Prepaid smartphone plans(iPhones and Androids): mo' contracts, mo' problems

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Inspect Your Gadgets > Prepaid smartphone plans(iPhones and Androids): mo' contracts, mo' problems

Don Lapre: Mar 28, 2001; If you're having problems you're either holding the phone wrong or you have tiny girl hands.

Lrigwoc posted:

I live an area with comparably similar service between T-Mobile and AT&T. T-Mobile has also reassigned the spectrum in our area to the iPhone's "4g" spectrum.

Can I just buy ST T-Mobile SIMs, cut them appropriately, and use it in a iPhone 4s and a 5?

Yes, but realize that the refarmed spectrum may not be as abundant as their regular aws. So I would still get a new 5 with aws support.

# ¿ May 6, 2013 00:53

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# ¿ Apr 29, 2024 12:27

Don Lapre: Mar 28, 2001; If you're having problems you're either holding the phone wrong or you have tiny girl hands.

Lrigwoc posted:

So it may just end up being easier to go with Net10 in the long-run? Or waiting for the supposed $50.00 AT&T prepaid plan to debut?

Just depends on the coverage in your area. I wouldn't buy a non AWS phone to use on tmobile though unless you can live with EDGE, even with the refarming.

# ¿ May 6, 2013 01:52

Don Lapre: Mar 28, 2001; If you're having problems you're either holding the phone wrong or you have tiny girl hands.

The Entire Universe posted:

drat, I wish t-mobile worked well in my area. Well, I wish I knew more about their coverage, that is. Their map shows my apartment in "Very Strong," my commute in mostly "Excellent" and "Very Strong" with a few blips of "Good." Work is in a big ol' fat "Excellent/Very Strong" area, and I'd have to make an effort to hit a place that's "Satisfactory," let alone 2G/no service.

How well does their service measure up to their map, if anyone's had much experience with them?

Go pick up a prepaid phone from target. You get 30 day return policy. Never activate it but carry it around and call T-Mobile in a bunch of places to see if you can make calls. You can also check signal strength while you haveit.

# ¿ May 8, 2013 02:27

Don Lapre: Mar 28, 2001; If you're having problems you're either holding the phone wrong or you have tiny girl hands.

TraderStav posted:

Minutes/texts for each plan?

Unlimited.

# ¿ May 9, 2013 19:16

Don Lapre: Mar 28, 2001; If you're having problems you're either holding the phone wrong or you have tiny girl hands.

So windows phone 8 can run all apps, except it cant, and windows 7 cant run new apps?

How can such a small ecosystem already be fragmented

Don Lapre fucked around with this message at 21:04 on May 14, 2013

# ¿ May 14, 2013 21:02

Don Lapre: Mar 28, 2001; If you're having problems you're either holding the phone wrong or you have tiny girl hands.

The Entire Universe posted:

Because my N4 is arriving tomorrow (I decided gently caress it, they're $350 anyway and an appreciable amount comes back when I sell it) I should start looking into what carrier to go with. ST-ATT is tweaking out and probably not having ATT sims anytime soon, ATT's Aio ain't coming out to Omaha at any point on a human-perceptible timescale, T-Mobile in Omaha is apparently poop.

However, there's Red Pocket. If anyone has/had them, how are they?

AT&T ST sims should continue to work so just get one off ebay.

# ¿ May 22, 2013 02:52

Don Lapre: Mar 28, 2001; If you're having problems you're either holding the phone wrong or you have tiny girl hands.

tater_salad posted:

Want cheap home phone? Get an obi100 and tie into Google Voice, free VoIP, I've had no trouble with mine, its like $30 from Amazon.
I got I when I started working from home and was on conf calls blowing through my virgin mobile 300 mins in no time flat.

GV support on obi may not work in the future as google is abandoning the way the obi connects to GV.

# ¿ May 24, 2013 19:52

Don Lapre: Mar 28, 2001; If you're having problems you're either holding the phone wrong or you have tiny girl hands.

hotsauce posted:

News to me...unfortunate.

