Thinking of buying an unlocked phone. Good idea or bad idea?
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@Maciejasjmj said in Thinking of buying an unlocked phone. Good idea or bad idea?:
Poland has - taking the first offer I could find - $5 for 6GB or $12 for unlimited with 1Mbps speed after 10 gigs
I should move to the border and change to a Polish provider, then. In Germany, you pay at least three times that.
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@sloosecannon also, my wife's old number was with her small regional carrier and it couldn't be ported to Google Voice, until after I ported it to Verizon... then I ported it successfully from Verizon to Google Voice.
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@sloosecannon said in Thinking of buying an unlocked phone. Good idea or bad idea?:
@anotherusername yep.
I could be without a phone for a bit if that goes wrong (I just expect everything to go wrong).
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@asdf said in Thinking of buying an unlocked phone. Good idea or bad idea?:
@mott555 said in Thinking of buying an unlocked phone. Good idea or bad idea?:
Well damn, apparently US Cellular uses CDMA and all the unlocked phones I can find are GSM and not compatible or something.
My (European) phone worked just fine in the US. Depends on the carrier, I guess? The only thing that's definitely different is LTE frequencies, there are no phones out there which support both the European and the US ones. 3G should work fine on both sides of the pond, though.
Different carriers use different frequencies, and most unlocked phones are GSM-only. I used to be on US Cellular, but switched to AT&T because I wanted a 2GB Moto G 3.
@sloosecannon said in Thinking of buying an unlocked phone. Good idea or bad idea?:
@Maciejasjmj said in Thinking of buying an unlocked phone. Good idea or bad idea?:
@sloosecannon said in Thinking of buying an unlocked phone. Good idea or bad idea?:
Price is good too.
$10 per gig? Sounds like it's a little on the expensive side, isn't it?
Poland has - taking the first offer I could find - $5 for 6GB or $12 for unlimited with 1Mbps speed after 10 gigs, but even in the US it looks like you have better data plans. And since unlimited calls and texts seem to be standard these days...
Not for the US it isn't....You can get cheaper plans if you do one of the sketchy super-cheap providers, but that's a pretty good deal for the service you get.
I'm paying ~43 USD (fees included, 40 before) for my unlimited calling/texts with 3GB of 4G data. They actually advertise it as unlimited everything but you can't do much with an unlimited 128kbps connection after you use up the unthrottled data....
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@mott555 said in Thinking of buying an unlocked phone. Good idea or bad idea?:
US Cellular has dumped Windows Phone and there is no upgrade path to WP10, plus the app store finally seems stagnant.
Of course there is. Join the insider program, and you'll be on the latest build they support for your phone, regardless of what your provider says. Might as well try it. I'm not going to upgrade my Icon until another good WP comes out, but I don't blame people for jumping when free VR headsets are bundled with phones from other companies.
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@mott555 said in Thinking of buying an unlocked phone. Good idea or bad idea?:
@accalia Hmm, Project Fi looks worthwhile. Historically my data usage is under 200 MB a month, so overall this would be MUCH cheaper than my current plan.
Man, glad to be here in Poland, then. My usage is 5-6 GBs. Plus unlimited calls, text an multimedia messages and a phone with insurance cover, spread through 2 years, I pay $35 per month tops…
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@mott555 said in Thinking of buying an unlocked phone. Good idea or bad idea?:
carrier gave me a Nebraska phone number
You mean you have a mobile phone, which could be physically located anywhere, and it has a phone number based on a physical location?
What crazy third-world phone system do you guys have running over there?
INB4: Oh right, Nebraska.
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@another_sam said in Thinking of buying an unlocked phone. Good idea or bad idea?:
What crazy third-world phone system do you guys have running over there?
Imagine how I felt when I was asked about my preferred area code during the activation of my US SIM card. I think I asked them to repeat the sentence at least three times until I was sure I understood the question correctly.
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@asdf said in Thinking of buying an unlocked phone. Good idea or bad idea?:
Imagine how I felt when I was asked about my preferred area code during the activation of my US SIM card. I think I asked them to repeat the sentence at least three times until I was sure I understood the question correctly.
And after that comes the question of "How the fuck am I supposed to choose that?! .... Green's my favourite colour... Green's not a number. Shit."
