AT&T is sending me a phone unsoliticited, activating it, and disabling my current phone?

In My Humble Opinion
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Get the best phone for you that works now. I know lots of people in this thread like to keep their phones for 10 years, but sometimes with technology you just have to accept that upgrades are necessary.

Get the best phone now, and if it has 5G or not, don’t worry about it. 4G is going to be around for a long time, and when the move to 5G requires a new phone, the 5G radios will be cheaper and more efficient than what is available today. Particularly if you’re looking at extreme budget phones. The extra cost to go from a basic 4G phone today to a 5G phone today is probably better spent buying a 5G phone tomorrow.

If you’re looking at more expensive phones that happen to have 5G, that’s fine, too, but it certainly shouldn’t be the deciding factor unless the other features and price are equal.

Also, the big feature of 5G (to the end user) is increased data speed. If you’re getting a phone that can’t fully utilized 5G speed because of its slow processor or because it’s not a smart phone, then 5G isn’t going to matter (until 4G goes away many years from now).

64

Every 5G phone is going to be backwards compatable with 4G. But getting a 5G phone is in conflict with your desire to have a dumphone because I’m not sure if there are or ever will be anyone who bothers to make one with 5G.

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@echoreply , thank you helping me to think some of those thoughts. These are the kinds of considerations I need to figure out.

ETA: You too, @Darren_Garrison .

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A poignant analogy for the aging process… :thinking:

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Figured I’d share this link for those who are frustrated with features they don’t want and won’t use on a newer phone -

(warning there -IS- one 3g phone on the list, so I’d avoid it, but most are 4g)

The top pick is $44 on Amazon, which is pretty darn good for a budget phone with no carrier incentives.

WARNING WARNING WARNING - I said this upthread, but when I did this as a job, it was always frustrating - not all carriers support the same bands (frequencies) on 3g/4g/LTE/5g - so check with your carrier if you intend to use any of these as BYOP (Bring Your Own Phone).