Smartphone and plan advice (v. clean slate)

[Stereodude]

Thanks sir. How much is the single line costing you ? Published rates or do that have semi-secret promos like Verizon?

$71.47 for 6gB a month after taxes and fees and the like. It's just their regular published $60 plan.

AFAIK, Ting's GSM network is T-Mobile, so you could plug in your wife's usage into their calculator and see how much it would cost you per month that way. I'm thinking to move the 4 line family plan I have on Verizon to Ting (GSM). Based on the actual usage I could cut the bill in half.

 

[Clocker]

Thanks!

 

[Santilli]

My SO cut her phone bill from Verizon 75 a month, for an Iphone, to around 25 a month, for two phones, one GSM one CDMA.
If one doesn't work in an area, the other generally does, so, you save 50 dollars, and have coverage on two networks, Sprint and TMobile for 25 a month.
Admittedly, she almost never uses the phone...
So I can't comment on coverage other then at home.

 

[Santilli]

Tings networks are NOT just Tmobile GSM. They also have Sprints' cdma.

 

[LunarMist]

My 2011 Phone is really becoming a problem now. What are the best options for a budget phone, around $200 at the Tmobile. This is the phone for work so I don't want to spend very much on it. I use the G4 as the main personal phone.

 

[ddrueding]

My 2011 Phone is really becoming a problem now. What are the best options for a budget phone, around $200 at the Tmobile. This is the phone for work so I don't want to spend very much on it. I use the G4 as the main personal phone.

Did a quick search and I've never heard of any of the phones in your price point. I was comforted to see several from reputable manufacturers (LG and Samsung). No specific suggestions, though.

 

[snowhiker]

Smartphone comparison chart here.

 

[LunarMist]

Smartphone comparison chart here.

That's a huge chart, but I find no way to select the carrier.

 

[LunarMist]

Did a quick search and I've never heard of any of the phones in your price point. I was comforted to see several from reputable manufacturers (LG and Samsung). No specific suggestions, though.

My G4 has been fine. The only LG I'd consider of that group is the K10.

 

[LunarMist]

My G4 has been fine. The only LG I'd consider of that group is the K10.

Oh no! My G4 started upgrading itself and I'm afraid to stop it. Am I doomed?

 

[ddrueding]

The upgrade for the G4 is fine. And don't stop it, that would be bad.

 

[Stereodude]

My 2011 Phone is really becoming a problem now. What are the best options for a budget phone, around $200 at the Tmobile. This is the phone for work so I don't want to spend very much on it. I use the G4 as the main personal phone.

What about another G4 or a G3?

 

[Howell]

What about another G4 or a G3?

Exactly what I was thinking. Other than mixing up the phones and sending classified info over your personal account, why not?

 

[Mercutio]

I bought an LG Volt 2 (Boost/CDMA) for a friend's birthday. It was $44 as a second-hand phone but honestly it's not bad at all. It's constructed in the same fashion as my LG G4, has the same tap-on for the screen and can be easily repaired. I'm hoping it gets Android M soon because the only real down side it has is that the internal SD card only has about 1.5GB of free space reserved for applications and an adopted storage card would be incredibly useful to address that.
I think my friend pays $40 a month for unlimited everything service, which seems completely reasonable. The only real problem with Boost is that they only accept a subset of Sprint/CDMA phones.

I also bought a Galaxy S6 this week for $50 before I knew about Boost's limitations but at this point I'm thinking that a GS6 is a perfectly serviceable backup phone for me so I don't mind spending that money at all.

 

[LunarMist]

I bought an LG Volt 2 (Boost/CDMA) for a friend's birthday. It was $44 as a second-hand phone but honestly it's not bad at all. It's constructed in the same fashion as my LG G4, has the same tap-on for the screen and can be easily repaired. I'm hoping it gets Android M soon because the only real down side it has is that the internal SD card only has about 1.5GB of free space reserved for applications and an adopted storage card would be incredibly useful to address that.
I think my friend pays $40 a month for unlimited everything service, which seems completely reasonable. The only real problem with Boost is that they only accept a subset of Sprint/CDMA phones.

I also bought a Galaxy S6 this week for $50 before I knew about Boost's limitations but at this point I'm thinking that a GS6 is a perfectly serviceable backup phone for me so I don't mind spending that money at all.

It's unclear how a BYOD phone works with carrier phones on the same account plan, but the idea of a used phone is unappealing. Unless the phones are autoclaved, EtO or 60Co sterilized, I'll pass.

 

[Mercutio]

I knew the person I bought the phone from. They're not a sophisticated phone user. I encrypted then erased it, which is certainly enough to kill anything that might've been left over from her use.
Why was it $44? Because that's what I had in my pocket.

 

[LunarMist]

The G4 is already obsolete.

 

[Stereodude]

The G4 is already obsolete.

So? Your budget isn't going to pay for a current flagship phone. You can either buy an old flagship phone or a current low-end phone.

