Stereodude
Not really a
So I'm back looking at cell phone plans again. I'm currently paying Verizon about $96 a month (after taxes and fees) for 4 lines. It's a really old family plan with no data or text messaging and only 700 minutes. Since I got divorced only 3 of the lines are used. My parents have 2 lines and I have the 3rd. I basically don't use that phone, but it's sort of like my home phone number. FWIW, all the phones are flip phones. I have another phone and "plan" with T-mobile, their Simple plan, for 2GB a month that costs about $56 a month after taxes and fees. My employer currently pays for this bill.
With T-mobile's latest promotion of getting a 3rd line free (after billing credit) if you have two lines, my understanding is that I can get 3 lines of unlimited on their One plan all in for $100 a month. The plan doesn't seem to have any downside from the Simple plan I have now.
So my thinking is that I can dump my ex's number, port my Verizon number to Google voice, keep my T-mobile number, port my parents numbers to T-mobile, and be all set. That only leaves me with a phone problem.
The bigger question / problem is what phone do I get for two 70 year olds? My mom is not tech savvy. My Dad is reasonably tech savvy for his age group, but still not all that savvy in the grand scheme of things. Given the plan, smart phones should be the obvious choice. As far as I know the flip phones don't have band 12 support which is how T-mobile has greatly improved their service in the Detroit metro area, so that's another strike against non-smart phones. I know lots of old people have smart phones and use them just fine. As much as it pains me, an iPhone might be a good fit for my Mom, but I think my Dad would probably prefer Android given that he has an Android tablet. However, I think there is a lot of benefit to giving them the same phone so my Dad can help my Mom with her phone by already being familiar with it.
Are there more old people friendly launchers for Android that hide some of the capability and make the phone relatively unintimidating to use, especially for my Mom?
I don't really want to buy two $700 phones, though I would if necessary. Are the low cost Android phones actually bad phones as the user reviews/ratings suggest or do they have bad reviews mostly from people who think they're getting a flagship phone $99 and are upset when it doesn't perform like one?
Right now my thought is to get two more LG G4's (assuming I can get them reasonably inexpensively, like $200 or so) since I've been happy enough with mine unless there is a more compelling model I should be looking at. Maybe a G5 since they're not too much more money than the G4 and a generation newer hardware which should help longevity. I would expect my parents to have the phones for a long time so a user replaceable battery is probably a must. I'd be inclined to stay away from an AMOLED screen due to the potential for burn-in given that I expect they'll have these phones for much longer than the typical 1-2 year upgrade cycle.
Thoughts?
With T-mobile's latest promotion of getting a 3rd line free (after billing credit) if you have two lines, my understanding is that I can get 3 lines of unlimited on their One plan all in for $100 a month. The plan doesn't seem to have any downside from the Simple plan I have now.
So my thinking is that I can dump my ex's number, port my Verizon number to Google voice, keep my T-mobile number, port my parents numbers to T-mobile, and be all set. That only leaves me with a phone problem.
The bigger question / problem is what phone do I get for two 70 year olds? My mom is not tech savvy. My Dad is reasonably tech savvy for his age group, but still not all that savvy in the grand scheme of things. Given the plan, smart phones should be the obvious choice. As far as I know the flip phones don't have band 12 support which is how T-mobile has greatly improved their service in the Detroit metro area, so that's another strike against non-smart phones. I know lots of old people have smart phones and use them just fine. As much as it pains me, an iPhone might be a good fit for my Mom, but I think my Dad would probably prefer Android given that he has an Android tablet. However, I think there is a lot of benefit to giving them the same phone so my Dad can help my Mom with her phone by already being familiar with it.
Are there more old people friendly launchers for Android that hide some of the capability and make the phone relatively unintimidating to use, especially for my Mom?
I don't really want to buy two $700 phones, though I would if necessary. Are the low cost Android phones actually bad phones as the user reviews/ratings suggest or do they have bad reviews mostly from people who think they're getting a flagship phone $99 and are upset when it doesn't perform like one?
Right now my thought is to get two more LG G4's (assuming I can get them reasonably inexpensively, like $200 or so) since I've been happy enough with mine unless there is a more compelling model I should be looking at. Maybe a G5 since they're not too much more money than the G4 and a generation newer hardware which should help longevity. I would expect my parents to have the phones for a long time so a user replaceable battery is probably a must. I'd be inclined to stay away from an AMOLED screen due to the potential for burn-in given that I expect they'll have these phones for much longer than the typical 1-2 year upgrade cycle.
Thoughts?
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Have you had any GPS problems with it? I've seen some people complaining about that.
