I’ve never had a cell phone, and I recently bought a Blu for my husband. I got him an unlocked cellphone, because I didn’t know which carrier he wanted. Neither of us have had time to hook up service with a carrier - but he’s been using it constantly to message and surf the internet. How is this possible? Isn’t that something you have to pay someone for? Am I going to get slammed with some huuuuuge bill when we finally do get a carrier?
Some (most nowadays) phones can connect to the internet through wireless wifi. Presumably this is what your husband’s phone is doing, though you might want to check to be sure you don’t actually have service. Usually if there is a service there would be a number in contacts to call and get saved voice mail.
I waited a couple months to get my phone Cellular service.
I used Wi-Fi at home every day. Reading the news and checking my email.
Wi-Fi is separate from Cellular connections.
We’ve had the phone a few months, and no bill has arrived. I’m kind of hoping it stays that way.
Does using an unlocked phone make you more susceptible to hackers? My husband turned on his phone yesterday, and it was showing the programming (DOS?), and just before it went to the regular screen, it said “Searching Marxism” of all things at the top.
- No
- Not DOS. Probably Linux kernel messages or Android user-space services.
- Probably something built in. Programmers write some silly log messages, especially when they don’t think end users will ever see them. Could also be the name of a nearby WiFi network.
Yeah, my guess is that that’s the name of a WiFi network. It presumably makes sense to one of your neighbors, who named their network that for some reason and then left it unsecured.
‘searching markov’ or ‘searching markov chain’?
That’s a computer sciencey thing.
Back in the days when cellphones were expensive, some relatives’ children had those iPods that looked like iPhones. With an Apple account, as I understand, they could email, text, surf, run apps, etc. (read and update Facebook) on their iPod - on WiFi. Just, no cellphone bills.
So same idea.
BTW, “unlocked” just means the cellphone will accept SIM cards from any carrier (as you know), it’s not restricted to one carrier. Carrier who give you a free or discounted phone want to be sure you don’t take their phone, stop paying your contract, an go to another carrier. Hence, they “lock” the phone to their company SIM cards. As far as any security or hackability, it makes no difference if a phone is carrier-locked or not.
This. Using WiFi whenever possible allows you to get buy with a cheaper cellular data plan. If you’re going to download apps or watch video on your phone (or do anything else that moves a lot of data to/from the internet), do it when it’s got a WiFi connection (e.g. at home, in a hotel room, or at a coffee shop with free WiFi).
I suggest installing malware protection as soon as possible. It should be the first App you get from the Play Store.
I use Kaspersky. Avast is another popular one. I tried both and preferred Kaspersky. AVG and Bitdefender are a couple other popular ones.
You can install any of the antivirus Apps free to try. You’ll need to pay a few dollars a year to register it and get all the features. It’s much cheaper than what they charge for Computer Antivirus software.
You should only install one antivirus App (at a time). Otherwise they’ll conflict with each other.
You can use a cell phone for three things: voice telephone calls, text messages, and data (using the internet, watching movies…). Voice telephone calls and text messages are quite cheap, but data can get expensive (for example you want to want a lot of movies on it).
If you don’t have your own wifi connection, and you’re using your neighbor’s without his permission, he may hit you with a bill. You should set up your own wifi router if you haven’t already.
Is that really a thing? 
Who still has unprotected wifi anymore, and if they do, how would they know how to track down some random device on it and bill you, and how the hell would they enforce that bill?
My dumb questions, because I almost never use my phones – neither the mobile, nor the landline.
You know on TV people are always video chatting? How do you do that? And they’re always like, ‘Let me send you the picture,’ while they’re talking. How do they do that? I have an LG Tribute, which is pretty basic. I tried to d/l a game once, and there wasn’t enough storage space. I suspect I need an iPhone.
Skype is the Video call App for Android. I’ve used it many times. You can send attachments in Skype. Skype works on Window too.
iPhone uses FaceTime
The challenge is for an Android user to call a iPhone user. I’ve been told FaceTime won’t talk to Skype.
A bit of a correction:
Skype is for any smartphone. So you can install it on Android, iPhone, or Windows Phone 8 (as well as other devices, like tablets and computers), and they will all be able to video each other.
FaceTime, however, is Apple’s own Video/Audio app. So, it only works between other Apple devices using FaceTime which is part of the OS itself (iPhones, iPads, Macs, etc.).
Academic, for me. I was curious just in case. 
Pro tip : iphones are about $650. You can get a modern smartphone that’s just a wee bit slower in practice (and a lot slower on paper) for about $180 from Amazon. The Moto G5 Plus 64GB is the one you want. (that specific model because it has the 4 gigs of RAM).
Don’t forget the shock resistant case and the tempered glass screen protector (will run you another 10 bucks).
It’s a lot easier to stomach your phone always going obsolete and the risk of breaking it if you only paid a bit over a hundred bucks for it.
As for how do you send a picture while in a call - in both iOS and android, when you are talking in a call, you are not actually “locked” to the screen with the phone keypad. You can press the home button (the button at the bottom middle) and escape to the main screen while the call is still going. It helps to put the call on speaker first or use a headset. Now, from the home screen, you can access the text messaging app, then press the paperclip icon to attach something to the text message. Now you just browse to a picture on your phone or take a new one and send it. Easy peasy.
Hyperbole. It is a difficult concept.