Smart phones for stupid people

gbasden · Post by **gbasden** » Sun Aug 17, 2014 5:25 pm

Depending on what you are looking for, you can also pick up a Windows Phone off contract extremely cheaply. The Nokia 520 supports an addon SD card and can be found as cheaply as $39 off contract. I know AT&T and T-Mobile offer it on their pay-as-you-go program, and other vendors do as well. The new Nokia 635 has a 4.5" screen and also supports an SD card for $99 off contract.

I've got a 520 that I use as a music player and portable game station for the boy, mostly. It's totally usable without ever activating it with the carrier and works beautifully on wifi. It also makes a great backup device in a pinch. When my main phone died on vacation, I was able to pop into an AT&T store and activate the 520 with no headaches.

EvilHomer3k · Post by **EvilHomer3k** » Mon Aug 18, 2014 12:09 am

Low end windows phones are very functional. They lose a few apps (games) that require more ram but the OS runs very well even on some very modest phones.

Holman · Post by **Holman** » Mon Aug 18, 2014 12:16 pm

Thanks for the advice, all. I'm still trying to figure out what options work best here.

Man, smartphones and service are expensive. It's possible that we simply can't afford it. We're probably going to end up with a single smartphone for my wife while I stick to the land line.

Rumpy · Post by **Rumpy** » Mon Aug 18, 2014 2:21 pm

One thing to consider would be looking at carriers who have prepaid plans, no contract. It's what I did with mine. Had an older phone on a prepaid plan and just upgraded to a smartphone on it. They can start as low as $10 a month for basic service, with additional data options available. AT&T has a pretty good one (GoPhone) that's quite flexible. It can be done on a budget.

hitbyambulance · Post by **hitbyambulance** » Tue Aug 19, 2014 2:02 am

given your financial situation, absolutely go with older devices. it doesn't even have to be any current OS - a BlackBerry 9000 from 2008 works fine, has a nice keyboard AND WiFi. if you're not playing FPS games on these, you really ... don't... need the likes of a Galaxy/iPhone 5. it seems you just want these for internet/web access - yeah, your data network speed will be 3G-ish speed or so, but if you can get the phones for about $5 or free, does it matter? for sure you could do pretty well on the usual second-hand market sites/local classified ads if you wanted something newer.

anyways, it's the monthly subscription costs that are the problem. if you go for the T-Mobile $30 + tax plan, you're not doing too badly. if i wanted to get a mobile phone, i'd go with something like Republic Wireless, where you have to buy their custom firmware phones from them - $300 or so - but the subscription is $20/month or less, depending on the amount of data you use.

Kasey Chang · Post by **Kasey Chang** » Tue Aug 19, 2014 3:46 am

There are cheap everything plans, esp. from TMob, and MetroPCS have cheap phones for TMob network. I personally would either look for a refurb Samsung Galaxy S3 or the newer Moto G.

MotoG are $179 without contract. You may be able to find refurbs even cheaper.

NOTE: Verizon has prepaid plan only Moto G's for $80. You'll need to get a Big Red prepaid plan, so look that way:

http://www.amazon.com/Moto-Verizon-Prep ... B00HPP3QD6

This may be your sweetspot, IMHO. Phone's cheap enough, not TOO old, (it came out last year), AND it's for prepaid plan so cost *should* be cheaper.

Verizon's prepaid 3G smartphone (compatible with that Moto G) is $45 for unlimited call and text a month, 500 MB of data. If you do autopay you get double the data (1GB) If you need more, you can buy them in $10 for 1 GB of $20 for 3GB chunks, good for 90 days. Not too bad, IMHO.

http://www.verizonwireless.com/prepaid/ ... one-plans/

Kasey Chang · Post by **Kasey Chang** » Tue Aug 19, 2014 11:26 pm

One more option... NeweggFlash (part of Newegg) has a Galaxy S3 refurb from FreedomPop. It comes with FREE 200 minutes voice, 500 texts, AND 500 mb of data every month for FREE for LIFE.

Price of this wonder phone? $180 free shipping

You can opt for UNLIMITED voice and text for only $11 (yes, ELEVEN dollars more) per month. However, make sure they offer service in your area by going to Freedompop website AND check their rates. Or you can opt for UNLIMITED VOICE, TEXT, AND DATA (throttling kicks in after 1GB of 4G data back to 3G speeds) for $20 a month. But you can always order more data... if you want them.

http://www.freedompop.com/

What's the catch? Limited service area. If they serve your area and you don't roam (i.e. go outside), this is about the cheapest option you can get. (You can order 3G roaming, but that negates the price advantage)

EvilHomer3k · Post by **EvilHomer3k** » Tue Aug 19, 2014 11:55 pm

How has no one mentioned Ting? My billl for my son's phone this month is $9. The highest bill so far has been $15. You pay what you use. It's on Sprint's network and has roaming. Ting is great but they don't have the latest iPhones and don't have any windows phones (because Sprint doesn't have any) but if Sprint works for you they're an excellent (and cheap) carrier.