 

[LunarMist]

The upgrade for the G4 is fine. And don't stop it, that would be bad.

The OS is now version 6! However, the GUI is essentially the same as 5 from what I can determine. I expected it to be very different, such as when Windows changes versions.

 

[MaxBurn]

LG G4? I had an import before it was brought to the US and loved the form factor, great hardware. Hated whatever they did to the software to make it laggy, I stuck it out for three months and sold it being pretty disappointed. If you are sensitive to pauses and stutters I'd give it a pass.

The Nexus 6P should be dropping in price soon as they get ready for new models. This and the 5X are going to see the most software updates and security patches, which is a huge problem on android.

 

[Stereodude]

The OS is now version 6! However, the GUI is essentially the same as 5 from what I can determine. I expected it to be very different, such as when Windows changes versions.

Mine updated to Marshmallow months ago. It had some big nearly 400MB update this morning though I'm not what for. But, yes... Very little seems different comparing before and after Marshmallow.

 

[Stereodude]

LG G4? I had an import before it was brought to the US and loved the form factor, great hardware. Hated whatever they did to the software to make it laggy, I stuck it out for three months and sold it being pretty disappointed. If you are sensitive to pauses and stutters I'd give it a pass.

What sort of pauses and stutters are you referring to?

 

[LunarMist]

Mine doesn't pause or stutter. Rarely it does something strange, but that's always when in user's pants.

 

[Mercutio]

What sort of pauses and stutters are you referring to?

Yeah. The only lag I notice is if I'm task switching in and out of the Imgur app. Which probably uses unreasonable amounts of RAM anyway.
I did use ADB commands to disable a bunch of crap on mine though.

Pre-release launcher, maybe?

 

[MaxBurn]

Well I'm pretty sensitive to lag and I have a bunch of android devices so I can tell when something isn't right. I generally run the animation scale at .5x which really speeds things up and uncovers slower devices. The LG G4 on 5.1 wasn't as horribly lagy as say the Nexus 9 for its first six months of existence on 5 and 5.1 but it was mostly just annoying. In the early days it was compounded by an insensitive touch screen which really made things worse leading to the question, is that lag or did I not tap hard enough? Super frustrating dealing with that. Fortunately LG fixed the touch screen issues pretty early on and the only ones complaining were the ones not getting updates because they had a carrier branded handset (which I didn't). I also heard that the 6 update made the lag much better but by the time that started rolling out to some areas of the 615 unlocked phones as beta I was already on the 6P and loving its speed. Maybe they got around to getting the software right eventually and it's a good phone now?

 

[LunarMist]

So? Your budget isn't going to pay for a current flagship phone. You can either buy an old flagship phone or a current low-end phone.

I'm also looking at the better new phones, but not too thrilled. It looks like the G5 is smaller than the G4, but v10 is larger. Then there is supposedly a v20coming soon.
Samsung sucks due to the integrated battery.

 

[ddrueding]

The availability of external batteries has reduced the importance of a replaceable battery, in my opinion. Granted, I swapped mine 3 times yesterday to keep things going, but I could have just as easily connected an external battery for a while. And the new note has a microSD slot...

[video=youtube_share;ObDkWUm10OQ]https://youtu.be/ObDkWUm10OQ[/video]

 

[Mercutio]

The availability of external batteries has reduced the importance of a replaceable battery, in my opinion.

In what way is it better to not have the option to fully replace a battery than to walk around with a second object of approximately the same mass as a smartphone that is attached by a thin, tiny cord to my $600 pocket computer?

FWIW, the LG V20 will be the first new device to ship with Android N by default, though current Nexus devices will have the option to upgrade sometime next week.

 

[ddrueding]

In what way is it better to not have the option to fully replace a battery than to walk around with a second object of approximately the same mass as a smartphone that is attached by a thin, tiny cord to my $600 pocket computer?

It would be difficult to get the waterproof rating with a removable back. The battery shown in the video I linked (no cable, just a fatter phone for a while, also waterproof) seems an acceptable alternative.

 

[Stereodude]

I must be the only person who doesn't see the need for a waterproof phone.

 

[Mercutio]

I'd rather have a phone I can fix myself, but as I've said before I do have some interest in a water-resistant media player.

 

[LunarMist]

I'm a civilian and don't need it either. Carrying around a big power supply is ridiculous.

 

[Clocker]

I just bought my wife a refurbished Galaxy S5. Screen is nice, it takes an SD card and has a replaceable battery. At only $170 shipped I think it was a good deal and is in perfect (like new) condition. It's also running the latest Android (Marshmallow).

 

[MaxBurn]

I'm really hoping the next small nexus phone doesn't have any compromises. The 6P has been fantastic but I'm ready for something smaller.

 

[Mercutio]

What's the definition of smaller? 5", 4.7", something like that? I had it in my head that the Moto G was a "small" phone but I just looked and it's still a 5" device.