Cell Phone Upgrade

shawn said:
Doesn't Apple have some kind of cloud backup for that stuff?

I can go flush my Android down the toilet, and as quickly as I can get to a Verizon store, I'm back in business.
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They have a small storage but unless you pay for it, there's not enough storage. Basically just saying make sure you back it up.

My wife had like 6k pictures on her phone that she couldn't back up.
 
My wife and I both had samsung s6's that were about 3 years old and were on their last leg. Had verizon with great coverage wherever we go from Charlotte to mountains, to beach, to rural eastern NC. If I could have gotten the same phone brand new again and for cheap, I would have. But we needed reliable phones and were looking to cut monthly expenses where we could.

We ended up going with Google's project Fi (fi.google.com). A buddy on facebook had a referral link that would get us both a credit (mine is Get $20 when you start a phone plan with Google's Project Fi just in case) Google uses Sprint, T-Mobile and US Cellular towers for coverage, and whichever one will give you the best signal wherever you happen to be, it uses that one.

Because only certain phones work with it (android phones) and we needed new ones, we got 2 new pixel 2's (which also got us more account credits). They are pretty decent, not quite as good as samsung/iphone IMO, but upper teir. One thing I liked was that with Fi, data costs $10/GB up to $60 for individual plans or $100 for 2 users and so on. If you use 3.2GB, you get charged $32. Unlimited Talk and text is $20, extra person is $15.

Based on our past data usage history, and with 2 phone payments, on average, we should stay around or just below what we were paying for our verizon plan with no phone payment. Coverage is pretty decent so far, not quite as good as verizon, but ymmv.

Our fixed costs on the plan total about $100:
Calls & texts 2 people, $20 + $15/member: $35.00
Device payment: $27.04
Device payment: $27.04
Device protection Pixel 2 (2 at $5/device): $10.00

and the most our data will ever cost is $100 bucks. 3 months in and we are still getting credits for stuff and we haven't had one over $89 yet. Hope this didn't sound like a commercial, but our recent experience is so far so good.
 
shawn said:
Doesn't Apple have some kind of cloud backup for that stuff?

I can go flush my Android down the toilet, and as quickly as I can get to a Verizon store, I'm back in business.
Click to expand...
Yep, I see people on FB all the time announcing to "text/call them because I got a new phone and lost all my contacts".

Don't see how that's possible. My Samsung backs up daily. I can activate a new phone and have all my contacts, old texts, etc in about 5 minutes. Never did understand how anyone loses their contacts.
 
Pacfanweb said:
Yep, I see people on FB all the time announcing to "text/call them because I got a new phone and lost all my contacts".

Don't see how that's possible. My Samsung backs up daily. I can activate a new phone and have all my contacts, old texts, etc in about 5 minutes. Never did understand how anyone loses their contacts.
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Oh it's possible. Simply do not enable Google backup of contacts, data, etc. Destroy phone, lose it all. I went to SD card for app install files & picture storage & text/call backup nightly.. contacts I export once a month. Works good so far, & if I get new phone, simply import everything off the SD which should survive near anything & done.
 
a_kelley said:
Oh it's possible. Simply do not enable Google backup of contacts, data, etc. Destroy phone, lose it all. I went to SD card for app install files & picture storage & text/call backup nightly.. contacts I export once a month. Works good so far, & if I get new phone, simply import everything off the SD which should survive near anything & done.
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Well, that's kinda my point: If you don't have backup enabled (which is free), then you're an idiot. It just makes not the slightest bit of sense NOT to make use of that feature.
So that's why I say I don't see how anyone loses such things....your phone has a free feature to keep you from doing so. All you have to do it turn it on.
I have an SD card as well. All my pics, downloads and such save to it. Every so often I hook the phone up to my PC and save the whole thing....so if I physically lose my phone and the SD card with it, the only thing I'd lose is whatever pics I've taken since last week when I backed it up. And like most everyone else, most of the pics I take I'll probably never look at again unless it's while thumbing through them, trying to find a specific one. If it's anything really notable, I probably texted it to my wife or mom or someone, so it's not really lost...it's in my old texts, which are backed up. Or email, which is on Google's server.
 
Pacfanweb said:
Well, that's kinda my point: If you don't have backup enabled (which is free), then you're an idiot. It just makes not the slightest bit of sense NOT to make use of that feature.
So that's why I say I don't see how anyone loses such things....your phone has a free feature to keep you from doing so. All you have to do it turn it on.
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So here's the thing. A lot of people are tech/phone stupid, and don't know this is an option, so no, they don't turn it on.
Meanwhile the phone companies don't enable it on by default in their ROM b/c (1) it adds data usage, which people complain about and (2) doing this automatically, w/o the user expressly granting permission first, is viewed as an invasion of privacy within certain fields. So sometimes it happens, sometimes it doesn't.
Sometimes there is a difficult balance between making things super convenient and idiot proof, and maintaining data privacy concerns.
 
@Pacfanweb @RatLabGuy

I do not trust the cloud, or any storage not under my physical & electronic control. (Yeah I'm aware there are other ways to compromise, but it's a much smaller target) My SD card is mine, physical, local, and removable. I can secure/preserve my data by removing it. Only cloud I trust would be a local NAS. Some of us have not always worn the same color hat that is now worn. Not only that but they may also claim they never wore a hat of any color. (Vague reference, some may understand, some may not)
 
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RatLabGuy said:
So here's the thing. A lot of people are tech/phone stupid, and don't know this is an option, so no, they don't turn it on.
Meanwhile the phone companies don't enable it on by default in their ROM b/c (1) it adds data usage, which people complain about and (2) doing this automatically, w/o the user expressly granting permission first, is viewed as an invasion of privacy within certain fields. So sometimes it happens, sometimes it doesn't.
Sometimes there is a difficult balance between making things super convenient and idiot proof, and maintaining data privacy concerns.
Click to expand...

As a follow up to this...mine IS on, but I didn't realize I exceeded capacity until I was dicking around with some features and realized my phone hadn't been backed up in 79 weeks. We're on the verge of getting new phones ourselves, had we turned them in...all the baby pics/vids I have taken would have been gone. I don't claim to be tech savvy, but above average...and for 99 cents a month, losing irreplaceable photos was a real possibility.
 
a_kelley said:
@Pacfanweb @RatLabGuy

I do not trust the cloud, or any storage not under my physical & electronic control. (Yeah I'm aware there are other ways to compromise, but it's a much smaller target) My SD card is mine, physical, local, and removable. I can secure/preserve my data by removing it. Only cloud I trust would be a local NAS. Some of us have not always worn the same color hat that is now worn. Not only that but they may also claim they never wore a hat of any color. (Vague reference, some may understand, some may not)
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This. I dont trust it any further than I can kick it! :D:shaking:
 
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