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@asdf said in Thinking of buying an unlocked phone. Good idea or bad idea?:
my preferred area code
Isn't there one that geo-locates to the middle of the ocean?
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@another_sam said in Thinking of buying an unlocked phone. Good idea or bad idea?:
And after that comes the question of "How the fuck am I supposed to choose that?! .... Green's my favourite colour... Green's not a number. Shit."
@Tsaukpaetra said in Thinking of buying an unlocked phone. Good idea or bad idea?:
Isn't there one that geo-locates to the middle of the ocean?
I should have chosen something cool. But I was so startled that the only reply I could think of was "I'm in California right now, so give me something from California." I now have a Napa Valley phone number. Could've been worse.
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@Tsaukpaetra said in Thinking of buying an unlocked phone. Good idea or bad idea?:
Isn't there one that geo-locates to the middle of the ocean?
Probably 808, which seems to be Hawaii. I should have chosen that.
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@another_sam said in Thinking of buying an unlocked phone. Good idea or bad idea?:
You mean you have a mobile phone, which could be physically located anywhere, and it has a phone number based on a physical location?
What crazy third-world phone system do you guys have running over there?How do your phone numbers work?
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@another_sam There were a couple of area codes that were specifically mobile only, but I believe they ran out ages ago and now phone companies just give whatever.
Area codes have nothing to do with area since number portability came along, what, a decade ago at this point.
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@pydsigner said in Thinking of buying an unlocked phone. Good idea or bad idea?:
Moto G 3
How do you like it? That's one of the phones I was looking at, but I read a review of the G 4 that said it was slow and unresponsive. The review only compared it to the original G, not to the G 3, so I don't know how it compares.
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@HardwareGeek said in Thinking of buying an unlocked phone. Good idea or bad idea?:
@pydsigner said in Thinking of buying an unlocked phone. Good idea or bad idea?:
Moto G 3
How do you like it? That's one of the phones I was looking at, but I read a review of the G 4 that said it was slow and unresponsive. The review only compared it to the original G, not to the G 3, so I don't know how it compares.
I like it, but you have to go in knowing that a Snapdragon 410 can't compete with a higher-end processor. It really depends on what you want from your phone; I was looking for a small phone with minimal bloatware and acceptable performance, and that's what I got. I've run a variety of games on the phone to test performance and I can warn you that if you like running more demanding games, you're going to hate your framerates any time something happens. But if you're looking for a phone that can do basic games (I played WoT Blitz on low settings quite acceptably), -snap ok pictures, and generally just do productivity and web browsing, you'll probably like it. If you're fine with the much larger G4 though you should probably go that route; it has better performance and supports a lot more networks.
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@blakeyrat said in Thinking of buying an unlocked phone. Good idea or bad idea?:
Area codes have nothing to do with area since number portability came along, what, a decade ago at this point.
I mean, they give you some idea of where the caller is from, or was from at some point in time, probably. Most people have a phone number that corresponds to their physical location...
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@sloosecannon said in Thinking of buying an unlocked phone. Good idea or bad idea?:
I mean, they give you some idea of where the caller is from, or was from at some point in time, probably.
If the person is in their 60s, and even then it's "where they were living 8 years ago" and has nothing to do with where they're living today.
(Unless they were early cellphone adopters, like my own parents, who have one of those mobile-only area codes which never said anything about where the person was located.)
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@blakeyrat said in Thinking of buying an unlocked phone. Good idea or bad idea?:
@sloosecannon said in Thinking of buying an unlocked phone. Good idea or bad idea?:
I mean, they give you some idea of where the caller is from, or was from at some point in time, probably.
If the person is in their 60s, and even then it's "where they were living 8 years ago" and has nothing to do with where they're living today.
(Unless they were early cellphone adopters, like my own parents, who have one of those mobile-only area codes which never said anything about where the person was located.)
Are you talking about the first 3 or the middle 3?
The first 3 (IME) are usually accurate. The middle 3 though, yeah, are totally unrelated.
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@sloosecannon said in Thinking of buying an unlocked phone. Good idea or bad idea?:
Are you talking about the first 3 or the middle 3?
The area code. The thing we're talking about.
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@blakeyrat Well, I live near a military base, so we have higher than average moving rates around here, and I can still guess with like 90% accuracy where someone is from based on the area code. So... ?