Kraken · Post by **Kraken** » Wed Aug 20, 2014 1:19 am

Holman wrote:May I piggyback on this thread?

No.

Holman · Post by **Holman** » Wed Aug 20, 2014 7:40 am

Kraken wrote:
Holman wrote:May I piggyback on this thread?
No.

Too late!

Oink.

Madmarcus · Post by **Madmarcus** » Wed Aug 20, 2014 11:56 am

I'll put in a nod to Virgin Mobile. Uses the Sprint network and costs $35 a month for unlimited data and texts plus a couple of hundred voice minutes (I've never run out but its not unlimited). I believe they are now throttling at 2GB of data.

Holman · Post by **Holman** » Thu Aug 21, 2014 8:36 am

Here's another really basic question:

If I have music on iTunes and I listen to it with my phone when I'm on the bus, am I streaming it (and eating my data allowance) or is it stored on the phone itself (and not touching my data limits)?

The Meal · Post by **The Meal** » Thu Aug 21, 2014 9:00 am

Holman wrote:Here's another really basic question:

If I have music on iTunes and I listen to it with my phone when I'm on the bus, am I streaming it (and eating my data allowance) or is it stored on the phone itself (and not touching my data limits)?

You store it on your phone (and eat into your phone's storage capacity).

Jeff V · Post by **Jeff V** » Thu Aug 21, 2014 11:00 am

I got a 32 GB Micro SD card for $8, it can store a whole ton of music and pictures -- and if it gets full (unlikely), I can buy another or replace it with a bigger one. It doesn't eat the phone's limited storage nor consume bandwidth.

Kraken · Post by **Kraken** » Sat Mar 07, 2015 4:08 pm

Verizon cut its prices last month without telling existing customers. Log in to your account and choose a new plan. You can either get the identical plan for $10 less, or pay the same amount and get 1GB more data.

cheeba · Post by **cheeba** » Sun Mar 15, 2015 1:28 pm

I updated to Lollipop on my HTC One M8 and now I have this symbol always appearing in my Notifications Bar, next to my WiFi signal. Anyone know what it is? Google Image Search wasn't much help.

Isgrimnur · Post by **Isgrimnur** » Sun Mar 15, 2015 1:48 pm

Pyperkub · Post by **Pyperkub** » Sun Mar 15, 2015 1:52 pm

NFC symbol.

cheeba · Post by **cheeba** » Sun Mar 15, 2015 2:06 pm

Huh. Thanks.

Kraken · Post by **Kraken** » Wed May 13, 2015 11:19 pm

Samsung Galaxy S4 + Verizon members assemble!

My phone decided to update itself to Android Candycane or Lollipop or Gumdrop or whatever and then Verizon insisted on updating its shell. Now my "active apps" widget is gone and my Messaging app has turned a hideous orange. I don't see any color scheme options in its Settings menu.

Not happy with this brave new world. I assume that there's no rolling back to the interface that I liked. Anyone know how to at least make Messaging stop offending my eyes? Whoever decided that orange would be a great unchangeable default deserves to be shot. I'm hoping there's some kind of global color control buried deeper in the OS than I can find.

Default · Post by **Default** » Thu May 14, 2015 12:12 am

Kraken wrote: default deserves to be shot. .

You have no idea how many times I hear that.

Kasey Chang · Post by **Kasey Chang** » Thu May 14, 2015 1:38 am

@kraken -- not without rooting, and root for Lollipop is quite hard to find, esp. Verizon

Kraken · Post by **Kraken** » Thu May 14, 2015 2:32 am

Well then I guess orange is the new black. Not sure if I should hate Google or Verizon for that.

Pyperkub · Post by **Pyperkub** » Thu May 14, 2015 3:22 am

I'm pretty sure you can change the default messaging app on lollipop without rooting, but don't hold me to it (I'm rooted).

Pyperkub · Post by **Pyperkub** » Thu May 14, 2015 3:08 pm

Looks like a pretty nifty little Android App:

AIDA64 is a free system info tool for Android that offers detailed hardware information about the device that goes far beyond what the built-in apps provide. Another advantage of AIDA64 is that you have all the information you need for your troubleshooting diagnosis in one tool.

McNutt · Post by **McNutt** » Thu May 14, 2015 4:12 pm

You can change the default messaging app. Find an app you like and the app itself will ask you if you want to make it the default.

