Never owned a smartphone, what carrier for me?

J

Jared701

[H]ard|Gawd
Joined
May 9, 2002
Messages
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I am strongly considering getting a Galaxy S3 when they release. I am currently living in the Kansas City area. Sprint says it plans to rollout 4g LTE in Kansas City sometime during the middle part of this year. The Galaxy S3 apparently only has 4g LTE so I would be stuck on 3g until they make the transition. I also may be moving to Columbia MO, which is 3g only from all carriers. The 3g data rate from sprint here is about 1mb down/.2mb up from having a coworker test during peak hours.

The only 2 carriers I'm really considering are sprint and verizon (unlimited data vs what I've heard is the best service)

One question I have, using the netflix app, since this is a 720p screen would netflix send a high def stream if they had the movie/show in high def and bandwidth was available to my phone? If so, how much bandwidth would that eat up for an hour or 2? I would be using the 2 or 5 gig data plan from verizon so using up my bandwidth is an issue.
 
I would almost say go with something like Virgin Mobile, a service which uses Sprint's network. $35/month and you get 300 minutes + unlimited text + unlimited data.

I personally have no experience though.

Check to see whether Verizon has 4G LTE in Columbia, MO, as that may be a deciding factor also.
 
The whole movie/streaming thing will get old quick on a smartphone. Do you really have the time and neck muscles to stare at a small screen for 2 hours? It's a novelty. I use my Evo 3D to show quick youtube videos but couldn't imagine starting down at it for more than 5 minutes.

I streamed Portlandia for 5 minutes on 3G, according to my data stats it used 15MB. So you're looking at 180MB per hour, and that wasn't 720p for sure.

I'm on Sprint, for the sake of money savings and seeing a regular bill each month.
 
ryang said:
The whole movie/streaming thing will get old quick on a smartphone. Do you really have the time and neck muscles to stare at a small screen for 2 hours? It's a novelty.
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I don't stream but I load .mkv files from my htpc on my phone daily. Most of my TV viewing is done on my Galaxy nexus. Far from a novelty for a lot of us.
 
Blown 89 said:
I don't stream but I load .mkv files from my htpc on my phone daily. Most of my TV viewing is done on my Galaxy nexus. Far from a novelty for a lot of us.
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How are you putting MKVs on your Nexus, a phone conspicuously missing a mSD slot? I swear that's my one single complaint about this phone.
 
If you dont already have a contract, dont get one. Go prepaid route. Best idea currently is buy the GNexus straight from El Goog for 399.99 then get whatever service you want. The most popular ones right now seem to be Straight Talk and Tmoblies prepaid. Go look up rates and see what works for you at the cheapest rate. Best thing is you can switch between the two and see which one gives you the best service for the price.

Cant wait to do something like that this time next year.
 
Headcase_Fargone said:
How are you putting MKVs on your Nexus, a phone conspicuously missing a mSD slot? I swear that's my one single complaint about this phone.
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I have 6 half hour shows, and hour show, and the hour and a half boxing match on mine and I still have 3.7 Gig left. Lower bitrate shows help but most of it is just managing content. That is 5 hours of content with room left over...plenty for anything I'll be doing. I can see long trips being an issue but so far I've been ok. I stream all of my music using Google Play and upload my photos and video to dropbox/box to free up space too. Keep in mind that I didn't root this time around so I don't need extra storage for backups and whatnot. It breaks down like this:
1.24 GB Apps
7.83 GB Pictures/Video
400 MB Misc.

I don't like that it doesn't have an SD card either but I'm not juggling media like I thought I would be. My only gripe is with the camera....quality is hit or miss and the video shake is bad.
 
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PagePlus all the way. My family and I have been with them for about 15 months and I couldn't be happier.

Here is a listing of the plans PagePlus offers: http://www.pagepluscellular.com/Plans.aspx

It is a CDMA network and it uses all of Verizon's towers. I had Verizon for two years before moving to PagePlus and I couldn't tell the difference in reception or call quality. PagePlus will register all Verizon phones, and they can also register some Sprint phones, but you have to take it to them to flash it, and the flash has to be done again anytime you do a factory reset (which means Android users who flash ROMs are out of luck).
 
Check with people in both cities as to who has the best service. As for Sprint's rollout of 4G remember that you don't get 100% coverage on day one. It could be a year or more before they have coverage all over the city. Verizon was the first to start rolling out LTE and has covered most of the major cities which means smaller cities like Columbia may get Verizon LTE coverage a year or more before AT&T and Sprint come in.

Go by CJ's Hot Wings and 9th Street Deli for me in Columbia. Also, if you get the chance, head over to the Stonehill Winery in Hermann and partake in the Duck Dance during Octoberfest.
 
If you're in a Sprint network vision city that's going live this summer, I would go with Sprint- you'll basically have a vacant LTE network all to yourself for at least the next year. Speeds in other NV cities have been pretty epic. If you travel a lot though, Sprint might not be the best option- their speeds generally suck.
 
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