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@another_sam said in Thinking of buying an unlocked phone. Good idea or bad idea?:
@anotherusername https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telephone_numbers_in_Australia#Non-geographic_numbers
Australia doesn't have enough people to matter.
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@boomzilla said in Thinking of buying an unlocked phone. Good idea or bad idea?:
Australia doesn't have enough people to matter.
#AustralianLivesMatter !
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@TimeBandit Yes, the people's lives matter. Just their country doesn't.
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@boomzilla said in Thinking of buying an unlocked phone. Good idea or bad idea?:
@TimeBandit Yes, the people's lives matter. Just their country doesn't.
to quote a wise man:
"I don't care who you are or where you're from. All i care about is that you are."
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Project Fi is out...what a shame, it costs about a quarter of my normal cell phone bill. Anyway, I talked to my provider and they were totally fine with me upgrading early because I was actually pretty close to the end of my contract. Just got a Samsung Galaxy S7 for a small activation fee and no change to my monthly bill!
Now, to re-train my brain for Android. I already think the Windows Phone UI did everything way better, but this screen is super-awesome, there are actually apps newer than from 2013, I'll be able to try out some VR without plunking down huge cash on a Rift or Vive, and I regained a couple standard details that my carrier's WP8 image had totally screwed up (group texts, playing music from the SD card).
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can warn you that if you like running more demanding games, you're going to hate your framerates
Gaming is very low on the list of things I want a phone to do—barely on the list at all. I wouldn't be horribly disappointed if it didn't have any games. I think the only mobile games I have played, ever, are Angry Birds and Magic Piano.
How well does it handle the strain of :nod: ? That and maybe streaming video are the only demanding things I would ask of it.
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@HardwareGeek said in Thinking of buying an unlocked phone. Good idea or bad idea?:
How well does it handle the strain of :nod: ? That and maybe streaming video are the only demanding things I would ask of it.
I had the original Moto G, and still keep it around as a white noise generator for the baby, plus occasional Chromecast host.
I haven't done much nodebaby on it, but it was acceptable for Discourse. Streaming video just on the phone is fine, I've used Netflix, Amazon Prime and iPlayer. It's not officially supported by Chromecast so you have to cast the screen instead of through apps, and that can get a bit choppy.
3 versions later, I'd imagine it's better than that, so you probably won't have a problem
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3 versions later, I'd imagine it's better than that, so you probably won't have a problem
So one would think, but according to a review I read, the G4 is worse than the original G at UI responsiveness. The author seems to think Lenovo jumped the shark after they bought Mot (or maybe Mot already jumped it; he only compares the two end points, nothing between); my question is, which side of the shark is the G3 on?
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@mott555 said in Thinking of buying an unlocked phone. Good idea or bad idea?:
and I regained a couple standard details that my carrier's WP8 image had totally screwed up (group texts, playing music from the SD card).
You shouldn't have been relying on their image. It's one thing to want some kind of support, but carriers always mess it up horribly.
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S7 battery life is apparently horrible. I'm barely two hours into my day, done nothing with the phone, and it's already down to 90%. How did Anandtech get a 10-hour battery life benchmark while actually using it?
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@mott555 The first 10% tends to go down more quickly than the rest. Something about kernels not actually charging to 100% because it can damage the battery.
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@HardwareGeek said in Thinking of buying an unlocked phone. Good idea or bad idea?:
can warn you that if you like running more demanding games, you're going to hate your framerates
Gaming is very low on the list of things I want a phone to do—barely on the list at all. I wouldn't be horribly disappointed if it didn't have any games. I think the only mobile games I have played, ever, are Angry Birds and Magic Piano.
How well does it handle the strain of :nod: ? That and maybe streaming video are the only demanding things I would ask of it.
You should be fine then, although I don't use on my phone. I'd encourage getting the 2GB variant though. I get almost 2 days of battery life from normal usage.
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You should be fine then
Thanks. I think that's what I'll wind up getting, either tonight or tomorrow morning.
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@mott555 said in Thinking of buying an unlocked phone. Good idea or bad idea?:
How did Anandtech get a 10-hour battery life benchmark while actually using it?
Source?
