I used to use a tracfone and ipod, but have switched switched over to an HTC evo on virgin mobile. I’m glad I made the switch. mine is 35/month prepaid.
tmobile is better. the plan costs less, you get more data but coverage outside of big cities is spotty. with virgin mobile I get coverage in smaller cities, which is important.
I was watching this comparison video between the iphone 5 and nexus 4 and at this point for example the nexus renders white backgrounds as very yellowish. Is this a defective model, an issue with the white balance of the camera taking the video (seems like everything else is ok), or is the nexus really that yellow, almost amber when displaying white?
Oh, OK, I see where you’re drawing the distinction.
Well, it’s definitely not always that yellow when displaying white. What it looks like to me is that the screen brightness on the Nexus is set much lower (whether by default or by the user) than on the iPhone. It’s not just whites that are yellower, everything is dimmer, which just makes it look like the white is yellower and everything else is more dull, particularly in that video. If the reviewer would have just normalized the brightness, there would be little to no difference.
When on battery, the smart smartphone user keeps the screen as dim as tolerable in order to conserve battery power. The screen is the #1 battery power-drainer if you use your phone a lot.
Here are the coverage maps
The T-mobile has only 2G outside of the large cities, at least where I live.
If you are spending all, or almost all your time in an area covered by T-mobile I’d recommend them over virgin mobile. I’ve heard the speeds are faster. Plus you get 2x more data and you save $5 a month. But I work in an area outside of a large city, so I would only get 2G at work which isn’t something I am comfortable with.
I use Ptel, a T-Mobile MVNO, which has a bring your own phone policy and “unlimited” data, talk and text for $40 or $50/month.
Scare quotes around “unlimited” because they throttle you down to 2G speeds after 350MB (the $40 plan) or 2GB (the $50 plan). But if you can tolerate slower downloads at the end of the month, you can use as much data as you want. I routinely download albums from Amazon without worrying about data limits.
Be careful to do your research with bring your own phone plans. For example, I used to have an HTC Inspire, and Ptel said I could use any unlocked GSM phone. But it turns out, to use the LTE network, I needed a phone with the GSM 1700/2100 bands, which my Inspire didn’t have. So I was getting slow network speeds and whats worse, lots of areas with no signal at all. I bought a Nexus S and now I get excellent network reception. Buying a T-Mobile branded phone (or one directly from PTel) would have prevented that issue (the Inspire was originally from AT&T).
About 10 seconds before the point in the video I linked to, he turned the brightness up to maximum on both phones. So not a good sign, if that’s the best the nexus can do.
I’m kind of confused - all the reviews say that the nexus 4 has a great screen, but every side by side video I’ve seen suggests it does not.
I’ve had a Nexus 4 for about two months now. It rocks. The end.
Data point:
Samsung Galaxy S3. I’m on T-Mobile’s pay-by-the-day plan. We work from home so cell use is infrequent at best. I pay $3 for any day I use my phone for text, call or data–wi-fi does not trigger a billing cycle so open wi-fi really helps. I’ve had about $3-400 per year in cell bills for both my and Mrs. Devil’s phone.
The $3 per day would be expensive if we used it every day, but since it’s so infrequent it’s much better than paying for minutes/data we don’t use (there’s also a $2 per day plan too). Call your carrier and see if they have usage history for you and do the math. Another thing about the dollars–aside from an 8 percent tax when we add money to the account, there’s no fees or taxes on each use. I don’t know if things have changed, but the $xx per month plans never included all the taxes and fees in the final bill.
I have an old iPhone 3gs, and AT&T GoPhone coverage (call & text only - no data) I am limited to wifi for data, but I pay only $25 every three months. While I would occasionally like data, I like cheap better.
I’d want quite the opposite, actually. I’d be happy with having data only and no text and minutes. You can use the data plan to make calls/texts anyway. So T-Mobile’s plan with just 100 minutes sounds perfect, unless I could find an even cheaper data plan without minutes but that’s unlikely.
Think I’m gonna go ahead and grab the nexus 4, my concerns now are the yellow screen thing, concern that google might release a 32gb version soon like they did with the nexus 7 and I miss out, and I wonder what happens if T-Mobile cancels/reprices their plan, I’m not sure there will be a good GSM replacement.
Have you looked into a portable hotspot plan?
I think it’s only 15/mo, and it’s no contract so you can cancel anytime.
I don’t know if those are sold just “as-is.” Aren’t they all typically add-ons to existing plans?
As for myself, I’m on a pre-paid plan on StraightTalk using AT&T towers, with a Galaxy Nexus I bought direct from Google for $300 (it’s the older version of the Nexus 4 you can now buy from Google.) I’m happy on it, happier than I was on Sprint. Sprint has similar coverage, but slower speeds (there’s no Sprint LTE up here, yet.)
I’d like to be on that $30 T-Mobile plan, because it’s cheaper and 100 minutes is more than enough for me, but they have no coverage where I live, so it’d be all 2G.
Just a heads up: Google will now start offering the Samsung S4, unlocked, on the Play store. So you’ll be able to use TMobile and such, but with an S4, which you might like.
Not just unlocked, but with vanilla android too, so updates will be immediate.
Yeah, and the S4 does look awesome, but about twice the price of the Nexus 4. Probably not worth it, but I’m thinking about it.
I was really hoping they were going to unveil a 32gb mid-cycle refresh at IO like the rumors said. I’d have ordered the new model instantly. Rumor is a white Nexus 4 is coming available on June 10 - which I don’t really care about except I’m wondering if that indicates the mid-cycle refresh. If I snatch one up now and the 32gb version is available in a few weeks I’d be pissed, it’s a big difference to me.
And so far there’s nothing at all attaching the white Nexus release to a new model, and if they were planning on a new model they’d probably have announced it at IO, so I should probably order anyway, but it seemed like the rumor of the mid-cycle refresh was really widespread. Where did those come from? Which is why it makes me wonder if it really exists, they just need a few more weeks to push it out.
Regarding the S4, though - google sells the nexus devices only slightly above cost, but I doubt Samsung has the same thing going. They get to use their inflated retail price. If the S4 was a true nexus device from the ground up, it’d probably cost more like $450-500. Too bad, I’d snatch one up instantly at $450. $650 is a bit much, but possibly worth it. That screen is mindblowing.
Keep in mind that if you get the 30/mo thing from TMobile you’ll be saving a bunch of money on your monthly plan. So if you’re going to stick with it for a couple of years (assuming you’d normally upgrade whenever a carrier contract says you could), that’s quite a bit of money in and of itself.
Oh that’s true, it’s definitely cheaper overall than buying it subsidized, it’s just while it’s a very cool phone, I very much doubt it’s twice the phone of the nexus 4, so the value per dollar is significantly less. I’m probably going to end up grabbing the nexus 4 soon, I just wish there was a 32gb refresh coming out - that would be fist pump slam dunk order right now.
Makes me wonder how much battery power streaming uses, how much I can get away with streaming Pandora or google music rather than having a large collection on the device. Any way to stream movies you have on your computer via google drive or something?