Hope Google offers a similar device as GV + Obi at home is just incredible.

Its the whole google talk replaced with hangouts thats causing it.

# ¿ May 24, 2013 20:05

Don Lapre: Mar 28, 2001; If you're having problems you're either holding the phone wrong or you have tiny girl hands.

SaNChEzZ posted:

Have any of you guys successfully unlocked a Verizon iPhone 4S for use with a GSM network (AT&T specifically)?

If so, what method did you use, I'm looking at the GPPs, the R-Sims, and IMEI Unlocking, which is way too loving expensive.

You are better off selling your vzw 4s and buying an unlocked or att one.

# ¿ May 29, 2013 01:26

Don Lapre: Mar 28, 2001; If you're having problems you're either holding the phone wrong or you have tiny girl hands.

Miskatonic U. posted:

I experimentally tried the t-mobile $50 plan, but 500mb of data is not enough for me, and I burned through it very quickly. I've set my account to the $70/month unlimited everything plan -- is there any way to change my charge date so that the plan becomes effective immediately, or do I just have to live with 2g speeds until the charge date (given that I've already used the 500mb).

Call Tmobile and see if they will do it?

# ¿ Jul 2, 2013 19:09

Don Lapre: Mar 28, 2001; If you're having problems you're either holding the phone wrong or you have tiny girl hands.

DaveKap posted:

I skimmed this page so I'm modifying what this post was going to be.

My 2 year Sprint contract is up. It's time to pay less per month and without a contract. I'd like to buy a Galaxy S3 or S4 and get faster Internet speeds either via Sprint's LTE (which is mid-deployment in San Francisco, where I live) or using a different service's towers. I use less than 500MB of data a month (but it's slow as a snail which is my biggest pain point right now,) maybe get 100 minutes of calling a month, but send a couple hundred texts a month. I want to receive calls when I'm not in data range.

Originally I was thinking I'd go over to Virgin's $35 a month plan with a Galaxy S3 because Virgin advertises that it uses LTE speeds. However, after skimming this page, I see that T-Mobile may be the better answer as their plan not only fits my usage more aptly, but their normal 3G speeds may surpass Sprint's shoddy network anyway.

Suggestions?

Tmobile is great if they have good service in your area. Their 3g service routinely gives me 10-20mbps here in middle TN.

# ¿ Jul 16, 2013 21:56

Don Lapre: Mar 28, 2001; If you're having problems you're either holding the phone wrong or you have tiny girl hands.

If you buy your phone off craigslist, meet at a tmobile store to do the exchange. Have tmobile verify the phone is not on a classic plan or on a payment plan.

# ¿ Jul 16, 2013 22:10

Don Lapre: Mar 28, 2001; If you're having problems you're either holding the phone wrong or you have tiny girl hands.

Stick100 posted:

http://sensorly.com/ <- Somewhat non-biased coverage maps.

TMo rules.

Sensorly is absolutely horrible and not at all accurate. It may show you where you will have coverage. But its not accurate at all as far as everywhere you will have coverage.

# ¿ Jul 16, 2013 22:21

Don Lapre: Mar 28, 2001; If you're having problems you're either holding the phone wrong or you have tiny girl hands.

Price on that thing is dropping fast.

# ¿ Jul 19, 2013 04:27

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# ¿ Apr 29, 2024 12:27

Don Lapre: Mar 28, 2001; If you're having problems you're either holding the phone wrong or you have tiny girl hands.

Hughmoris posted:

I have a friend that wants to move to prepaid, and she lives in an area that only gets good coverage from AT&T and Verizon. Since StraightTalk no longer sells AT&T sim cards, is Net10 her only option at this point? Can you still buy AT&T sim cards on Net10? She wants it for voice/data/text and probably uses less than 2GB of data at this point.

If she is gonna stick with straight talk for a while she can buy a ATT sim off ebay.

# ¿ Jul 22, 2013 15:45

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Inspect Your Gadgets > Prepaid smartphone plans(iPhones and Androids): mo' contracts, mo' problems