Switching Plans To Save Cash…

 

Everyone loves to save money. Unfortunately, sometimes these money savers can be a pain and ultimately cost us more cash in the long run. Cell service is one of those areas where we can save a ton, but lose service often if we don’t do our homework first. For starters, look at your current plan and your needs. If your plan costs less than $25 a line and meets your needs, stop reading and enjoy your great deal. If not, read on.

The next step in saving some cash on your cell bill is determining what network will work best where you need it to. Sure, plans like T-Mobile’s Simple Choice are great and with their ETF payoff promo going right now, it’s a tempting deal. Of course, if you need more than a few hundred MB of data a month and a don’t have $600 for that new iPhone, these plans may not be the best choice for you. On the flip side, for someone that grabs a new Nokia Lumia 521 for under $100 and uses the data sense feature, these plans can be an amazing value for your family. That said, if coverage isn’t decent where you need it, you probably don’t want to switch.

Coverage maps are very sneaky. You look at the big picture and your city is completely covered in 4G LTE speeds. Here is a look at the zoomed out T-Mobile coverage map for western Washington. We are looking at the Monroe area in particular.

There’s a ton of magenta on this map and all of it appears to be well covered around the area. As we zoom in though, a different picture begins to be painted…

Some of that dark magenta turns into a lighter pink. This means you still have a solid 2G signal, but no high speed data and a lower quality voice signal.

Coming in even further, you can see that the area east of Monroe has poor coverage overall. Once you leave the city, even the highway has minimal coverage going towards a popular ski area. In other words, if you planned on Instagramming that shot of you on the slopes with LTE speeds, you can forget about it.

Now that said, if you are a lighter data user and do most of your communication via texting, there’s no reason to pay AT&T, Sprint or Verizon double or triple what another carrier charges. Here’s the fiscal breakdown of a single plan between the carriers.

AT&T – Single Line: Unlimited Talk, Text and 3GB Data – $131.97
Verizon Wireless - Single Line: Unlimited Talk Text and 2GB Data – $131.62 
Sprint – Single Line: Unlimited Talk, Text and Data – $127.84
T-Mobile – Single Line: Unlimited Talk, Text and Data – $60.50 to $84.27

The range on T-Mobile’s plan depends on how much 4G/LTE data you want. If you can get by with 500MB of high speed, the $60.50 plan is your price. If you need 2.5GB of 4G/LTE data speeds, you are looking at $72.60. For fully unlimited LTE data, the price would be $84.27 after taxes.

Single users also have the option of taking their line to an MVNO and saving even more. The unlimited Spot Mobile plan with 1GB of 4G data is only $39.99 a month. If you want those LTE data speeds, you can head over to Simple Mobile and grab a 3GB LTE plan for $50 or a 5GB LTE plan for $60. Both exceptional values to the single line user.

Families, on the other hand, will save so much going with the T-Mobile setup, that it even the cheapest MVNO’s can’t beat the price. T-Mobile’s family plan for 5 lines will run you about $1200 a year less than the other major carriers – even after paying $20 extra per line for each of those new phones. If you opt for something like the Nokia Lumia 521, your family will save about $2500 a year. Here’s the breakdown by carrier in the family rates.

AT&T – 5 Lines: Unlimited Talk, Text and 6GB shared data – $335
Verizon Wireless – 5 Lines: Unlimited Talk, Text and 6GB shared data – $340
Sprint – 5 Lines: Unlimited Talk, Text and 1GB data per line – $310
T-Mobile – 5 Lines: Unlimited Talk, Text and 500MB 4G/Un 2G data – $130

Now, keep in mind that this includes a subsidized device from the big three, so you would have to factor that in to the total cost of the plan. Much of T-Mobile’s plan relies on the user financing a phone through them for $20-25 a month. At this rate, your T-Mobile bill comes in about $230-250 a month – or a 25-30% savings over the others. Factoring in the device costs, the family plan cost over 24 months is as follows.

AT&T – $995 devices + $8040 service = $9035
Verizon Wireless – $750 devices + $8160 service = $8910
Sprint – $995 devices + $7440 service = $8435
T-Mobile – $2500 devices + $3120 service = $5620
T-Mobile (with Lumia 521) – $500 devices + $3120 service = $3620

If you are willing to take that great Nokia Lumia 521 and 2 years of T-Mobile service for a run, you will save almost 60% over AT&T’s rates. There really isn’t another way to look at it. If you feel that your phone service is worth more than a car or even a down payment on a house, then keep your carrier and carry on. If not, you owe it to yourself to stop in to a T-Mobile store for a test drive today.

Make sure to do some homework at http://www.t-mobile.com/coverage.html and check out the areas where you use your phone the most. If you have better than Pepto Bismol coloring, you’ll be a happy camper. If it’s looking a bit purple, you might want to think twice, but still consider it. The $200 a month you save can be quite nice come vacation time.

