the iPhone coming to Boost Mobile / Virgin Mobile USA have been bubbling for the last week. Sounds like ETA is sometime between Cricket Wireless getting it on June 22 and September.
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Jun 5, 2012 22:07
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Rastor posted:Rumors about the iPhone coming to Boost Mobile / Virgin Mobile USA have been bubbling for the last week. Sounds like ETA is sometime between Cricket Wireless getting it on June 22 and September. A $500 iPhone 4S is actually in the ballpark of what I expect people will pay for. It's a full $150 less than Apple charges for unlocked devices, and only $100 more than what Google charges for the unlocked GSM Nexus. This could totally undercut Sprint's efforts in postpaid though.
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Jun 5, 2012 22:22
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Rastor posted:Rumors about the iPhone coming to Boost Mobile / Virgin Mobile USA have been bubbling for the last week. Sounds like ETA is sometime between Cricket Wireless getting it on June 22 and September. Hmm, I was going to get a GNex and switch to TMo soon, but I was wishing there was some way to get an iPhone. Is an iPhone 4s worth $100 more and $5 more per month? Hmmm....
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Jun 5, 2012 22:34
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Rastor posted:Rumors about the iPhone coming to Boost Mobile / Virgin Mobile USA have been bubbling for the last week. Sounds like ETA is sometime between Cricket Wireless getting it on June 22 and September. It's true. http://www.marketwatch.com/story/sprints-virgin-mobile-usa-to-offer-iphone-2012-06-05
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Jun 6, 2012 05:36
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That's pretty embarrassing for T-Mo. Must be equally embarrassing for Apple fanboys too though, now that VM sees the iPhone fit to join the glorious ranks of legends such as the Intercept and Triumph.
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Jun 6, 2012 07:01
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It still seems a little crazy to me that the iPhone will roll out on all of these pre-paid carriers and some tiny regional carriers before it gets to T-Mobile.
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Jun 6, 2012 16:08
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I would assume a Tmo iphone would take much more effort due to their unique 3g frequencies. Adding a CDMA model to a CDMA carrier is no big deal.
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Jun 6, 2012 16:25
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Well now that I think of it, I suppose they could put in different radios for T-Mobiles network, but maybe they haven't because it runs at a faster speed and they are worried about battery life, or don't want it to appear that there is only one model of the iPhone that is "4g".
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Jun 6, 2012 16:54
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They'd never put in different radios for a player as small as T-Mobile. Apple is obsessed with supply chain control and unification, they hated making a separate model for Verizon and were thrilled when a new chip let them make one hardware design that would work on CDMA and GSM carriers all over the world. But the chip/antenna design were complicated enough without also tossing in support for T-Mobile's AWS frequencies and they weren't going to be bothered. Maybe Apple will have to go back to two separate models when it comes time to support LTE, but until then they're definitely not going to make a different version for T-Mobile. The T-Mobile 1900MHz frequency rollout is supposed to happen by the end of the year and it'll be interesting to see what happens then. After all it's not that Apple doesn't want their phones on T-Mobile, it's just that they're not going to be arsed to do anything special to make it happen.
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Jun 6, 2012 17:10
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Zero VGS posted:That's pretty embarrassing for T-Mo. Must be equally embarrassing for Apple fanboys too though, now that VM sees the iPhone fit to join the glorious ranks of legends such as the Intercept and Triumph. Nice strawman. I'm kind of disappointed to hear that VM only does "anytime" minutes. They appear to have gotten rid of nights and weekends, which won't work so well for my minimal usage parents. Plus, Sprint coverage always seems to be a wildcard. They're used to verizon-level coverage.
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Jun 6, 2012 18:17
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MrBond posted:Plus, Sprint coverage always seems to be a wildcard. They're used to verizon-level coverage. When I had VM everywhere I went had terrible coverage. I would drop calls, the data speeds were god awful, and a lot of times texts wouldn't come through until hours later, prompting a lot of "DIDN'T YOU GET MY TEXT!?!?!?" questions.
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Jun 6, 2012 18:45
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Would it be possible for me to get a Nokia 800 and put it on straight talk with att? It does not seem to work very well with t-mobiles apparently it only gets g2 on t-mobiles waves or whatever.
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Jun 6, 2012 19:05
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I don't know much about Windows Phone personally, but if it lets you change Access Point Name (APN) settings then it ought to work.
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Jun 6, 2012 19:18
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Porkchop Express posted:When I had VM everywhere I went had terrible coverage. I would drop calls, the data speeds were god awful, and a lot of times texts wouldn't come through until hours later, prompting a lot of "DIDN'T YOU GET MY TEXT!?!?!?" questions. Sometimes when I'm at zero bars the auto-update of an app will kick in, but it's getting no data so it'll struggle to connect (and I can't access the app store to cancel the download as I have no data) and this will make the back of the Triumph run hot and then the battery will shoot from ~80% to 15% in less than an hour. I'm really tempted to go back to T-Mobile as I never had bizarre issues like this ever... it wasn't the greatest, but it was overall pretty solid, especially compared to Virgin. I love the $25/month rate and wished there was something/ANYTHING even close to it but the struggles just to make the phone solid and work normally... and then the lack of signal/use of the phone... urgh... so annoying. I wonder how much an off contract Galaxy S3 for T-Moble will cost...
