What phone now?

[M_R]

Just picked up a MOTO G for my daughter as her first phone. I like it much better than my S4.

4.5 screen with awesome viewing angles; so not massive if your coming from Iphone (the S4 form factor took forever to get use to coming from a iphone 4) its only 720p HD but who the fuck can notice the difference on a phone screen. 1080 not necessary in my opinion on a phone.

Full LTE on the tx1045 model. SD card slot, acceptable 5mp camera with a realy cool motorola software which seam to be the only non vanilla software on this phone, so no bloatware which make the phone battery last all day and runs smoothly on anything I've thrown at the quad core 1.2ghz cpu, water resistant, which according to some Youtube reviews actually is more like waterproof (30 minutes underwater with back case off) Golilla glass, loud speaker. Really cool Motorolla grip case (essentially a different phone back with a bumper integrated) which doesn't increase the size of the phone and makes the thing pretty much drop proof.


The phone is built real solidly and feel like a quality item in your hand. Real happy I picked this up versus the Nexus 5 I was looking at which would have cost about twice as much and is real susceptible to screen damage in any unprotected drop situation.

Perfect phone and the kicker... $200 unlocked and no fucking contract. why the fuck would anybody pay $800 for the newest S5 or Iphone 6 if this can all be had for $200. I'll live without the m8 cooprocessor and motion detection gizmos that I never use. The only con is that it does not have NFC, but apple never had it before yesterday anyways and I have yet to use it on my S4.

And with the new 5" version just announced last week with everything the same except the screen size and stereo speakers, the 4.5 inch model will likely be found with some big discounts over the next little while.

zero regrets with the moto G

[riser4]

pay for a phone? oh the horror

Good for you dude, good for you.

[DBdude]

I can't believe you don't get one - wtf

you get random shit's fucked up calls don't you?

[LightRanger]

That's why I went with the Moto X. Freaking great phone in so many ways. No manufacturer's custom interfaces here!

Yep. The lack of BS manufacturer add-ons is great. The stuff Moto adds is genuinely super cool and useful.

[El Chupacabra]

Perfect phone and the kicker... $200 unlocked and no fucking contract. why the fuck would anybody pay $800 for the newest S5 or Iphone 6 if this can all be had for $200.

Because in the U.S., AFAIK, you pay the same monthly rate whether you are on contract or not. So if I plan on using Verizon for the foreseeable future, why not take the heavily-subsidized new phone?

If there's some way around this, someone please explain.

[The AD]

Question for the collective: when signing up for a new two-year contract with a carrier can you upgrade all devices on the plan at the discounted price?

[frorider]

Because in the U.S., AFAIK, you pay the same monthly rate whether you are on contract or not. So if I plan on using Verizon for the foreseeable future, why not take the heavily-subsidized new phone?

If there's some way around this, someone please explain.

I think T Mobile lets u buy phone up front and just pay service access monthly.

[iceman]

I think T Mobile lets u buy phone up front and just pay service access monthly.

They do. The downside is that there's no service.

[frorider]

Yeah I was going to add FWIW on there.

[LightRanger]

Because in the U.S., AFAIK, you pay the same monthly rate whether you are on contract or not. So if I plan on using Verizon for the foreseeable future, why not take the heavily-subsidized new phone?

If there's some way around this, someone please explain.

T-mobile, AT&T, and Sprint have unbundled. VZW has not. Therefore it makes absolute sense to upgrade as soon as you are eligible because you're paying the phone subsidy whether you like it or not on VZW. Paying extra is up to you and what you want in your phone. The Moto X I picked up in June didn't cost any extra on top of the (fucking bullshit) upgrade fee. With other carriers, it's different now. Still on VZW for coverage reasons though...

[dino]

The don't really advertise it, but on my Verizon Family Plan, when I asked, the dropped the smartphone line cost from $40 to $30 once the phone was out of contract.

[iceman]

These days my time is mostly split between two places. The first is like the center of the t-mobile universe, 4G, 4 bars, super fast and VZW blows there. Don't get half my texts, calls dropped all the time, it totally blows. The other place, normal decent enough vzw coverage, nothing special, but absolutely no t-mobile signal at all. I would be fine with just decent at both places from one or the other but no dice. Maybe I should check at&t.

[AdironRider]

Thought about a booster ICE? Worked wonders for me and brought me from 0-1 bar (on Verizon) to a consistent 2-4.

Its was 30 bucks on newegg, I assume they are pretty much all the same.

[iceman]

I was kind of under the impression the boosters don't do shit. I'll have to get one and see what happens.

