Hey FP
So I currently have a super cheap dumb phone that I'm pretty satisfied with. It's a basic pre-paid tracfone that gets me about 1300-1500 minutes, which lasts me about 10-11 months, and costs me about $75-$100 every time I get more minutes. Moderate texting is counted here.
I like it because its stupid cheap (about $5-$10 a month on average), and considering I only use my phone for texting/talking purposes every now and then (not something I do constantly), it means I can easily get by with 100 minutes or so a month (including texts that take up 1/3rd a minute). However being a dumb phone, this is all it does.
I've been looking at smart phones out there, specifically Windows Phone 8 (which I really dig), and thought it would be nice to [I]maybe[/I] make the switch over to smartphone territory, but I have no idea what my options really are and if its even worth the money. I'd like a smartphone for the added convience of being able to surf the web, check my email, check weather, do online messaging, listen to internet radio, check/make notes (I use springpad on my tablet), etc. All of stuff I can do on my tablet or desktop mind you, but often times I'm simply not going to be around my desktop and I don't want to carry my tablet everywhere (my tablet is an asus transformer, so I use it mostly as a netbook truth be told and not as a giant smartphone alternative). So having a smartphone would be nice on the go. I'd also be able to get rid of my ZuneHD (woo consolodating!), which I love, seeing as a smartphone would be able to accomplish the same things my ZuneHD currently does and much more.
However I feel like there really aren't many options, especially for Windows Phone 8 (an OS I'd much rather have over Android, as my experience is simply "okay" with it on my Tablet and I love how simple/smooth/etc WP8 os is). I know WP8 doesn't have many apps or anything but I'm honestly not concerned about that - I'd use a smart phone for mostly the things I mentioned above - I don't intend for it to completely replace my PC or anything. The only thing that would suck would be a lack of steam mobile/steam chat on my phone, as there's pretty much a zero percent chance valve would ever put an app on windows phone
But anyways, I feel like there aren't many options for someone who wants a smartphone that's affordable, very lightweight on the texting/calling side of things (as I only do at most 100ish minutes of that stuff combined per month) but powerful for the data/internet stuff. Especially for WP8. I.E. the lowest plan I could find for AT&T on the lumia 820 was 450 minutes a month... which is 4X more than I'd ever use.
So any help? I'm a smartphone noob. I guess my ideal phone would be...
1. Windows Phone 8 os (I really love how it looks/works, I don't need tons of apps, I already use a ZuneHD which has a similar interface, etc)
2. Not massive (i.e. small enough to comfortable use for data purposes and yet be able to fit in my pocket)
3. Is reasonably cheap per month to use ($25-$30? I dunno what I should expect here. Pretty much don't want to be forced to get a 500+ minutes per month plan and pay for that)
4. Has a stronger focus on data than on texting/calling, since I only lightly do both of those latter things per month
Thanks FP :)
i don't get what you see in wp8, but i would go with the lumia series, those things are small, and well built (read: fucking indestructible)
with most carriers (i know this is true with AT&T as I have an iphone 4s) in order to buy a smartphone you must buy a data plan which costs $20-30 depending on how much you want
or if you have the money right all together, go for an unlocked one, it's expensive, but saves you money compared to a contract in the long run
probably didn't answer your question completely but at least i tried
Having a phone the size of the S3, you would be suprised how well larger phones fit in your hands. Just stay away from anything 5 inch or more. (read Note 2)
Android is usually smooth if you get a phone on the latest OS (Jelly Bean) but if you really like the Windows Phone interface then you could go with that. But Windows Phone doesn't have nearly as many apps as Android, so don't end up kicking yourself when you buy one and go "why can't I find app X". Also don't leave the iPhone out of the question if you've not looked at that yet, there's a lot of APPLEHATE but the iPhone is a very popular Smartphone because of it's simplicity, smoothness and some other things (You can always look up strengths and weaknesses of each smartphone OS). The worst things about the iPhone is the little to none customizability of the OS (Unless you jailbreak, which is 99% safe afaik and gives you PLENTY of customization), and that there's no SD card slot although that seems to be becoming a new trend among some smartphones...
[QUOTE=djjkxbox360;39543320]Android is usually smooth if you get a phone on the latest OS (Jelly Bean) but if you really like the Windows Phone interface then you could go with that. But Windows Phone doesn't have nearly as many apps as Android, so don't end up kicking yourself when you buy one and go "why can't I find app X". Also don't leave the iPhone out of the question if you've not looked at that yet, there's a lot of APPLEHATE but the iPhone is a very popular Smartphone because of it's simplicity, smoothness and some other things (You can always look up strengths and weaknesses of each smartphone OS). The worst things about the iPhone is the little to none customizability of the OS (Unless you jailbreak, which is 99% safe afaik and gives you PLENTY of customization), and that there's no SD card slot although that seems to be becoming a new trend among some smartphones...[/QUOTE]
Wp8 may very well end up with the most apps down the road, because they are easier to make work with W8 desktops, tablets, and phones alike.
I just like the Windows Phone UI environment and the size/look of windows phones, how smooth they run, etc. Apps aren't a big concern of mine since I don't plan on getting much beyond the essentials. Some stuff like steam is missing which sucks but I wouldn't lose sleep over it
How do non-contract phones even work? You pay $300 or so for a phone you could otherwise get for "free" on a contract, and it won't even work because you need a service plan to use it anyways... which is pretty much a different contract, right? Might as well go for the subsidized phone from the get-go
The more I look into it though the more it just doesn't seem worth it. There seems to be no carriers on any "non-off brand" smart phone line that offers any kind of data plan for under $50 a month, and not a single one seems to offer any plans that focus more on data and less on minutes/texting (instead of haivng to pay for expensive "400 minutes a month" style plans). Seeing as I'm the kind of guy that would like to use the internet on the go but never uses more than 100 minutes a month total combined texting/calling
I just can't afford or justify spending a minimum of $500 more a year from what I do now, just for the privledge of using internet on the go....
