Why I made jump to Prepaid phone service

After leaving my Sprint contract in January 2011 because of my terrible experience with them, I made up my mind to never sign a contract for cellular service again. I purchased a used HTC G2 and moved to T-Mobile no-contract Postpaid service. At the time, it was a huge victory. I was “sticking it to the carriers” by buying unsubsidized (in this case used) and not signing a contract. After months with the service, it was pretty evident that T-Mobile’s main goal was to get me onto a contract. Every single customer service call was a chance for them to up-sell me to a contract plan and device — it even came to the point where they were cold-calling me, offering services on contract. This had to stop.

In mid January of this year, I decided to take my wireless service into my own hands. Just a year after moving from Sprint contract Postpaid to T-Mobile no-contract Postpaid, I devised my plan to buy an unlocked GSM Galaxy Nexus, and make the move all the way to Prepaid service. My previous plan with T-Mobile offered 500 minutes (which I never used), Unlimited SMS/MMS, and 5GB of data, but cost me $70 monthly. My previous Sprint contract? Over $80 monthly. Following some advice from a great thread on XDA-developers, I made my decision to go with a T-Mobile (Walmart) Prepaid plan. The plan offers 100 minutes of talk, Unlimited SMS/MMS, and 5GB of un-throttled data — all for just $30 per month, $40 less than T-Mobile Postpaid.

Before continuing, I should point out that there are some caveats when looking at this plan:

1) There are no nights, weekends, or mobile-to-mobile minutes on this plan. 100 means 100. This can be a deal-breaker for some on this plan. Don’t worry, there are other options with more minutes! (As well as Google Voice solutions, which I’ll get into later in this post.)

2) Don’t expect customer support. One of the ways that these plans achieve low cost is outsourcing CS. If you call in to T-Mobile, you’ll be forwarded to India for support, and only support for services, not for hardware.

3) No roaming. Now, if you’re like most people, you spend 99% of your time within the city limits. In that case, you won’t ever need roaming. If you plan on getting cell service on the top of a mountain somewhere, you should probably look elsewhere. 

Still interested? Let’s move on to setting up the plan!

Order your SIM and SIM activation kit online directly from T-Mobile. It is $1.99 with free shipping, and the card actually has ~$3.50 in credit pre-loaded, so they’re actually paying you to activate it. When the card arrives (for me it took an atrocious 8 business days), open up the entire packet and pop out the SIM, and take down the required numbers from your device of choice (IMEI# and SIM# specifically). Go to T-Mobile’s Prepaid Activation page and follow the prompts. Enter your information and choose the plan you want. Be sure to read the fine print here: only the $30 and $70 plans offer 5GB of un-throttled data. Other plans will only offer 25MB, 250MB, or 2GB. Be realistic about how much data you will use. Once you’ve completed activation, enter your credit card # and pay for the service. You now have 30 days of use out of a phone for just a touch over $1 per day!

Contrary to the way typical contract postpaid services work, you must pay before you use the service. Now once you get into the swing of it the payments will be no different than you’re used to. You’ll still pay once per month and your service will never stop unless you stop paying. The difference will be that your card is charged exactly every 30 days, with no exceptions. The beauty of this system is that there are no overages, fees, or nickel-and-dime schemes. Since you pay for the service up front, they can’t charge you more later. You get what you pay for — no more, no less.

This — or any prepaid plan setup — wouldn’t be complete without a quick praise of Google Voice. Now, this is probably best saved for another blog post to get into the nitty-gritty of it, but I’ll give the overview. Most people’s interaction with Google Voice consists of setting up Voicemail on your Android device that lets you check it in your e-mail, by text message, or in any browser. Actually, GV goes much, much farther than this if you’re willing to put in the time for setup. Going to the Google Voice website will get you started. Choose a number with any qualifications you have — you can search by area code, number combination, or spelling. I personally snagged a number which has the same 7-digits as my current carrier number, but with a Maryland area code. After doing so, you can now call and text from this number as if it were provided by a carrier. Calls made on the computer are 100% free to/from US numbers, and SMS sent both on the computer and device are free also. I’ll be the first to admit that a love/hate relationship quickly forms with Google Voice, but as I said, if you’re willing to put in the man hours for setup, the rewards are numerous. I personally would not be able to do prepaid without it.

I’m now just over a month into this service, and I can honestly say I couldn’t be happier with how it has gone. The service is great, the cost savings are huge, and I get the feeling of satisfaction every day I see someone with an AT&T, Verizon, or Sprint phone knowing that I’m paying far less for the same service. The one bit of caution I can give is to really do your research. I spent a good 2 weeks hunting down the specifics and making sure that everything would work as I expect. That being said, I would definitely advise trying it on for size — at the very most you’re out $31.99 for a month of service to see if it will work for you. I think that’s worth every penny.

