Prepaid smartphones

[AstroManLuca]

I'm currently on a Sprint family plan with my wife. Cost is around $140 a month for two smartphones with unlimited data and messaging. Once the contract is up this summer, I'm thinking of switching over to Virgin Mobile since it would cut our cell phone bill in half. Only cheaper option from a major carrier is T-Mobile, which would only save us around $20 a month for pretty shoddy coverage.

I suppose my worry is twofold - one is that Sprint already has the most godawful, useless "3G" network out there (I'm lucky to be in a city with WiMax coverage for when I need speeds that exceed a dialup modem), and Virgin Mobile uses the same network. Of course, no 4G if I do switch.

The other is I have no idea if the Moto Triumph is any good. It sure looks a lot like an Evo and has a similar 4+" touchscreen and 1 GHz processor. But reviews have been lukewarm.

Does anyone here have a Triumph? What do you think of it and VM's service? Either way I'll consider ditching Sprint this summer. Either I deal with the slow network and save money by switching to VM, or I continue to pay out the ass but at least get my money's worth by switching to one with a usable network (probably Verizon in my case). I do not care about data caps since I rarely go over 1 GB anyway even with 4G on.

Third option - do I call up Sprint after my contract has expired and tell them that I'm switching because of their slow network unless they offer me a discount? Anyone tried that, and does it work? I guess I may as well give it a shot if I'm planning on canceling anyway.

 

[Phokus]

I have both and like it. 3G is a bit slow though. I'm grandfathered in on the $25 plan.

I heard that there's some QA problems with the triumph, so i guess i got lucky with a good unit.

I might be switching away from VM to something else later myself

 

[RavenSEAL]

Their 3G is pretty slow, you're gonna wanna stick a fork in your eye. Go with T-Mo prepaid instead if minutes aren't a problem, you can get 5Gbs of data, unlimited text and 100 mins for $30.

 

[Apex]

I've had a Triumph since they came out, and a Optimus V before that. The Triumph has weak radios, so you want to make sure you're in a good reception area, or else you're going to have to deal with audio cut-outs and dropped calls. Yes, it's noticably worse than the Optimus V, as well as the Sprint phones (wife has had a few, currently on Sprint Epic 4G).

Other than that, it's not too bad of a phone for the money. CM9 runs pretty well on it, though there's no camera or HDMI out functionality as of yet.

VM's service is very similar to Sprint otherwise. Super slow 3G.

 

[Phokus]

Their 3G is pretty slow, you're gonna wanna stick a fork in your eye. Go with T-Mo prepaid instead if minutes aren't a problem, you can get 5Gbs of data, unlimited text and 100 mins for $30.

It was excruciatingly slow before, but Sprint did some network upgrades where i live and now it's slow/average (depending on peak times you use it).

 

[quikah]

It is always worth a shot to call Sprint to complain.

Virgin 3G is slow and unreliable. If that is OK with you go for it. There have been a lot of complaints about the Triumph. I have the Optimus, which is a fine phone, but slow. There are many rumors about new phone coming (HTC Evo 3D and One V are the current ones), but who know when/if that will happen.

 

[AstroManLuca]

Their 3G is pretty slow, you're gonna wanna stick a fork in your eye. Go with T-Mo prepaid instead if minutes aren't a problem, you can get 5Gbs of data, unlimited text and 100 mins for $30.

Good point, I rarely use minutes anyway. I could probably get away with their $30 plan while my wife could go for the $50 plan since she uses her phone for talk more than I do. Only thing I couldn't find on their website was what happens if you go over? Even without much talking on the phone I could still see myself going over 100 minutes in a month.

My other concern is coverage. Looks to be fine in the Twin Cities, but out in the Appleton/Green Bay area where my wife's family lives, it's all roaming. Maybe that's okay but I'm not sure what kind of limits or extra costs they put on roaming, and if those are different for prepaid vs. regular plans.

 

[RavenSEAL]

Good point, I rarely use minutes anyway. I could probably get away with their $30 plan while my wife could go for the $50 plan since she uses her phone for talk more than I do. Only thing I couldn't find on their website was what happens if you go over? Even without much talking on the phone I could still see myself going over 100 minutes in a month.

My other concern is coverage. Looks to be fine in the Twin Cities, but out in the Appleton/Green Bay area where my wife's family lives, it's all roaming. Maybe that's okay but I'm not sure what kind of limits or extra costs they put on roaming, and if those are different for prepaid vs. regular plans.

I think it's .10c a minute if you go over, but they do stop you from making calls. In that case, I setup GrooveIP+Google Talk.

 

[ponyo]

How about StraightTalk? $45 a month and you can choose AT&T or T-Mobile.

 

[Bateluer]

AFAIK, the Triumph is a rebadged Huawai unit and not actually made by Motorola. Hence the weak radios.

 

[AstroManLuca]

How about StraightTalk? $45 a month and you can choose AT&T or T-Mobile.

Neat, I didn't realize StraightTalk offered sim cards. So basically you can buy (new or used) any AT&T or T-Mobile smartphone, then buy a Straight Talk sim card and it'll work with their data plans?

