Talking Cellphones Saturday - Best Service Providers and Phones

StraightTalk w/ iPhone 6. Soon to be iPhone SE. Unlimited talk, text and 35 GB of data. $50 a month. No contract. Been using them for 5 or 6 years now. No complaints. They have a rewards program so about once a year I get a month for free. 

Not that I want to buy a phone using the loan type mechanisms the big providers offer, but I do have to pay the full price of whatever phone I choose. Big reason I don't purchase the latest and greatest iPhone. I usually upgrade to a model that's been out for a year or two, buy refurbished or in the case of the new iPhone SE, just buy the budget version Apple has available. 

The LG Chocolate. I can play Tetris and buy ringback tones for 3.99!

Tracfone. Great option for low cellular data, text & minutes users. I probably pay around $15-20/month on average. I buy the yearly package which is a little less than $120 for the entire year, but occasionally need to buy more data and maybe once a year need to add more texts.

I use a Pixel 3a. Amazing phone. It takes ridiculously good photos, and is fast (I never notice any lag). By far the best phone I've owned. Previously owned phones: Essential, OnePlus One, Moto e4, iPhone 4

iPhone 11 with 128GB memory on Verizon -- best phone on the market. Been using iPhones since the 3 and will never change. Love the ecosystem and the phones are stable as hell. My company pays for the unlimited plan and I had to kick in $200 to get the 11 but it's mine. Assuming I still have a job next year, I'll get another one and give the current 11 to my wife. With 128GB in memory it will be good for another 3-4 years. 

I have used iPhones since they came out and very much like the cross-platform compatibility between all Apple devices.  I currently have the XS Max which I very much like.  I replace my phone every 3-4 years and I was amazed by how much faster the newer phones are due to better processors. I like the large display of the Max.

I buy my phones on Black Friday and after the discount, typically from Walmart or Target, and what I get back from selling the old phone, it mitigates the absurdly high costs for the phone.

I'm on Verizon with about half a dozen family members with unlimited plans and I am very happy with the service.  I switched to Verizon a year ago after being on AT&T since the discovery of dirt but could not longer stand their customer service and the games they played with DirecTV.

Samsung Note 10+ is my current phone and it blows every other phone I've had out of the water.  I'm a year into my experience and I've had zero issues with performance.  Plus the thing is freaking gorgeous.  Obviously its very expensive but I don't mind.  My current payment is 104/mth with Sprint (unlimited talk, text, data, plus I financed my phone).  Sprint seems to be the least expensive of the largest providers (T-Mobile, Verizon, AT&T) but they compensate with poor service in some areas of town.  I have to use my wifi in the apartment I live in or else loading times are massive!  My apartment is smack dab in the middle of town!!!  What gives Sprint??

Phones I've had in the past include the Samsung Galaxy S8+ and the Samsung Note 2.  Before that I used flip phones.  The Note 10+ (Note 10 is the same but with one less camera and smaller screen) blows them all out of the water.  Not even close.  Like I said before, zero performance issues after 1 year of use and the thing is freaking gorgeous.

T Mobile for me.  Wife and I are on a plan with my brother and his wife. Bill is around 140/mo so 35/line unlimited everything. Moto x4 for me.  Nice budget phone.

Verizon. Recommended.

OnePlus 7 pro. Also recommended. Phone isn't bogged down with bloatware and I love the lack of pinhole camera with the design. Also appreciate knowing I'm not being watched since I know my phone is listening to me. Ended up breaking the screen a few months ago and I bought a Samsung Galaxy note 10+ to replace this one while mine was out for repairs and really missed the OnePlus.  The higher hertz screen refresh rate, super fast charging, and overall feel of the phone is exceptional. 

There are a number of factors to consider here:

• Service provider - this comes down to your location and how often you travel (and if you travel a lot, what kinds of locations are you traveling to). The big 3 (Verizon, ATT, and T-Mobile) are largely the same in highly-populated areas. The biggest differences come in the less-populated areas, and this where AT&T and Verizon are generally better (though not always, and T-Mobile has been improving). If you live, or travel often, in less populated areas, then check coverage maps and see what will be best. MVNO's (like Cricket, Mint, etc) use one of the big-three networks, but users on those plans take a back seat when traffic gets congested. This is how you are able to save money with them. I personally have used TMobile for the past 7ish years and have been very happy with them. I pay about $135/month for two phones, and get unlimited talk/text, plus 6gb of data (which is plenty for what my wife and I need).
• Phone - this comes down to preference, and your comfort level with a given Operating System (Android or Apple). Both sides have high-quality offerings, so there isn't a clear edge in quality. I have used both Apple and Android phones over the past 5 years, and I prefer Android. If you want to look into Android, I would recommend OnePlus or Google Pixel devices. I stay away from Samsung. I have a OnePlus 7 Pro and I love it. Best phone I've ever owned. If you want a recommendation though, go with the OnePlus 7T Pro; it's got the benefits of the 7, with some tweaks and improvements. 
• I would stay away from any phone that is touting 5G capabilities. First, the chips that are 5G-capable are very expensive, so you will see that reflected in a higher cost for the phone. Second, 5G is still very much in its infancy, and I don't think the value is there yet.

You'll get your diehard Apple users here who love their iPhones and couldn't imagine life with an Android. You'll also get your Android users who feel the same about their devices. There are strong feelings on both side, but focus on specs and the factors that are important to you.

Edit: I should add that comparing plan prices is not always an apples to apples comparison. A single number doesn't tell the full story. Generally, the cost of your plan is comprised of two factors: the plan itself, plus the payments for your phone(s) which is generally the cost of the phone spread over 2 years. If you pay for a phone outright, then the cost of your plan should be lower. For me, we got my wife's phone for free in a BOGO deal, and we pay about $25/month for my phone. That is one part of the $135/month that we pay. All that to say, to get an apples to apples comparison on a plan you need to know if a plan includes device payments or not.

Verizon because our community is stupid...they don't want unsightly towers in the suburb, so anyone who builds a communication tower has to make it available to any provider...so you know what happened? Nobody built a tower and Verizon has the only one in the area. Any other company you can barely pick up a signal. And if you are far enough away you can't get very good service even with Verizon. 

It's bad enough it even affects emergency services, our pagers have dead spots all over the township and due to our restrictions, don't ask me how...they can't install repeaters or build a new 911 tower either...it's incredibly dumb.

Personal phone, the whole family has various iphones, I chose the pixel 2 when they were on the way to the 3. It's been the best smart phone I've used. Very reliable, fast processer. If it ever dies, I will likely get another pixel model. And like XM...I prefer the smaller phones...eyesight is still hanging in.

I'm using a relatively ancient Motorola Moto G4 with Verizon in Chicago. I like having the WWW available but I use it for mostly talk and text. I prefer a bigger (as in, twenty-plus inches) screen for Web surfing. I suppose this might be age-related. My close-up vision is still fine, so it's not that. It's also easier to lock down a computer.

I've long admired Apple products (design, etc.) but I've always been too cheap to get one.

No strong feelings about Verizon relative to T-Mobile or Sprint (both of which I've used in the past at the same location).

I've been on a family plan with my brother and parents for a while.  We get unlimited talk/text and 8 GB of data to share.  We use my brothers UPS discount.  It's about $135 to split 4 ways.  We never go over the data.  I'm using my 3 year old Motorola Z2 Play, which is paid off.  So, I only pay about $35/month.  I see no need for a new phone every 2 years.  My phone works just fine and does everything I need it to.

I spent a big chunk of my career in the wireless telecom industry on the infrastructure provider side (AT&T Network Systems, Lucent Technologies, Alcatel-Lucent).  The companies that became Verizon Wireless were my customers individually and then collectively.  My time with them goes all the way back to "1G" (analog FM).  I made sure my company was building products and winning contracts based on the network specs laid out by their corporate network planning team.  So, based on all that knowledge, my service is from Verizon Wireless.  They really do have the highest network engineering standards and network outage requirements.  If they had a problem caused by our products, my life was hell until we got it fixed.  I admired Verizon because while we had tough negotiations about price, they didn't squeeze every last penny out of us like others.  They understood that we had to make money to stay in business and if they bled us dry on price, we wouldn't saddle up the cavalry to help them when they had a problem (like post 9/11) until we negotiated a price for our efforts.  We'd help them through the problem and then we'd settle up in the next contract.  I now understand how rare those business relationships seem to be.

You do pay a premium for their service.  I still get a discount and they do offer discounts for people that work at a variety of companies.  It doesn't hurt to ask about it.

Because AT&T, Sprint, and T-Mobile were also our customers, I collected a fair amount of information about them through my peers that served them.