Nokia Lumia 521 For $29 With Metro PCS

If there is one thing I like more than cheap cell service, it is a cheap phone to use on that plan. Right now, MetroPCS has the deal of the week on the Nokia Lumia 521. Currently going for $89.95 in my Amazon Store, the 521 is a paltry $29 after mail-in rebate. Of course, if you didn’t want to use it on Metro’s service, you can always just pay the discounted price of $49 and do with it as you like, but to get the additional $20 off, you need to do a few things.

First, purchase the device and activate it on a Metro plan. Metro PCS plans start at $40 for unlimited talk, text and data with the first 500MB being 4G speeds. So, for $29 plus 2 months of Metro service, you can snag a brand new Lumia 521 and a Visa rebate card loaded with $20. Oh, did I forget the $50 port in credit as well?

Black Comes To AT&T Lumia 925

Courtesy of Nokia Conversations

It appears that some AT&T users are reporting that the Nokia Black Update and GDR3 is downloading to their devices. The key features included with this update are the following:

App Folder – yes, you can finally add groups of Apps to your home screen!

Nokia Glance Screen 2.0 – better notifications and more options for them.

Bluetooth LE – a new standard Bluetooth communication system that works with more products.

Nokia Refocus – allowing you to blend and blur images like never before.

Nokia Beamer – instantly view your Lumia’s images on any computer with a web browser.

Nokia Storyteller (beta) – arranges photos by date and place making it easy to tell stories.

Nokia Camera – has been available for some time, but the new software is coming to the entire Lumia range now.

Overall, Black is a great upgrade for the Lumia line. It brings some needed fixes for some and general improvements for all. GDR3 will also bring some stabilization from the Microsoft side. If you managed to snag it already, let me know what you think of it in the comments below.

Game Review: Avengers Assemble

I have to admit to being a pretty big Avengers movie fan. When I saw that there was an official Marvel Avengers game for Windows Phone, I was ecstatic. Of course, it came with a $4.99 price tag, which is a bit more than I like to drop on a game, so I bypassed it out of the gate. Recently, it took a price drop to $1.99, but I had completely forgotten about it until it became the MyAppFree AOTD. I popped on and downloaded it. The 750MB download is much larger than anything I like to cram on my phone, but hey, it’s the Avengers and it is free today.

I hit the download button and after a few minutes on my WiFi, the game had downloaded and popped up in my Games menu. Ready to get my Avenger’s action on, I pressed it to open and was greeted with the “This game needs additional resources that need to be downloaded – Approximately 4GB.” Ouch! So, after another longer term WiFi session, I had my 5GB game downloaded and ready to run!

After a quick loading cycle, the game opened with the familiar Marvel film stream. Then the gaming action begins. Fighting through the tutorial was a bit boring, but soon after that the game picked up and ran pretty smooth on my Lumia 925. Game play is stellar and the movements are everything I expected when Microsoft first said Xbox games on my phone.

The gaming experience was exceptional and it is well worth the $1.99 for the game. If you can snag it in the next 12 hours, you can get an even better deal than that. Hit the Store now and grab it before the deal disappears.

Nokia Camera Beta Gets An Update

File this under the notes of awesome for this week. The Nokia Camera Beta software got an update with a fix today. The issue of the images disappearing from the camera roll after the device locks up and reboots has been fixed in version 4.5.1.6. Other than that, most of the issues that people are having with the Nokia Camera software have been fixed. Now, will they bring some DNG support to the 900 series soon?

New in beta version 4.5.1.6 (January 15, 2013):

• Fix for issue where pictures disappear from camera roll / photos hub after forced reboot

I haven’t experienced the issue at all with my new Lumia 925, but my 810 was plagued with this issue – even losing some of the images I took occasionally. I’ll run some testing with it later this week and see if the issue has been eliminated.

A New Year, A New Phone…

2013 was a pretty good tech year for me. I was able to hit the EngdgtSEA show and the HTC Elevate meetup. I didn’t spend too much time in tech stores, but there really wasn’t much I was looking for. My little Acer Aspire Netbook and my Nokia Lumia 810 did the job for me for the whole year, without much need to look for something else – well maybe except a Microsoft Surface (or the Dell Venue 8 tablet.)

Yesterday though, I had a tech delivery that makes me so happy… A shiny new Nokia Lumia 925. While my 810 was a trusty soldier, it had a few glitches that might drive the average user a bit nutty. The 925 eliminates the possibilities of these by not including the external Micro SD Slot. The other feature on my 810 that seemed to have issues was the audio out. Many times, music would crackle and pop – and Nokia Mix Music didn’t even work about 90% of the time. Let’s take this 925 for a spin and see what we get.

Overall the devices are physically about the same size. The 925 feels thinner though, mainly due to the fact that it is thinner, but also because of its curved design. The display on the 925 is larger by .2”, but it honesty seems more like a half an inch. Just the wasted space on the 810’s bezel vs. the 925’s makes the actual display seem larger. Also, the resolution is increased to 1280x768 over the 810’s 800x480 resolution.