Man I should have considered GSM phones earlier. My experience has all been with Verizon and Sprint where every single phone is locked to its original carrier.

 

[soccerballtux]

I'm currently on a Sprint family plan with my wife. Cost is around $140 a month for two smartphones with unlimited data and messaging. Once the contract is up this summer, I'm thinking of switching over to Virgin Mobile since it would cut our cell phone bill in half. Only cheaper option from a major carrier is T-Mobile, which would only save us around $20 a month for pretty shoddy coverage.

I suppose my worry is twofold - one is that Sprint already has the most godawful, useless "3G" network out there (I'm lucky to be in a city with WiMax coverage for when I need speeds that exceed a dialup modem), and Virgin Mobile uses the same network. Of course, no 4G if I do switch.

The other is I have no idea if the Moto Triumph is any good. It sure looks a lot like an Evo and has a similar 4+" touchscreen and 1 GHz processor. But reviews have been lukewarm.

Does anyone here have a Triumph? What do you think of it and VM's service? Either way I'll consider ditching Sprint this summer. Either I deal with the slow network and save money by switching to VM, or I continue to pay out the ass but at least get my money's worth by switching to one with a usable network (probably Verizon in my case). I do not care about data caps since I rarely go over 1 GB anyway even with 4G on.

Third option - do I call up Sprint after my contract has expired and tell them that I'm switching because of their slow network unless they offer me a discount? Anyone tried that, and does it work? I guess I may as well give it a shot if I'm planning on canceling anyway.

Triumph has signal reception issues. I looked into moving to it about 6 months to a year ago and decided against it.

It's designed and manufactured through Huwai, diluting Motorola's brand name because Moto didn't want to spend the money developing it.

It sure looks like a slick phone though!!!

 

[OBLAMA2009]

i would never consider any carrier other than verizon or att. sprint is maybe $10 a month cheaper for much poorer coverage and speeds. i can use verizon almost anywhere. prepaid is the worst. even when you can get data its unpleasantly slow. i went to the metrospcs store a few weeks ago and even in their own store they couldnt get any type of data, and this was in a downtown area. just get verizon and be happy in my opinion. it doenst matter how good a phone like truimph is (which it isnt anyway) if you cant get data

 

[LOL_Wut_Axel]

i would never consider any carrier other than verizon or att. sprint is maybe $10 a month cheaper for much poorer coverage and speeds. i can use verizon almost anywhere. prepaid is the worst. even when you can get data its unpleasantly slow. i went to the metrospcs store a few weeks ago and even in their own store they couldnt get any type of data, and this was in a downtown area. just get verizon and be happy in my opinion. it doenst matter how good a phone like truimph is (which it isnt anyway) if you cant get data

The Triumph uses Sprint's 3G network... and Verizon is crap when it comes to data because they throttle their users after they download a certain amount.

 

[zerocool84]

i would never consider any carrier other than verizon or att. sprint is maybe $10 a month cheaper for much poorer coverage and speeds. i can use verizon almost anywhere. prepaid is the worst. even when you can get data its unpleasantly slow. i went to the metrospcs store a few weeks ago and even in their own store they couldnt get any type of data, and this was in a downtown area. just get verizon and be happy in my opinion. it doenst matter how good a phone like truimph is (which it isnt anyway) if you cant get data

It's not $10 cheaper a month. For unlimited everything the difference is big but yes Sprint's 3G sucks horribly.

 

[OBLAMA2009]

The Triumph uses Sprint's 3G network... and Verizon is crap when it comes to data because they throttle their users after they download a certain amount.

you mean it gets low priority on sprints already sucky 3g network

i dont think verizon throttles the way other carriers do. they will jack you down if you are in a busy area at a busy time but not all the time just because youve used a certain amount of data, at least that is what they say. i guess ill find out this month since im using foxfi and have used 2gig 5 days into this months cycle

 

[LOL_Wut_Axel]

you mean it gets low priority on sprints already sucky 3g network

i dont think verizon throttles the way other carriers do. they will jack you down if you are in a busy area at a busy time but not all the time just because youve used a certain amount of data, at least that is what they say. i guess ill find out this month since im using foxfi and have used 2gig 5 days into this months cycle

Yeah... no. It gets the same. I get almost the exact same download and upload speeds on my Optimus V and my mom's EVO 3D both running on 3G. That's not to say Spint's 3G isn't slow, because it is.

And yes, Verizon throttle the exact same way other carriers do. When you surpass a quantity of data downloads, they make speeds unreasonably low.