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@Tsaukpaetra said in Thinking of buying an unlocked phone. Good idea or bad idea?:
@mott555 said in Thinking of buying an unlocked phone. Good idea or bad idea?:
How did Anandtech get a 10-hour battery life benchmark while actually using it?
Source?
Hmm, I guess it was more like 7.5 hours, not 10.
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@mott555 I guess it just depends on your settings, and whether you're browsing Discourse or some Web 1.0 site. I know I can get a solid 6 hours reading a fiction site, but then again it's not a heavy-CPU thing like a game...
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@Tsaukpaetra said in Thinking of buying an unlocked phone. Good idea or bad idea?:
@mott555 ...you're browsing Discourse...
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@HardwareGeek said in Thinking of buying an unlocked phone. Good idea or bad idea?:
I think that's what I'll wind up getting
Got a 16GB Moto G3 for $179 at Fry's. $20 for a new SIM card, because it takes a micro and my old phone took a full-sized, and a 16GB micro-SD on sale for $10. Now I have a phone that will make calls, texts and surf the web. Anything else, apparently, I have to sell
my soulall my dataz to Google to enable. Hmm, should I use my existing account with bogus name, or should I create a new bogus account just for the phone...
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Why? Buy on a plan, it is cheaper, then unlock it yourself!
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@HardwareGeek said in Thinking of buying an unlocked phone. Good idea or bad idea?:
a new SIM card, because it takes a micro and my old phone took a full-sized
If you're brave, you can supposedly cut a full size to a micro: http://www.cnet.com/how-to/how-to-cut-your-own-micro-sim-card/
@HardwareGeek said in Thinking of buying an unlocked phone. Good idea or bad idea?:
Hmm, should I use my existing account with bogus name, or should I create a new bogus account just for the phone...
the Googaborg will probably figure it out anyway.
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@FrostCat said in Thinking of buying an unlocked phone. Good idea or bad idea?:
the Googaborg will probably figure it out anyway.
Yes, especially since ultimately it will have to connect to my real email provider to access my email (unless I stick strictly to their web interface, which I don't really like all that much).
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@FrostCat said in Thinking of buying an unlocked phone. Good idea or bad idea?:
If you're brave, you can supposedly cut a full size to a micro
Any mom and pop cellphone accessory store should do it for you for pennies, too. And they have proper cutters for it, no scissors involved.
The difference between regular, micro and nano SIM is literally the amount of plastic around the chip. To the point that most providers here just have one-size-fits all cards - if you want a micro or nano, you just break it out of the plastic frame.
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@FrostCat said in Thinking of buying an unlocked phone. Good idea or bad idea?:
If you're brave, you can supposedly cut a full size to a micro:
Yes, but the phone instructions specifically said not to do that.
@Maciejasjmj said in Thinking of buying an unlocked phone. Good idea or bad idea?:
To the point that most providers here just have one-size-fits all cards - if you want a micro or nano, you just break it out of the plastic frame.
Yes, my new card is definitely this. My old card, however, is several years old, and I wouldn't assume it was designed to be cut down. There's something inside that connects the chip to the contacts on the outside of the card, and I don't know that it wouldn't be damaged by cutting a card that wasn't designed with that in mind. (It may well be that it's all confined within the area occupied by the contacts, but I don't know that without researching, and I just wanted my new phone to work.)
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@HardwareGeek said in Thinking of buying an unlocked phone. Good idea or bad idea?:
There's something inside that connects the chip to the contacts on the outside of the card, and I don't know that it wouldn't be damaged by cutting a card that wasn't designed with that in mind.
Cut at least three cards this way with absolutely no problems. YMM obviously V, but I don't think telling them you lost your card and requesting a new one if you broke it would cost you more anyway.
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@Maciejasjmj said in Thinking of buying an unlocked phone. Good idea or bad idea?:
To the point that most providers here just have one-size-fits all cards
A few months ago I went with someone to get a Cricket prepaid phone for temporary use, and that's more or less what it came with: a nano-sim with a micro frame and a full-size frame.
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@Jaloopa said in Thinking of buying an unlocked phone. Good idea or bad idea?:
it was acceptable for Discourse
Also, how is that possible?
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@Scarlet_Manuka let me rephrase:
It was not significantly worse for Discourse than higher specced phones. In fact, since the processor was lower power it probably hurt battery life less than it would have done with a fancy flagship phone