I have a smartphone that I’ll probably use 20 times a year to make an actual phone call but I like the games and stuff and I can use wifi for internet and downloadign. If I dropped my cell phone plan completely (and paid whatever penalty) would I still be able to use the internet and such on wifi, play games I’ve downloaded, etc. or would it go completely dead? Yeah, I should have just gotten a tablet but I didn’t know that at the time.
Should work just fine - altough it will probably nag about no service when you turn it on. Try it, remove the SIM card and see what happends. Mine works completely normal wrt apps, games and such, when connected to WiFi
Thanks! I’ll try that when I get home tonight.
When I traded my dumb phone for a smart phone I asked the Verizon sales guy this exact question, but was told it wouldn’t work. Then again, he was a Verizon sales guy.
It will vary from model to model this one. Everything on my HTC Wildfire seems to work fine without the sim card in, it just says there’s no service (although, apparently I can call for emergency services still!) Even the GPS seems to work. I’ve heard the Blackberry may lose a lot of functionality.
I’m pretty sure that’s wrong, although I can’t see why a Verizon sales guy would want to make his own product sound bad.
I have an HTC smartphone. I just pulled the SIM card and connected to my wireless network. Everything works fine.
Because he doesn’t want to not buy the phone service–as that’s where they make all their money. If he’s at all right, it’s because Verizon crippled the phone, and chances are you can find out how to override that online somewhere. Just google how to unlock your phone model.
There is absolutely no reason a phone should need to have a phone service to use any of its Wi-Fi features.
I upgraded my iPhone from a 3G to a 3GS. I used the sim card from my old phone in my new phone. My old phone works fine on wi-fi without a sim card. So yes, you can drop your cell plan if you just want to browse on wi-fi.
Or get an iPod touch. It’s basically an iPhone without the phone part. You can make phone calls through the Skype app and headphones with a mic on it.
Or, if android is your thing there are some similar devices such as the wifi only models in the Samsung Galaxy S line. Essentially the android equivalent of an ipod touch.
For CDMA phones I will add that my old Samsung Moment works just fine and has not had cell service in a long time. It is a custom ROM though.
The weird thing with my droid HTC eris (screen is cracked so I don’t use it as a phone anymore) is that it will pick up every wifi signal except mine. I’ve pulled the battery, reset the wireless, entered the network manually, everything I can think of. It doesn’t have a SIM card. It’s bizarre.
Most smartphones will allow you to turn on “Airplane Mode”, but still enable WiFi. That will prevent them from complaining to you about a missing SIM card, “No Service”, etc.
Not my iPhone. Putting it in airplane mode completely shuts off both the 3G and the Wi-Fi.
Putting it in airplane mode will automatically disable WiFi, but you can then re-enable WiFi while still remaining in airplane mode.
This was added in one of the iOS major releases, iOS 3.0 I think. So you may need to get the latest software release if yours doesn’t allow this.
I was not aware of this. I am running the latest OS, 4.3.3.
OK, looks like it works. I’ve had an iPhone over two years and never knew this. Learn something new every day.
FYI, the point of airplane mode is to turn off the wireless transceivers. It should disable your cellular network (GSM/UMTS/CDMA/etc), WiFi, Bluetooth, and any other random things you have (FM transmit?) As stated above, many phones will then let you turn on individual modules separately. You may also be able to turn them off separately, without dealing with airplane mode.
What it SHOULDN’T do is change how you access your SIM card. You should be able to look at contacts, read SMS messages that were stored on your SIM, etc. So I would expect a phone that complains about not having a SIM card would continue to complain, regardless of whether you are in airplane mode.
-D/a
I switched to this a few months ago with my Blackberry Curve. Verizon makes you jump through hoops: the web browser and mail client won’t work, but you can install software (via the Blackberry desktop – you can’t download programs, either) to replace it. It’s been doing fine since I did that.
We use a gen 1 iPhone that way, just remove the SIM. It complains when you reboot it, but that is the only issue.
I use a iPhone 3G with a ‘GoPhone’ SIM card (cost me nothing at ATT). I buy $25.00 worth of minutes every 3 months for the occasional calls I make.