OT. Classic Blackberry Retired

[Dean Hoffman]

[hubops]

I only just upgraded from my " Motorola-berry " :

It was still working like a champ < except for internet >

... nice size and easy to hang-on-to .. John T.

[Clare Snyder]

Just scrapped about 10 BB10 devices - 2 still in their boxes that I had "inherited". I stopped using them and went to "the dark side" when my hearing aids would only communicate with I-Phones.

[Retirednoguilt]

We just scrapped our two Nokia 6030 2G/3G "candy bar" phones. Great battery life, excellent call quality, light weight, small enough to fit almost anywhere. Now we have two heavy, large, much more expensive 5G "smart phones". Old accounts (pay as you go, unused minutes rolled over for a full year) cost us only $10/year (not a misprint) to keep each phone number "live". We only have need for something that makes and receives calls in emergencies, not something that replicates anything we can do on our desk top PCs. New account costs $70/month for the two numbers. Progress? For the telecom company and the phone manufacturer yes, but not for us!

[hubops]

My pre-paid requires $ 100. for 1 year. I've accumulated over $ 300. over 10 years so I'll experiment with some very limited data use - keep it disabled until needed and hope that the apps and greedy google don't break-the-bank during the brief periods of data-enabled usage ... < ? >

I have scoured the menus and set as much as possible to NOT update or sync or anything .. but I'm not optimistic. John T.

[Retirednoguilt]

We decided that with all the functions and apps built-in to the smart phones, it would be almost impossible as non-techies to find and disable all of them from using data except for those required to enable voice communications.

Even so, with pay as you go, if you accidentally answer a robocall or an incoming misdial, you pay. Unless you have all text messages blocked on your account by the wireless provider, you're paying for every one of those spam text messages you receive. We felt it was likely that we'd end up paying for a lot of spam text messages and data usage for undesired phones calls we answered, and/or updates we could have done for free via wifi by missing some setting that would forced wifi-only updates. Too much frustration and bother to deal with. We figured we'd end up spending each month at least 1/2 of what we ended up paying for the 2-line unlimited talk, text and data plan ($35/month per line) we chose (T-Mobile 2-line Magenta 55+ with autopay).

Supposedly our total cost per month will drop $10/month at each 1 year anniversary since we started the plan. I wonder if it will really be free beginning the 8th year? :-).

[invalid unparseable]

I had a Tracfone flip phone with over 7,000 roll over minutes but got a Samsung smart phone for $100 a couple of months ago with data and a month time as 4g is being dropped and phone would be antiquated. Just upped it for a year with minutes and data for about $110. I use wifi at home and where else available and shut off ap notifications and removed annoying aps. Did spend another $20 or so for a phone "glove" that protects it but allows all functions with it on. Figure even with add on expenses for the year I pay maybe 10% of what many others pay per year.

[hubops]

Spam-texts don't bother me at all - I get very few of them - - @ 15 cents. Spam calls or voicemails don't cost me anything. Data is another kettle-of-maggoty-fish .. 15 cents per mbyte ! . . used $ 5. in the first couple hours - all in the background - - until I found the google-pirates and turned them off < play store and something else > John T.

[Jimsim]

In fact its dead easy on an iphone, just turn data off.

[gfretwell]

4G will go on, it is 3G that will go away. Verison says that is 12/31/22 here.

[Clare Snyder]

Just turn off network data and nothing can syphon off money from your account - and all fuctionality is availble over wi-fi

[hubops]

Yep - done. but on those occasions that I wish to turn on and use cell data - I don't want 2 or 3 months worth of updates / notifications / sync's etc costing me unnecessary money. I thought that I had ~ everything turned off before turning on the data - as a test - but I missed a couple google things .. < it's a google Pixel phone >

If I can get occasional needed cell data for under $ 10. a pop it'll take me a while to eat up the $ 300. in my account. John T. < not optimistic >

[hubops]

I'll look for that menu for sure ! .. but it seems like the updates and app notifications are the bread & butter after the apps themselves .. and not very easy to disable. John T.

[Clare Snyder]

Thde secret is to have all that crap looked after via wifo on an as required basis. Then when youturn on Data it only uses the data for what you are turning it on for.

[Retirednoguilt]

If I leave the airplane mode off but turn off data (the icon with the up and down arrows), doesn't that disable the voice telephone function for both incoming and outgoing voice phone calls (assuming out of range of a safe wifi signal)?

[invalid unparseable]

Retirednoguilt [e-mail] wrote

Nope, I used to do that on a previous phone plan which charged a stupid price for data moved and which had no calls or data included, you just paid for phone calls, texts and data as you used that stuff and there was no monthly fee at all. I still have one of those in my backup smartphone.

Phone calls and texts work fine with data turned off.

MMSs don?t, you need data turned on for those.

[Retirednoguilt]

Thanks Bob F and %! I learned something important today thanks to you both. I didn't realize that the bit and bytes that make up a digital phone connection aren't considered "data" in the context of smart phone definitions. I had assumed that data was data regardless of what purpose that data was serving. Appreciate the lesson.

[Clare Snyder]

No, data is data - unless you shut off the "network" access you still get phone calls