AT&T has slightly looser network design requirements meaning the probability of getting an RF signal inside a cell's coverage area is just slightly less than Verizon.  Given how these specs drive how many cells you need to build and how far apart they can be spread, it's doubtful they've fundamentally changed this.  Splitting cells to improve coverage is expensive and often hard to do in urban/suburban areas where there's a lot of NIMBY about cell towers.  4G and 5G provide increase site flexibility (the equipment is smaller and can be pole mounted), but you still need to get power and a network facility connection (fiber or microwave) to the cell.

Sprint and T-Mobile didn't have the cash AT&T/Verizon had, so their network design specs were a bit looser.  Sprint struggled with merging networks (remember Nextel?) for years and now has to work through all of this under the T-Mobile banner.  It's very time consuming and difficult to deal with a grab bag of vendor products, monitoring and engineering systems, etc.  I'm hopeful the new T-Mobile can succeed, because they do offer the lowest pricing among what is now the Big 3 of wireless telecom.

Rural areas are a problem for everyone.  Every year we went through a rural market model with Verizon to see how we could bring the cost curve down.  RF can only propagate so far and low density areas equals not much revenue per infrastructure $$ spent.  You also have the challenge of backhaul facilities (fiber/microwave) being more costly and fiber being less available.  Covering the highways will produce reasonable return on investment, but miles and miles of corn and wheat fields don't generate revenue.  So, if you live in a mostly rural area, find out who provides quality service where you need it.  That's the best purchasing criteria.

In urban/suburban areas, figure out which carrier offers the best service in your neighborhood, apartment building, condo, etc.  You should have multiple choices, but sometimes, you just happen to be in a weak spot in the RF coverage for a carrier.  My home was in a weak spot for Verizon most of the time they were my customer.  I just had to deal with it given the situation.  A few years ago, they finally built a new cell closer to my neighborhood when 4G service was rolled out.  My neighbor has AT&T and complains about bad service in his home.  He's up for contract soon and I've told him I'd give him my phone and he can go through his house to see if Verizon service works better for him.

As for phone choice, I was an Android guy with Samsung Galaxy phones for many years.  About a year ago, it was time for a new phone and I finally caved into buying an iPhone.  The Apple ecosystem finally won out.  I got tired of the extra steps required to sync Android phones to my iTunes library and with my iPad.  When it's all Apple stuff, it just works easier.  The iPhone does work well as a phone and I have been impressed with the battery life.  Airdropping large video files between the iPad and iPhone is really convenient.  So, sometimes it's the phone features and sometimes it's the overall user experience that drives choice.  If you are all in on the Google ecosystem, then Android is your best friend.  I've always had toes in both pools (Samsung Galaxy and iPad), so I finally choose to put both feet in the same pool to make life easier.  Google has fortunately built enough functionality into their iOS software that I can still use both ecosystems.

Probably more than you wanted to hear or expected, but this is a topic I've spent many years dealing with.

We have the iphone 8 for the wife and I and hand down the old iphones to the kids. We are at about 2.5 years with these so it's getting close to upgrading and now that my son is going into 7th grade, we will likely get his (heretofore wifi only phone) on to a plan for the 4 of us total. Saw the $399 iphone SE deal and if we trade in anything we might be able to get discounts with Verizon but we'd likely have to go unlimited from the 8GB/mo for the 3 current phones.

Either way we'll likely go with Verizon Unlimited on 4 iphones, probably buy 2 of the new SEs and hand down the 8s to the kids

AT&T 5g, iPhone 11. After 5 years with the 6, had to upgrade. Overall, pleased with the phone. Especially the battery life. The 5g service, meh. Don’t really notice a difference in quality. Still deal with drops but then again so many people are on cell now. 
 

For the longest time I used Android. They basically always have the better specs, more options, and are more customizable. 
But I prefer Mac to PC and an iPad to other tablets. So I switched to iPhone. While it doesn’t have the flashy spec numbers of Samsung and LG the iOS seems to manage the memory better. I do still use all google apps though: chrome, calendar, docs, maps, etc. I prefer those to the native apple apps

I have an iPhone 10 now. I’d like to go full yooper and not have a cellphone 

Verizon, 4 lines, unlimited data, $160/month.

Wife and kids have iPhones. I have an 8 for work that I rarely use, but my personal cell is a Pixel 2. Everything is paid off, so status quo until something dies. I will definitely get the latest Pixel next. It's super intuitive and easy.

I never understood the appeal of Apple products. Everything feels off, as though they were designed for the left-handed population.