Don’t forget when comparing prices between contracts and month-to-month prepaid plans that with contracts, taxes and fees often add another $10-$15. With prepaid plans, you pay only sales tax.
I find that I don’t store any music on my phone these days since my plan allows me to stream it data-free from my own collection (via Google Play) or a bunch of sites like Pandora, Spotify, Bandcamp, etc. And I don’t keep a kajillion photos on my phone so faster internal storage means more to me for apps than the ability to have 128GB external storage.
not playing music per se, but any time I opened a music app it took relative ages for it to populate the list of contents and there were always “hitches” and stutters while scrolling through.
I just opened Google Play Music. Counting in my head, it took a whole four seconds to open and to populate my song list. I hit “Shuffle” and it started playing immediately. I opened my other music player, Musicolet, and it opened even faster and populated my queue instantaneously. This was after I had shut down all running apps.
And although I have unlimited data and could leave all my music in the cloud, I find it plays faster from being stored on my phone.
I’d been with one Sprint reseller for about six years, until last summer when I switched to another. I’ve been assured that no such prioritization occurs, and given how little love Sprint usually gets for their network and signal strength, I have to believe what I’m being told. Sprint’s network–via my reseller–is first rate. At least it seems so by any metrics I can observe.
To what extent does the processing power and RAM capacity of a smartphone impact perceived network performance? If I downgraded from my Galaxy S8 to a J series, or a Jitterbug, would Sprint’s network still look as good to me?
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Straight Talk. Cheaper phones that work well, no contracts. Since my phone is not my primary computer, I don’t need much.
The camera was the very last thing for me to consider when I was researching phones.
I financed this Pixel XL phone (no interest) and decided never to do it again. I’m saving for the next one as we speak. I use my phone for hours a day, so I want something higher end. The last one ran out of storage and got slow, so I went with maximum features this time. I have no problem paying $800 for a piece of tech. I’m a technophile. But I want to own it outright rather than deal with a debt.
I really like Project Fi. You pay a base fee ($20 for two, currently) and then $10 per gig. You never pay for more data than you use and there is no contract. Everything is very transparent and it works out to about $40 to $50 per month, not counting the cost of the phones. The only downside is I’m stuck with Google phones only, but the Pixel is fine with me. As long as their phones continue to not suck, I’m in.
If you mean the Pixel 2, I would have bought that in a heartbeat had it been available last summer (and if my carrier had offered it or allowed me to bring my own). I often used to flash custom ROMs on my older handsets, because that’s usually a good strategy for optimizing performance in fair-to-middling Android phones. In cases where a Nexus mimicking ROM was available, I always found that to be far and away the best. Essentially it would turn my phone into a Nexus, and everything seemed to work about twice as fast than it had out-of-the-box. (Nexus was Google’s smartphone at the time.)
Although I would be very interested to see how my Galaxy S8 would work with a Pixel 2-mimicking ROM, assuming it ever becomes available, I doubt I’ll bother. My ROM flashing days are behind me, along with <= 2G ROM/16G internal storage handsets. As useful as flashing custom ROMs can be, you usually end up breaking some small thing that you eventually have to fix.
I have the first edition Pixel, they released the Pixel 2 about a month after I bought mine. :smack:
Prior to that, I had a Nexus 5x, and it was a good phone, but I only had 16G storage and after a couple of years it slowed down, so I bought the Pixel XL with max storage. I have been consistently pleased with Google phones. As long as that’s the case I’ll be loyal to Project Fi. (To be clear, when I said I’d ‘‘never do it again,’’ I meant pay for a phone on a payment plan vs. paying the cost up front. You can do either with Project Fi. I prefer to save the money before I purchase the phone.)
I have no idea what flashing custom ROMs means. (Wait, do you mean like emulating the OS of a different phone?)
Not emulating. “Flashing a ROM” is replacing the Android build that came with the phone with an alternate Android build. (Usually. I’m not aware of anyone replacing Android wholesale with something else, but I suppose it’s possible.)
IMHO, if you’re using an unlocked Google phone (like the 5x you were using or your Pixel XL now), it’s generally not necessary. Replacing the ROM makes more sense if your standard Android loadout is tailored by the vendor (like Samsung, which goes quite far afield compared to the reference Android release it’s based on) and the carrier (i.e., legendary wireless company bloatware that can’t be uninstalled).
NM (I didn’t notice this was a zombie and repeated what I said earlier)
I got my Motorola X Pure 32gb for $300 at Best Buy. Consumer Cellular sent me a Sim Card. I get 250 min, 3GB data and unlimited texts for $32 a month. No contract.
I can upgrade to 5GB data for another 10 bucks a month.
Exactly. Google:Android:Nexus-Pixel:
iOS:iPhone, so there isn’t any ‘OEM bloatware’, unless you include the standard Google apps like GMail and Maps that appear on just about every Android device in the world. Samsung, LG, HTC, etc. all add their own further bloatware.
The trouble with flashing ROMs, though, is that it can be a bit tedious, mostly in finding an appropriate ROM for your device, and most critically in making sure you don’t somehow screw it up, say by getting two files mixed up. You also need to “root” your device beforehand, which means enabling access to all the files on your phone. The last time I rooted, which was on a Samsung S5, I found the PRL update tool no longer worked. For anyone with a top-shelf Android smartphone these days, I don’t think there’s any compelling reason to root it or flash a custom ROM. My S8 has all kinds of Samsung tools that they want me to try, but I barely notice them and the phone works great regardless.
You can learn more than you ever wanted to know about rooting, flashing, and other Android hacks at the Android Central Forums, among other places. Just look for the subforum for your model.
For some folks like myself, the profusion of wireless devices that are available for some smart phones make the difference. Examples that I use are:
An endoscope that can be used wirelessly for both photos and videos; it sends files directly to my iPhone and also stores them.
Devices are available that monitor moisture and nutrients in soil; this is sent wirelessly to my phone.
Wireless waterproof speakers that I can use while working in humid green houses (and at the pool)
So the value that I have is for specific applications other than the basic phone/text/camera. There are an amazing number of scientific and technological applications that allow the user to collect data/analyse for all sorts of conditions.
This has nothing to do with my carrier - but with the utility of the ($800) device.
For a lot of the people I hear gushing about their phone cameras it doesn’t make much sense, though; all some people get out of a camera with better resolution is sending bigger files over WhatsApp. But, bigger is better!
Thank you for the timely discussion. I am about to upgrade my S4. I planned to buy an unlocked phone on Amazon and bring it to my T-Mobile, where I get a good price and good customer service. I just have to figure out which phone I want.