Kraken · Post by **Kraken** » Thu May 14, 2015 6:16 pm

The first time I started up Messaging it asked me if I wanted to use Messaging or Hangouts. I chose Messaging because that's what I've always used and it's learned a lot of vocabulary. Hangouts looks kind of needy, but at least it isn't orange.

Pyperkub · Post by **Pyperkub** » Thu May 14, 2015 6:36 pm

Google fu comes up with:

These apps will handle regular messaging without requiring you and your friends to use the same platform. This is not meant to provide a detailed look at any particular apps, but offer an overview of several popular ones. The ones we've listed here have received pretty good reviews on the Play Store.

Kraken · Post by **Kraken** » Thu May 14, 2015 7:38 pm

Thanks, I'll try one or more of those. I just want a simple texting program that isn't orange. The old one was fine until now.

Isgrimnur · Post by **Isgrimnur** » Thu May 14, 2015 7:58 pm

That is one of the problems with the Smartphone landscape. Once you get used to whatever design decisions they made when they pushed it out, they will completely revamp everything about it with no ability to make your own choices about such simple things as color scheme.

Kasey Chang · Post by **Kasey Chang** » Thu May 14, 2015 11:13 pm

Google's Messenger has more blue, but otherwise it's a good replacement for Messaging.

Kraken · Post by **Kraken** » Wed May 20, 2015 6:26 pm

I decided orange really isn't that bad. Yeah, I'm lazy.

Part of the upgrade was an app called WatchON that finally nagged me into trying it out. Hey, I can use my phone to control the TV and cable box! Neato. Got me to wondering if there's an app will control the DVD player and audio receiver, too. My old Harmony universal remote is slowly giving up the ghost.

Enough · Post by **Enough** » Wed May 20, 2015 7:03 pm

I really liked Textra but unfortunately MMS for Republic Wireless wasn't supported so I had to abandon it. The dark theme for Textra is very nice and it angers me that Google doesn't give a dark option for theirs.

hitbyambulance · Post by **hitbyambulance** » Wed May 20, 2015 8:39 pm

Kraken wrote: Part of the upgrade was an app called WatchON that finally nagged me into trying it out. Hey, I can use my phone to control the TV and cable box! Neato. Got me to wondering if there's an app will control the DVD player and audio receiver, too. My old Harmony universal remote is slowly giving up the ghost.

WatchON will also control the DVD player and audio receiver. there is an 'add additional devices' icon in the upper right-hand corner (i think).

i couldn't find a way to pair it with my VCR, tho.

McNutt · Post by **McNutt** » Wed May 20, 2015 9:17 pm

Textra has great customization and is really nice. However they sent me a message that they were about to require me to switch to the premium model for a fee. So much for Textra.

Enough · Post by **Enough** » Wed May 20, 2015 9:57 pm

McNutt wrote:Textra has great customization and is really nice. However they sent me a message that they were about to require me to switch to the premium model for a fee. So much for Textra.

Good to know, now I don't miss Textra anymore.

Kraken · Post by **Kraken** » Wed May 20, 2015 10:21 pm

hitbyambulance wrote:
Kraken wrote: Part of the upgrade was an app called WatchON that finally nagged me into trying it out. Hey, I can use my phone to control the TV and cable box! Neato. Got me to wondering if there's an app will control the DVD player and audio receiver, too. My old Harmony universal remote is slowly giving up the ghost.
WatchON will also control the DVD player and audio receiver. there is an 'add additional devices' icon in the upper right-hand corner (i think).

i couldn't find a way to pair it with my VCR, tho.

Oh cool, I'll explore it some more. If it did one-touch macros like "watch a movie" it might be perfect, although its reliability seems to be a little worse than the Harmony -- I have to tell it to turn on the TV two or three times before it succeeds. The TV often ignores the Harmony, too, so I blame its IR pickup.

Kraken · Post by **Kraken** » Tue Jun 23, 2015 12:04 pm

My phone has decided that it knows better than me about some things. I'm wondering how to convince it otherwise.

First, it keeps scrapping two settings: auto-rotate the screen, and auto-adjust brightness. I open Settings, tick those boxes, and exit Settings. Within a day or two they revert to un-checked. Is there a Save button that I'm missing or something?

Second, it's started taking random screenshots. I didn't even know phones could do that. How do I take a screenie if I want one and, more importantly, how do I make it stop taking screenies that I don't want? I just deleted 35 pictures of the same 3 or 4 random screens.

Chaz · Post by **Chaz** » Tue Jun 23, 2015 12:58 pm

Usually, you take a screenshot by hitting the lock and home buttons. I think it might be lock and volume down if there's no physical home button.

Kraken · Post by **Kraken** » Tue Jun 23, 2015 1:19 pm

Apparently I take screenshots when I slip my phone into my back pocket while I'm out walking. Pretty good trick if it really requires a combo like that.