 

[hans007]

i had the optimus V when it came out on virgin mobile for about amonth.

it was quite possibly the worst cellphone exerience i've ever had.

virgin mobile runs their own DNS servers or something so the data kept falling apart even though people on sprint still had data. virgin mobile phones also cant connect to every sprint tower as its a subset that "covers" the same area. just more poorly.

on top of that virgin mobile doesnt have a roaming contract with verizon like sprint does. so you won't have coverage in the verizon roaming areas that sprint doesnt cover (which is well a sizeable area in some regions)


sprint 4g service as currently priced is quite a bit cheaper than verizon. i tend to think if you dont need blazing fast data its a very good deal since you effectively get verizon voice / text coverage just with slower data and well they will have LTE eventually in some areas.

that said i'm on verizon and if you want speed get a LTE phone. verizon's 3G network is faster than sprints but not a ton faster since all the iphone users are on there (they are trying to make it acceptable for iphone users, but basically doing about a billion LTE promos for the enlightened part of the smartphone populace to upgrade off their cdma network)

 

[Dulanic]

Take your sprint phone over to boost after you cancel. They will activate most it just might take a setting change or 2 to get it to work /w boost.

http://www.howardforums.com/showthr...Will-____-work-on-Boost-CDMA-READ-THIS-THREAD!

 

[LOL_Wut_Axel]

i had the optimus V when it came out on virgin mobile for about amonth.

it was quite possibly the worst cellphone exerience i've ever had.

virgin mobile runs their own DNS servers or something so the data kept falling apart even though people on sprint still had data. virgin mobile phones also cant connect to every sprint tower as its a subset that "covers" the same area. just more poorly.

on top of that virgin mobile doesnt have a roaming contract with verizon like sprint does. so you won't have coverage in the verizon roaming areas that sprint doesnt cover (which is well a sizeable area in some regions)


sprint 4g service as currently priced is quite a bit cheaper than verizon. i tend to think if you dont need blazing fast data its a very good deal since you effectively get verizon voice / text coverage just with slower data and well they will have LTE eventually in some areas.

that said i'm on verizon and if you want speed get a LTE phone. verizon's 3G network is faster than sprints but not a ton faster since all the iphone users are on there (they are trying to make it acceptable for iphone users, but basically doing about a billion LTE promos for the enlightened part of the smartphone populace to upgrade off their cdma network)

Amazing what people make up. My Optimus V has better reception than my mom's EVO 3D.

And roaming? Seriously? I guess it's a decent argument if you live somewhere very remote, but for most it's a non-issue.

 

[Apex]

i had the optimus V when it came out on virgin mobile for about amonth.

it was quite possibly the worst cellphone exerience i've ever had.

virgin mobile runs their own DNS servers or something so the data kept falling apart even though people on sprint still had data. virgin mobile phones also cant connect to every sprint tower as its a subset that "covers" the same area. just more poorly.

on top of that virgin mobile doesnt have a roaming contract with verizon like sprint does. so you won't have coverage in the verizon roaming areas that sprint doesnt cover (which is well a sizeable area in some regions)


sprint 4g service as currently priced is quite a bit cheaper than verizon. i tend to think if you dont need blazing fast data its a very good deal since you effectively get verizon voice / text coverage just with slower data and well they will have LTE eventually in some areas.

that said i'm on verizon and if you want speed get a LTE phone. verizon's 3G network is faster than sprints but not a ton faster since all the iphone users are on there (they are trying to make it acceptable for iphone users, but basically doing about a billion LTE promos for the enlightened part of the smartphone populace to upgrade off their cdma network)

I found the Sprint and Virgin Mobile data speeds to be pretty identical (about 30 minutes south of you).

You should flash your PRL to the latest sprint PRL (60686) if you're missing towers near you on 61007.

 

[AstroManLuca]

The Triumph uses Sprint's 3G network... and Verizon is crap when it comes to data because they throttle their users after they download a certain amount.

Sprint's typical 3G speed is only slightly faster than throttled data on other carriers. There's no way you'll even approach 4GB or whatever on Sprint because they're so slow. I did a speed test today with 3 out of 4 bars and got 400 kbps, and that's higher than average. I've gotten under 100 kbps before.

It's not so much that I need tons of speed. People complain about Wimax but I usually get 5-7 megabits, which is plenty fast for me. I mainly want to save money because paying what I do for such godawful slow data is a rip off. So either I switch to Verizon and at least get more speed for the money, or I find a cheaper service and maybe get a small speed boost while I'm at it.

 

[RavenSEAL]

If data is your main concern, you WILL NOT regret going with T-Mobile's plan. I easily get 15 down/2 up with all 4 bars of 4G.

 

[LOL_Wut_Axel]

Sprint's typical 3G speed is only slightly faster than throttled data on other carriers. There's no way you'll even approach 4GB or whatever on Sprint because they're so slow. I did a speed test today with 3 out of 4 bars and got 400 kbps, and that's higher than average. I've gotten under 100 kbps before.

It's not so much that I need tons of speed. People complain about Wimax but I usually get 5-7 megabits, which is plenty fast for me. I mainly want to save money because paying what I do for such godawful slow data is a rip off. So either I switch to Verizon and at least get more speed for the money, or I find a cheaper service and maybe get a small speed boost while I'm at it.

I typically get 700-800Kbps. I guess it depends on your area.

 

[Apex]

I get 750-800 kbps down, 375-400 kbps up on the Triumph at a signal strength of -98dBm 1 asu.