The Cell Phone / Mobile Phone Thread

The thing about unlimited data is that they can't push an unlimited amount of information through the network all at once. They can only do so much at any one time. And so in order to keep it limited to what they can do, they ration, throttle, and gouge.

This is more evident in really big cities. If you go to New York or Los Angeles (I think), you'll have much slower speeds and more dropped calls because there are hundreds of times more users in the same area than if you went out to Podunkville, Iowa.

I wouldn't know. It's half a world away.

It was some time ago, but I think the articles said that a minority uses A LOT of data and was causing lag (Right? Like the internet?) while the others don't actually use enough data to justify an unlimited plan.

There's only one network that does truly unlimited data (technically, its a 1000 GB limit), and that's Three. But that's probably because they're a 3G (and 4G in selected cities)-only network (they use EE's 2G as a fall-back), so they need to do something to be extra special. In any case, some of their plans also include tethering. So if you're like my dad, who has an iPhone 5C, and lives in Birmingham (where 4G is enabled), its really, really awesome.

The only other network that does unlimited is T-Mobile, but that's 3G-only, and also expensive at £27/mo. Three's plans start at £13/mo for lesser phones (eg Nokia Lumia 520), and go all the way up to £50/mo for higher-end phones. But if you pay a few quid extra, you can get unlimited tethering with your phone.

The tethering is probably the main reason why I'm going for Three with an unlocked 4G phone (I've picked the Lumia 810, it'll probably be supercheap when I get around to buying it) when my contract with Tescomobile ends in July.

edited 19th Dec '13 3:08:42 AM by INHOPELESSGUY

Verizon doesn't offer it anymore, but they still have customers with unlimited data, as they offered it once and can't unilaterally take it away from them due to how the contracts work. Verizon customers with unlimited data will lose it if they have to get a new SIM card though, because they apparently don't have the tools to write that option onto new cards.

And I'm sure they made sure they didn't, too.

Oh yes, they're anxious to get that thoroughly atrophied out of the system.

Okay, so I have an Samsung Galaxy smartphone that I've had for a year on Straight Talk. Didn't activate it/add new time and the number's lost. Because my mum had the phone originally, we don't know how to get into her account to reactivate the phone so I can get a new number and add airtime.

I can't create my own account because this phone's already attached to her account and it has a MEID rather than a removable SIM. I want to get this phone reactivated but I don't know how I can do it. Is the phone basically just bricked at this point?

Shortly after Christmas I bought two accessories for my phone: a "universal" dock with a pivoting USB jack, and a Bluetooth keyboard case. The dock came in about a week, the keyboard just arrived.

I chose the dock because I wanted to be able to use it to charge the phone in the keyboard case and the case itself. It wasn't Samsung-made, so it didn't have the magnet thing that tells the phone it's in a dock. Okay, I'm a power user, that's a challenge I can rise to. I got Tasker and wrote a task that activates when it's near the home wifi and plugged in. It's a bit more awkward to plug and unplug than my last phone's dock, but part of that will come back with practice and time to break in the jack.

I underestimated the thickness of the keyboard case. It has three sections: the part that the phone clips into, the part that part clips into, which slides and pivots, and the part that's actually a keyboard. I can charge it on the dock or I can charge the phone on the dock, but not together. The keyboard itself is at least as thick as the phone, and there's two slabs of plastic sitting between it and the phone. And the keyboard is awkwardly laid out. But that might get better with practice.

Of course, during the six weeks this thing was being languidly shipped from China, I got really good at using the Swype-style soft keyboard, so now that's more comfortable than the physical one.

I do like the extra heft the shoe part gives to the phone, if not the keyboard and pivot part. And I like that it pivots. My last phone didn't pivot. I'm going to give it a month or two to see if I like it, and if I don't I'll see if I can sell it to Amazon and buy a non-electronic case.

Got a Google Nexus 5...where can I find a good manual for this thing.

So my phone took me slapping the third fret on my G string on my bass as a voice command O_o

GO HOME GOOGLE NEXUS YOU'RE DRUNK.

What kind of manual are you looking for? A basic, this is how you switch the thing on and make calls one, or a more advanced, this is how you change the gopping sms client for one at actually works one?

I think Android makes changing the SMS client easy. I wouldn't be certain, since I use Google Voice for SMS which works differently, but it ought to be as simple as "the program I would like to use instead has a flag that tells the OS to ask me if I'd like to use it instead of the other."

both would be nice...wanna be the droid master

Got a new phone March 30th. It went into the drink April 6th. Rice did nothing, but I had a protection plan. So I just put it in the box they sent me and dropped said box in a Fed Ex pickup box that I hope is still active (since I found it behind a dumpster, after walking past it at least twice, with a sign saying "Beware of the Leopard").

I cracked my Android Galaxy 3 Mini (or whatever) phone. Luckily it's not shattered, I wouldn't be able to deal with a screen that cuts me every time I try to use it.

Update, because I know you were all on tenterhooks: FedEx reported it delivered to the repair facility or whatever sometime this morning.

I hope it doesn't have to be replaced, even though I'm pretty sure it will, because I'll lose a couple hundred pictures — including the two of my girlfriend that I use as home screen and lock screen backgrounds — and because I had everything set up just right.

edited 9th Apr '14 12:06:23 PM by HersheleOstropoler

That's why you back it up before sending it in for repair.

That's what the woman on the phone said, though she also noted that, since the reason I needed it repaired is that it wasn't turning on, backing it up wasn't really possible.

I was afraid the problem was going to be one preventing emergency backups. I was too busy at the moment to scroll up for the details.

It's good practice to keep it backed up regularly. Keep your photos synced with a cloud service like Dropbox or Photobucket. And there are apps that will back up more, although some of the things they can back up will require root access (which I have).

It's also helpful to keep irreplaceable files on the SD card if you have one. When I upgraded my phone, almost everything that wasn't synced with my Google account was on the SD.

Some settings can't be backed up, but the more you can back up, the less time you'll spend redoing the things that aren't.

Any other UK tropers having trouble with the Vodafone UK site? Most of it seems to be down for me and the front page is as helpful as a really unhelpful person.

edit#

This is probably a bit late but for the troper who wanted some info and tips on the Nexus 5, here's a link to a guide that might help:

https://play.google.com/store/books/details/UnofficialBooks_The_Unofficial_Google_Nexus_5_Smar?id=qjP_AgAAQBAJ

edited 19th May '14 2:47:54 PM by TamH70

According to a few monitoring sites Vodafone's been down every now and then all day.

Thanks for that.

Bugger. I wanted a new freedom freebie thing.

I used to have an iPhone 3, but now I have an LG smartphone powered by Android.

I perefer the latter, even if I mainly use it as my personal MP 3 player for Vocaloid songs...

My Nokia Lumia 520 mainly gets used to watch film clips, browse the net, read e-books and listen to mp3 files. I very seldom actually bother to make phone calls.

Yeah, same.

I should probably get myself an iPod or something though; the 100+ Vocaloid songs on my phone are taking up a shitload of memory.