From there the 16GB of internal memory seems to be enough for me. With Apps loaded, I have about 11GB left open. This equates out to about 5000 photos or more accurately, about 2 months of use before the ‘other’ memory takes up 2GB, the system takes up 2GB, the Apps take up 1.2GB and then 2500 photos and a few long videos of the kiddo. Overall, the 16GB should prove to be plenty for me – and more importantly, be a better option that the 8GB internal that the 810 offered.

The camera on the 810 was fantastic. With the addition of the Nokia Camera Beta from Nokia Labs, the camera performed better than any cellular camera I had ever used. While the 925 is no 1020 (that is the 41MP monster camera/phone from Nokia,) the addition of a PureView camera and the optical image stabilization just makes the 925 shoot a bit better. Also, the f/2.,0 lens seems to shoot with much less noise in darker areas than the f/2.2 lens on the 810.

Other than the significant upgrades in the display, the internal memory and the camera, the Nokia Lumia 925 is every bit as wonderful as my Lumia 810 was. I will have to give it some time before I judge the battery life too heavily as I never let the device gain a full charge yesterday, but the 15% drain per hour when in use was a bit extreme. I’m hoping it was just a breaking in time or maybe a rogue App that was draining it. If not, I will probably have to keep a few more chargers laying around and grab an extra for the car. As of right now, the phone as settled in to a 2.53% discharge per hour and is running quite nicely. Hopefully that keeps up and I don’t have to worry too much.

The 5 Apps I Can’t Do Without

There has been so much made of the Windows Phone App gap, but not many people talk about the ones that are there that they can’t live without. So, without further ado, once you buy that new Windows Phone, give my top 5 a test drive. Of course, these are listed in no particular order, so don’t think it’s a one through five list, they are all great Apps.

The Amazon Kindle App brings your e-books to your Windows Phone. Sure, it is much more useful on the larger screen devices, but even on the smaller 4” 500 series screens, books are very readable. Some have experienced some glitches in syncing, content and function, but I can say I haven’t had the issues that they have. Hopefully when you give it a test run, you won’t either. (FREE)

SkyDrive is a must have for every new Windows Phone user. Although the individual components of Windows Phone allow you to download images or documents from your drive, the SkyDrive app gives you almost total control over it. For those that are totally new to Windows Phone and SkyDrive, it is a cloud storage system that works with your PC, your Xbox and your Windows Phone. The free account includes 7GB of storage with more options being available for paid users. (FREE)

PDF Reader should really be a part of the Office bundle for Windows Phone. There are just too many users that use PDF attachments constantly to not include it. That said, there isn’t a PDF reader built in to the Office suite, so Microsoft had to build one that needed to be installed separately. That said, the Microsoft PDF Reader is nothing amazing, but it does a great job filling my needs and doesn’t take up much storage space. (FREE)

MyAppFree is one of those must have Apps so you can test drive one of their free Apps of the day. Everyday there is something new for you to try and they are all free. The important thing to remember is to download the new App everyday and delete it if you don’t want to use it. Once you purchase the App, even if it is free, it stays in your account so you can grab it again later without paying for it. MyAppFree is a must have just to play with all the goodies they offer. (FREE)

This one comes down to personal preference, but I love the content on Hulu+. During the fall, there are plenty of ‘new’ shows to watch and during the summer there are reruns and original series to stream. Now, some would say Netflix is a better choice and I would agree for movies that it is, but I don’t want to watch a 2-3 hour movie on my phone. I’ll save that for my netbook, tablet or home PC. On my  phone, I like to catch the clips, or maybe even a 25 minute show while I am killing time. Hulu+ is the perfect solution for that. (FREE – Some content requires a subscription)

Honorable Mentions

MetroTalk or MetroTalk Free only get an honorable mention due to the fact that Google is killing all 3rd party API Apps in May. For those that are buying in now, MetroTalk will give you the ability to use your Google Voice account for texting and voice calls. It’s not WiFi calling, but it does give you the option to call from your voice line using your Google number instead of your standard cell number. MetroTalk also gives you the ability to view your messages before you listen to them – and some of the time, they are even close to the actual text translation. (Free or $1.99)

I have to say that if I had a Lumia 1520, Crackle would be much higher on the list. The original content is funny and the free movies are a great addition to any device. The limited selection of good movies and the fact that I just don’t like to watch full length films on my phone anymore just push this out of the top rankings and down to an honorable mention. (FREE)

I LOVE this App… When it works right… There I said it. I have a love/hate relationship with this App. I love that it reads my mind and puts together some brilliant mixes for me to listen to, but I hate the fact that about 50% of the time, the songs don’t actually play and I have to waste a skip to blow past the 4 minutes of silence that would be. Overall, if the folks at Nokia Mix Radio ever figure out why my 810 hates their App, or if Nokia just sends me a new 1520 to replace it (yes, call me greedy, I’m fine with that) then I will bring this into my top 5 immediately. The drawbacks – Lumia devices only… The positives – Free streaming, download up to 4 mixes for offline use and you can set up your own mixes using artists you like as guides. (FREE or $3.99 a month for additional content)