If you want to chat to steam friends I think someone made a web application to be able to do that. And obviously you can browse the store online (and if a wishlist item is on sale it will send you an email to tell you)
Sounds good.
Today I just learned that the plans you get on contract are totally different from the plans you can get off contract. I.E. paying $70/mo on T-mobile (cheapest you can do in order to get talk, text and data) with 2 year contract and a free phone is about $400-$500 more expensive in the long run than just getting a $300 phone with a $30/mo plan that is actually more in line of what I'm looking for.
Speaking of t-mobile, which carriers are good to go for if you are like me and don't want to spend loads e money?
The lumia's look really nice but they are so far (AFAIK) restricted to either t-mobile (for the 810) or AT&T (for the 820). All the higher end ones seem too expensive for me to want to get plus are locked to AT&T (who I don't want, for price reasons). I also don't like that they only have 1GB of onboard (not sure if I can just add a microsd on that tho).. if I were to get a smartphone I'd want it to replace my zunehd, which has 16gb of mem.
T-mobile is selling non-contract 710 lumias for really cheap on their website ($120 free shipping), and that sounds really good... but the form factor isn't winning any awards for me plus they are locked to windows phone 7.5, which seems like its much much worse (almost to the point of not being worth it) compaired to WP8
Just thinking outloud here I guess lol, feel free to chime in
My friends have like boost mobile/virgin mobile and carriers like that. They seem to be working fine. Granted, it's not going to be as good and fast as verizon/uscellular (which are in my area), but it will be decent.
All the contract offers are completely useless, you get charged wayy too much. That should be common sense though.
I think (should I actually go for one) that I'm pretty sold on the lumia 810
[img]http://images.cyberimg.com/wp/2012/11/13/Lumia810box.jpg[/img]
Seems like it has all the things I'd want out of a smartphone while also avoiding being really expensive. Size is (slightly) bigger than I'd care for plus I like the 820's form factor more but I hate at&t
Seeing these things selling for $250-$300 on average on ebay, plus it supports removable storage (so I can use it as a replacement for my zune as well), and it also works with t-moble which seems to be the only carrier that really offers cheap non-contract smartphone plans ($30/mo for unlimited texting, 5gb highspeed data and 100min). If I sell my ZuneHD for $75-$100 then the effective price would just be about $100-$150 or so for it
I'd wait out on WP8 for a bit if I were you, I'm having a handful of issues on my 920 and MS don't seem to be giving their mobile platform much attention (hell most of their own apps aren't even updated for 7.8). I wish it ended up being windows RT.
What kind of issues?
Also, how would buying a WP8 phone be used? I assume I'd have to get a brand new sim along with the phone itself to get it going right?
T-mobile has a valentines day deal going on right now that's really tempting for the Lumia 810. $50/mo on a two year contract for 500min/unlimited text/unlimited data (first 2gb at 4g). Free overnight shipping, pay nothing else
I know being off the contract would probably be better, but assuming I get the phone for $300, and then assuming I sign up for the $30/mo plan, its "only" a $220 savings or so over a two year period over the v-day special where I just go with the $50/mo special. I feel like it might be a better idea to do that since I'd get a brand new phone (plus overnight shipping), with a fully warrenty and everything that'll get doubled by my credit card (buying on my visa extends all manuf. warrenties by a year). Going with the non-contract used phone though I won't have that warrenty (or it'll be signifigantly reduced), have to wait for the shipping to blow over/getting a new sim/etc, and I'll have to fork over a large chunk of the cost right here and right now.
Still might just be better to get off-contract even if I have to pay more upfront and wait longer to get everything going. Still is a $200 savings over 2 years. Plus the lower monthly fees and it not being on a contract means I don't have to worry about being broke or something but yet forced to pay my phone bills should it come to that. And should anything ever go wrong with my phone i could always just kick in my free cellphone insurance I get with my visa card if I was out of warrenty
You could look at straight talk, they sell SIMs for at&t and t mobile phones, so any phone that takes a sim card will work with them
It's $45/mo with unlimited talk/text, their data policy is something like 2GB or 100MB/day i think. HSPA+ '4G' works well
quote from xda
[quote=derp]You'll be fine. You can do whatever you want with the data if you take the proxy server off your APN settings.
I'm about the same as you for data usage. I've never gone over 300 MB in a month before. It certainly is nice to have the freedom to download whatever you want without worrying though.
Some have gotten away with 5 GB of data a month while some have gotten kicked off for 1 GB. It really depends on where you use the service. Overloading a single tower is a horrible idea, AT&T or T-Mobile can request that you be kicked off if you do such a thing. If you're streaming in your car or something, you can probably get away with a lot of data usage (since this spreads data over numerous towers). If you download with 3G from your house instead of wifi, then you're going to get the boot if you download more than 2 GB a month.[/quote]
T-mobile is the cheapest provider I could find that does what I want ($30/mo for 100min, unlimited text and data with up to 5gb on 4g speeds)
I looked at every other one and there wasn't a single one that was lower than $40-$50/mo for their "lowest end" option unless I wanted to get just 250min talk time and nothing else (whats the point?), even the off-brand ones
Of course if I go with the contract option I'll be paying $50/mo (on par with other carriers) but it'll get me the phone for free, brand new and overnight shipping with the full warrenty and all that jazz
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