Updates won’t matter until Android skins die

Following the (albeit smaller than expected) avalanche of Android phone announcements at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) the first weeks of January, we heard countless numbers of representatives from every manufacturer say the words “…it’s currently running Gingerbread, but we’re updating it to Ice Cream Sandwich…” in regards to phones, and similar sentiments regarding tablets and Honeycomb (although I’ll be focusing on phones).

Now there’s a couple problems with this, the first of which being the absolute absurdity that large multinational corporations - we’re talking LG, Samsung, etc. - can’t even put together a Beta build of ICS to show off at a show months after ICS was released (and arguably they had it even earlier than that). It’s like they’re not even trying at this point.

Secondly, they seem to tout the upgrade from 2.3 to 4 as a selling point, as if we’re supposed to like the phone more because it’s being upgraded, and be willing to buy it over another phone that hasn’t been given the guaranteed go-ahead upgrade path. This shouldn’t be a selling point, it should be an absolute knock against the phone for not just launching with the OS it should have. These CES phones aren’t going to be hitting the market for weeks and months after they’re announced. If 2.3 is perceivably archaic now, how will it look at the end of Q1 and beyond when these are an store shelves?

Those statements aside, let’s get to the real meat of the story, which I suppose is related to the “promised upgrade as a selling feature” argument. Along with the fact that upgrades shouldn’t be considered an extra feature that a manufacturer offers, these upgrades will literally change nothing about the user experience of the device. Recently evidenced by the leaked SGSII ICS builds with TouchWiz 5, and various HTC Sense-laden ICS leaks, these phones will never look like the ICS that users and reviewers alike are raving about on the Galaxy Nexus. In an attempt to preserve their perceived “brand loyalty” and image, every single manufacturer will simply be putting their same skin from Android 2.2 and 2.3 straight onto Android 4 with mild improvements. Not only is this a travesty simply because it is delaying updates and keeping phones locked down, but mainly the fact that Android 4 is really, really good. By all accounts, Google outdid themselves here, and the idea that these manufacturers aren’t even going to attempt to bring that forward to the user is a shame.

This brings me back to referencing the title of this article: updates won’t matter until Android skins die. Every single person who puts emphasis on updates is just spinning their wheels. Whether its running Android 2.3 or 4 really does not matter if the user isn’t going to be getting any benefit from it because the skin is trying to maintain a consistent experience from 2.3 devices. No effort should be made complaining about pushing an update that will not change anything. I think that people seem to have some glimmer of hope that manufacturers will push an OTA and all of a sudden their device will have stock ICS on it. Well, that’s just not going to happen, so spend your energy elsewhere.

The problem with updates and fragmentation is a two parter. The first part is completely removing manufacturer skins - straight up, no ifs ands or buts about it. Only once that is accomplished can we then care about the second part - updating devices in a timely and efficient way.

The Nexus Prime (or whatever) rant bandwagon

Lots of virtual ink has been spilled the last couple days arguing about the Nexus Prime (or Nexus Galaxy, Galaxy Nexus, Droid Prime, Droid Galaxy, etc.). I’m not going to be taking any sides here or choosing who is right and wrong, but I do want to quickly express my thoughts. Lets also keep in mind that although the Nexus “insert word here” launches in less than 24hours, this whole concept has existed since the Nexus One, and will surely continue quite similarly for future Nexus devices.

Let’s get this out of the way: it seems to me that people really don’t understand the Nexus program. Google doesn’t launch the Nexus to compete with the iPhone. They don’t launch it to try and sell 20 million units. They don’t launch it to be on every carrier and in everyone’s pocket. Google doesn’t particularly care if you buy the Nexus.

Google’s focus with the Nexus devices are (basically) threefold: 1) Release a new version of the Android operating system. 2) Provide a reference platform for OEM’s to create Android devices going forward. 3) Provide developers all around the world with a Google-sanctioned development platform that will run completely stock Android and be promptly updated in the future. Google doesn’t want to deal with marketing, carriers, or subsidies. Nexus devices are unsupported, GSM unlocked, and full-priced (read: not for general consumers).

Anyone who squarely compares the Nexus against the latest iPhone surely does not understand the previous 3 points. Yes, I’m sure the Nexus will be great. And yes, (to the dismay of my wallet) I’m probably going to have an extremely strong urge to buy one. That does not at all mean that it should be considered an amazing, all-encompassing, iPhone-slaying, world-ruling device. It will be “out of date” (specs-wise) in a couple months just as the Nexus One and Nexus S, and that is just fine. Because the allure of this device isn’t the specs, the marketing, or the carrier partners (if any), it is the fact that this device will enable developers all around the world to keep building fantastic applications that you and I download and benefit from every single day.

So the next time you read a post about a Nexus device, whether it be in a couple hours, or several months from now when we’re all talking about Android “Jellybean”, just remember that unless you’re a developer or a tech-savvy nerd, Google really isn’t making this phone for you. But that’s okay! You should be excited anyways. Because what’s good for developers, is good for you.

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