[The AD]

Question for the collective: when signing up for a new two-year contract with a carrier can you upgrade all devices on the plan at the discounted price?

After doing a chat with AT&T I think I can answer my own question. The answer is yes, because the contract is for the phone, not the plan.

I'm sure most of you already knew this, but I try to deal with phone companies as little as possible and I figure there are others who are probably in the same boat!

[RShea]

I was kind of under the impression the boosters don't do shit. I'll have to get one and see what happens.

There are boosters (which if you have just a certain area of the property has some coverage) will increase the coverage to other areas that are dead. Then there are the "Network Extenders" that use local DSL, cable etc. to connect and complete the calls. The "Network Extenders" in my opinion seem to work better if you can get a good GPS signal to the box- but you are still usually paying for a box to then use the local internet connection (which you are also paying monthly fees) so you can make and receive "wireless" cell calls and texts...

[riser4]

These days my time is mostly split between two places. The first is like the center of the t-mobile universe, 4G, 4 bars, super fast and VZW blows there. Don't get half my texts, calls dropped all the time, it totally blows. The other place, normal decent enough vzw coverage, nothing special, but absolutely no t-mobile signal at all. I would be fine with just decent at both places from one or the other but no dice. Maybe I should check at&t.

There's a technological solution to this but the competing providers have no incentive to make it a reality.

[RShea]

There's a technological solution to this but the competing providers have no incentive to make it a reality.

Actually since he is talking about 1 GSM carrier (T-Mobile) and a second CDMA carrier (Verizon) the technology, frequencies and signals are different. The only solution is to get a dual mode phone that would allow CDMA phone calls and take the T-Mobile Sim also so the same device could get both the signals. That is possible technically of course because Verizon had sold Global phones that accept a Sim, but they locked out the USA GSM carriers from being accepted.

If AT&T and T-Mobile were involved then roaming on one or the other would work, or you could have 1 phone and switch between the 2 Sims if the phone was unlocked from the carrier.

[riser4]

Actually since he is talking about 1 GSM carrier (T-Mobile) and a second CDMA carrier (Verizon) the technology, frequencies and signals are different. The only solution is to get a dual mode phone that would allow CDMA phone calls and take the T-Mobile Sim also so the same device could get both the signals. That is possible technically of course because Verizon had sold Global phones that accept a Sim, but they locked out the USA GSM carriers from being accepted.

Case in point. No incentive to allow it.

If AT&T and T-Mobile were involved then roaming on one or the other would work, or you could have 1 phone and switch between the 2 Sims if the phone was unlocked from the carrier.

Or a dual-SIM phone. Not sure what is available in the US. India seems to be the market that gets the dual-SIM Moto G. I have a cheap LG "candy-bar" phone that has dual SIM slots that I picked up for a Europe trip. I only used one slot. It works over here too but is not a sexy smart phone. Actually it is a completely crappy phone altogether. But it served the purpose. Twice. $21 well spent.

[Cruiser]

My brother in law just gave me a new Samsung Galaxy Alpha. Thing's pretty slick for a guy coming from a beat up S3. The metal bezel and slim form factor are really appealing. This is the first time in a long time that I've been on a stock bloated up android device in quite a long time though. It's crazy how much crap they ship these phones with. So many useless apps that you can't uninstall. I'm sure the cooks are already working on rooting and roms though so hopefully it won't be long before I can streamline this beast a bit.

[frorider]

http://www.nophone.eu

Battery life looks very promising.

[bagtagley]

Anybody got a Nexus 5? I'm looking at a replacement for my ancient Options. I have a Nexus 7 tablet that I really like. Having a smaller, phone version would be convenient. The root Android interface without all the BS is nice. It's also comparatively inexpensive.

[Mazderati]

Going smaht. VZW's network. Specs of the latest phones are pretty similar and they look damn near identical. Long battery life the biggest draw for me. That would seem to leave the Droid Turbo or HTC One (M8), although I think the Samsung S5 battery is swappable. Who's in the know?

[systemoverblow'd]

although I think the Samsung S5 battery is swappable. Who's in the know?

It is indeed. And slightly water resistant. Not sure I'm completely in love with my s4 Actives battery life, but having two is convenient. I just wished I had a charging dock or something because right now I have to charge my phone, take the charged battery out, put the almost dead/dead one in, reboot the phone and then charge that one. Would be convenient to charge extra battery out of the unit. I know I can buy another fucking charger, but it's just adding onto the cost of the device I'm not willing to do. Already needed another battery and headphones as well as another wall charger.

[splat]