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Jun 6, 2012 19:25
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Xeom posted:Would it be possible for me to get a Nokia 800 and put it on straight talk with att? Those are sweet phones and if it supported the 1700 MHz band I would have considered getting it over my amaze. Its a shame that T-Mobile uses these funky frequencies because I love their service and prices. Also you should be able to use it on Straight Talk from what I understand, you can change the APN settings somewhere, though I couldn't tell you where exactly. Priz posted:At home I can get 3-4 bars and signal/data seem solid. When I travel, such as the local convention center two weeks ago or when I went to SoCal last August, I'm usually 0-2 bars at most places on my Triumph and data seems like it takes a while to kickstart. I couldn't even get that, I would be perpetually at 0-2 bars everywhere. My town isn't the biggest around but even when I would go to the bay area and it would crazy bad. My sister lives in Seattle and had it for a while and she had the same problems with terrible signal. Priz posted:Sometimes when I'm at zero bars the auto-update of an app will kick in, but it's getting no data so it'll struggle to connect (and I can't access the app store to cancel the download as I have no data) and this will make the back of the Triumph run hot and then the battery will shoot from ~80% to 15% in less than an hour. I had this happen a lot too, usually I would either have to throw it in airplane mode or reboot the phone. That was my biggest problem with it, I would always have to be worrying if the service was actually working or not and if it was interfering with someone getting a hold of me. Priz posted:I'm really tempted to go back to T-Mobile as I never had bizarre issues like this ever... it wasn't the greatest, but it was overall pretty solid, especially compared to Virgin. I love the $25/month rate and wished there was something/ANYTHING even close to it but the struggles just to make the phone solid and work normally... and then the lack of signal/use of the phone... urgh... so annoying. The signal isn't always the strongest, but I have never had a problem with it dropping calls or texts not going/coming through. If I am in a spotty area the data speeds can get slower, but its still faster than Virgin Mobile was. Plus for an extra $5 bucks a month if you get the Walmart $30 a month plan you get way faster data speeds, although the low minutes may be an issue for some. Porkchop Express fucked around with this message at 19:31 on Jun 6, 2012 |
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Jun 6, 2012 19:26
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Rastor posted:I don't know much about Windows Phone personally, but if it lets you change Access Point Name (APN) settings then it ought to work. You can change the data APN settings and data will work (Settings -> Cellular -> Add APN), but the MMS settings are not exposed and require Nokia's connection settings app, which was pulled from the marketplace a couple months ago because people had found a way to exploit it to unlock (jailbreak) their phones. Until they return Nokia Network Setup MMS won't work. Edit: I may not be 100% correct about this. Sometimes the windows phone diagnostic app lets you add an MMS APN. You install the app by calling ##634# from the dialer. Naffer fucked around with this message at 21:00 on Jun 6, 2012 |
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Jun 6, 2012 20:42
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For what it's worth, I've only had one problem with Virgin, and that was during a nationwide text outage. It sucked for half a day, but oh well. Other than that, I chop up issues to the old rear end Optimus that I have. It has to be rebooted every other day or so (like that update problem posted earlier). That and I'm running a custom Rom so I'm sure there are some bugs there. I've never been on T-Mo, but I think with the Iphone and EVO coming out on Virgin, I'll probably stick with them.
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Jun 7, 2012 02:34
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Yeah, I've never really had a problem with Virgin. My data speeds are kind of sluggish at work, but that's about the worst of it. I also have gotten lucky with my phones, my Triumph has had none of the issues that seem to plague it. I'm actually hoping they get a Windows phone at some point.
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Jun 7, 2012 03:19
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I have a bit of a quandry. Maybe you guys can help. I have been a cell phone nut for a while. I've had 65 different phones in 10 years. I keep up cause it's stupidly high. Finally, I have settled on the iPhone 4S with Verizon. Now, I have five lines with them. All of them family. I have been holding on to this account because of my unlimited data plan that I have grandfathered in. Well, now with Verizon's plan, that will be gone. (Unless I switch to a 4g phone now. Whatever.) I have been giving massive thought to putting a piece of poo poo on my line, porting to Google Voice, then flashing my iPhone 4S to Page Plus and letting my family stay with their plan. I am a secondary line so no orphan situations would happen. So what do you think? Should I do it? I have wifi at both home and work. Should I do the 55 a month or stick with my unlimited plan and activate a 4g phone while waiting on the new iPhone? I'm leaning towards Page Plus. Give me some insight guys. I've been "inside" way too long to have a decent idea. ( I used to work for corporate Verizon and now work for corporate ATT ) Help?
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Jun 7, 2012 03:52
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My Optimus V always has weird issues in the Chicagoland area. Random reboots, or it slows to a crawl, or it fails to lock into the data networks. It's always something different and novel and goes away when I come back to Peoria. My sister and her husband always complain about their Sprint service up there (they have nicer Samsungs, not crappy free discount phones), mostly with crappy data services and mms taking hours to go through. TMobile would cost about $5/month more (I use ~200 minutes/month), but buying a new phone also has to be factored in. And I kinda like the OV and not having to give a gently caress when I (ab)use it.
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Jun 7, 2012 04:02
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Well the comedy option would be to get a used Optimus T and sell the Optimus V. You'd just about break even and have basically the identical phone on T-Mobile.
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Jun 7, 2012 05:00
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I got a nexus s to use on tmobile and i'm pretty happy that i won't have to gently caress with lovely roms and workaround bullshit to just have a working phone. And ICS owns pretty hard. I dont know why i didn't do it in the first place and instead had to deal with a lovely chinese crapphone for 10 months
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Jun 7, 2012 06:02
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Hey i'm doing some research on phone plans and i stumbled across this post. Just wanted to say it's really great and very readable. Thanks!
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Jun 7, 2012 09:17
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