After looking at countless phones, the only thing I have managed to do is eliminate Page Plus. I am told that, although it does do Georgia, the service is poor. It is a shame too. I was sold on the 12 package that does 250 min and 10M data.
I was going to go with an expensive phone so I would be able to use all the features of a smart phone, but since I don't use them often, I was hoping to get a cheap package.
Do any of the prepaid packages offer limited smart phone features? One of the Page Plus phones I looked at said GPS. Would GPS be considered part of a data plan?
GPS is a separate radio that looks at the satellites. You don't need any data plan for that. The real problem is, what can you do with the gps data? If you need to find yourself on a map, then you need web access.
I have a Palm Treo 850 with GPS. I use it as a PDA without any phone service. There used to be a software package from Mapopolis. It runs directly on the phone/pda in Windows Mobile or PalmOS. So, I can tell where I am from GPS without a data plan. Mapopolis left the consumer business. Don't know if there are alternatives today.
You can also do the same with most any bluetooth PDA/Phone with a mapping application using a separate bluetooth GPS receiver.
There are other services that imply GPS, but are actually location services that estimate where you are from the cell towers you can see. I think google took it further by looking at wifi hosts you can see.
I was thinking GPS would work like it does on my nephew's smart phone. It will tell you where to turn while driving. I am guessing GPS may mean less. Finding out where I am standing is of no use.
Mapping requires data plan. The GPS alone can give you lattitude and longitude, and in some cases altitude. Smart phone apps are available that will make it into a speedometer and rate of climb indicator without data plan.
Ask yourself why you NEED GPS??????? If you just wanna get from here to there, figger it out online before you go and print a map or take notes.
GPS shines when you get lost or confused or detoured or change plans. If you travel by car, get a cheapo self-contained GPS appliance. They're small enough to fit in your pocket if needed. Costs less than the data plan you'll need for something rarely used. Don't leave it visible in the car. The broken window costs way more than the GPS they stole.
GPS is of little use when you don't control the means of transport. The bus driver ain't gonna go where you want. And if it's too far to walk, you don't need GPS in your pocket.
I'm still not sure of the details but you can get a lot more phones on prepaid than the phone companies seem to suggest.
I just bought a Huawei some number, called a Fusion Phone, with Android. I'm not particularly recommending it, becuase there don't seem to be a lot of Apps for it. OTOH, maybe I don't know how to look.
But I bring it up because ATT sells it as a Gophone, online and in stores (or !25 at Walmart, but 100 at walmart.com). This comes with a setup for data, etc.
But I bought mine used, and took the sim card from my very cheap prepaid gophone (I thought all gophones were prepaid, and maybe they were when I first got one, but they're not anymore iiuc) and put the sim card in my new phone, turned off the Data, in the settings, and now I have no Internet, except, get thks, whereever there is wifi. which is a lot of places these days and growing. And it seems that wifi is faster than cellphone data anyhow.
Ther3e is also a settting to turn GPS on and off, and I have the vague aidea that GPS might be satelite and not cellphone data.
(That confuses me however. Using the Android Maps app, last Sunday I was in a rural area, too far from any house to get wifi unless their wifi is a whole lot more powerful than my brother's etc., and it showed me where I was, on a map with no street names, but wchich did have a state highway number. A few days later I was in the city, but probably also not near wifi, and it gave me the location from sunday, and when I got home, where i have wifi, it still gave the location from Sunday. I think GPS is turned on but I' ntot sure and the phone is upstairs.)
In fact on the ATT newsgroup, they pointed me to an ATT page which sells if I have the prepaid smart phone, I CANT buy data. (I was afraid I would use it accidentally, as I did with phone number 2.)
Another interesting thing is that I bought my phone on ebay from a guy in Louisiana, and that rural road where i first got my location is about 15 miles north of my house and I had never been there before, but somehow it had a map of the area in t he phone.
I thought the maps came from the web but the location came from satellites.
Is there anyway I dl'd the maps when I was at home 15 miles away? I looked at the Maps app but didn't do much. When I first looked at it, it said I was at my home, with a map.
I did a chat with ATT (Amber). Amber said this phone does GPS navigation. It is something that I probably won't use, but I would rather have it and not need it than need it and not have it.
She said that to use the GPS I had to get a 5$ per month data package, but I only had to do that on the months I use the GPS. She also said that I could get a 15 dollar card and use it in a month. I don't think that is true. The ATT says the package that comes with this phone is 25 bucks. This may be a deal breaker. I was ready to go with 15 a month. At a dime a min, 150 min would have been plenty.
Still 30 buck per month for a smart phone is as low as I have found.
While anything's possible, I wouldn't take Amber's word for it. If it's not on her script, she don't know jack. Vendors play fast and loose with the term GPS.
If the mapping program is on the server, even if you do have a real GPS receiver, what happens on a 1 hour trip? How much data gets transferred back and forth? And what does that cost on your data plan?
That's the primary reason I don't have cell service. It's far too easy for something you didn't want, didn't know was running, ended up roaming or wasn't explained to you to rack up an astronomical phone bill.
Don't remember the carrier, but they advertise unlimited data. If you go to the store, that's what they tell you. But if you read the fine print that's buried in the fine print, you get a very limited amount of 4G data, then it drops back to
2G speeds. At 2G, you can drive over and ask your buddy faster than you can send and receive a text. ;-)
My $5 garage sale smart phone has GPS and the navigation program runs on the phone. Only thing I can't do is make a call ;-)
Have you read my post yet? I can see how the plan may not be what you want, but it is certainly less than 30 a month for a smart phone.
I started with a pre-paid GoPhone and, before they stopped selling them, was paying $10 a month for 3 months. Now the minimum amount might be $25 for 3 months, but it's a lot simplier to spend $100 for a year -- less than a year actually because if you don't renew in time you lose what is in there, so let's say 11 months. That's a lot less than 360 a year.
And you can do this with a smart phone, probably the same smart phone you are looking at, if you buy the phone separately and insert a Sim from another prepaid GoPhone. This might work with non-ATT plans and phones too. The phone either has to be locked for the provider you plan to use, or unlocked and able to use any provider.
How you can get a prepaid gophone plan without any phone (so you can buy the phone separately) I don't know if it's possible. But you can get the really cheap phone that they provide. The one I started with not only didnt' take pictures, it didn't accept downloaded ringtones. It was just a phone. Taking the sim out of it and putting it in the better phone took two minutes, and the new phone worked immediately.
They have three rates to use up that money. I'm paying $2/day that I use the phone and nothing after that. I suppose I can't call beyond Canada, but I make international calls rarely and from home anyhow. This means I can only use the phone 50 days during the 11 months or less and then I have to put more money in, which I think one can do over the phone, even when no money is left.
Another might be 20cents a minute for every call, all day long.
Another plan might be a dollar a day that the phone is used and 10 cents a minute. I decided that on days I use the phone, I'd likelly talk more than 10 minutes and that would cost more than the first 2 dollar plan.
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Why not? She sounds very intelli... She sounds very competent to me.
Although sometimes they only have wired in the room and wireless in the lobby/lounge/restaurant.
Because my plane was late and I missed the connection, they gave me an a day, 10AM to 5PM, at the Heathrow Hilton and I requested Internet in my room for the laptop, which was no problem and no charge, except it meant the room had a shower and no bathtub! And iirc somehow, and now I can't imagine how, it took me more time to use the wired than the wireless downstairs would have taken. . I'd never used wired with this laptop before, so maybe that had something to do with it.
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