Tag: Project Fi

Android Switcher

On October 7, 2016

Recently, my wife and I switched from AT&T to Google’s Project Fi. Part of the reason for the switch is AT&T’s signal has been terrible at home and at work lately. We also got tired of paying for data we weren’t using and high prices for a plan we didn’t need.

The last straw was when I went online to downgrade our data plan which appeared it would save us about $20 per month. Only to find out it actually increased our bill.

I called customer service and couldn’t understand how that was possible and neither the customer service rep nor the retention specialist could give me a good answer to that. But they offered to give me the extra data back at no additional cost. But I didn’t want to pay $170 for two iPhones and 20GB of data every month. We’re trying to save money. And there seemed to be no way to do that.

To drop below the plan we had would have been a 5GB plan which was slightly too small for what we needed. This is before reports of their new plans coming out, which apparently neither the customer service rep nor the retention specialist were aware of, or able to talk about when I called and spoke to them.

So we decided to try Google’s Project Fi which is a plan provided by Google where you can use a combination of T-Mobile, Sprint and US Cellular’s networks for unlimited talk and text. Data is $10 per 1GB. You can set a data budget a pre-pay for the data but if you need more, it’s $10/1GB. And if you use less, Fi will refund you the money.

With AT&T, if you have a 5GB plan and you go over, you’re paying $15 for that 6th GB whether you use the entire GB or just a portion of it. With Fi, you pay only for what you use. So if I use 5.2GB, I pay for 5.2GB.

I haven’t used Android since the Motorola Droid. So I was curious to see how Android had come since 2010. I’ve owned a series of iPhones (4, 5 and 6+) in the intervening years. So when a fresh Nexus 5X arrived at my door, I was ready.

Here’s what I’ve noticed about Android since the switch.

Unlock PIN

When I enter a 4-digit unlock code. Why do I then have to press the check mark? Granted with a fingerprint, this is mostly a non-issue. But with the iPhone, it wanted 4 numbers and when I entered them it accepted or rejected it.

Back Button

I like the back button. But I’m never sure if it’s going to take me back a screen in the app I’m using or back to the home screen.

No mute switch

I miss the mute switch. My phone was silent when I was at work or out in public. It vibrated to alert me, it didn’t make a sound. Android is not silent.

Android is chatty

Bing. Boop. Blip. Donk. Everything makes a sound. Everything makes the same sound. I’ve taken to saying every time the alert sound goes off, “Something is happening! What could it be?” As I look at phone to see if it’s Facebook Messenger, Email, SMS, Twitter, Tumblr or some other app notifying me of something.

Facebook Messenger’s Bubbles

Who ever thought it would be a good idea to let Facebook Messenger’s little bubble show up over every single app on the phone should be fired. From a cannon. I can’t stand it. It’s enough to make me want to quit using it altogether.

Notifications

Everything’s a bubble at the top of the screen now. Apps don’t have any visual identifiers that something is waiting for you. I really miss the little red badge on iPhone apps to let me know there’s a message waiting (SMS/Facebook Messenger/email). I forget to reply to people because I don’t remember there’s a new text waiting until I open the app.

Download speed

Audiobooks and song from Spotify fly down to the device. Audiobooks especially seemed to take longer on the iPhone. Even downloading from Spotify to the phone took more time. I assume it has to do with writing to a file system versus however the iPhone handled it, but it’s been a noticeable improvement.

Emoji

I love Apple’s emoji. They were big and beautiful. I texted them to my wife all the time and I loved using them in text. Google’s make me want to cry. They’re tiny and the people look like gelatinous Simpson characters.

Android is Linux

The phone requires tinkering. The phone slows way down sometimes. Pokémon Go fails to render animations without struggling at times. The scrolling is iffy. When I press the screen, I have to wait and see if the phone is struggling to fulfill my request or if it’s just sitting there like nothing happened.

Battery Life

The battery life of my Nexus 5X rivals that of my two-and-a-half year old iPhone 4. It’s terrible and I don’t believe in turning off every optional service to make a phone last through the day. A mobile device should have enough power to make it through the day.

Charger can’t keep up

When using Waze navigation in the car with a podcast or music playing, my phone’s battery still drains when connected to a charger. This reminds me of my original Droid from Verizon.

Android phone taking photo of colorful wall - From https://unsplash.com/photos/KGcLJwIYiac

Fi

By Carl

On August 3, 2016

In Observations

AT&Tata

I am fed up with AT&T. We’ve been with them for a long time. My wife has been an AT&T customer since she had a smartphone. She started with a Windows phone well before the iPhone was invented.

I’ve been with AT&T since we combined our plans into a family plan when we became family 6 years ago. And we’ve been iPhone users ever since. Upgrading every 3 years as our phones wore out.

Recently, I was trying to cut my bill by removing some of the data allowance which we weren’t using any way. There’s no way to have less minutes which I would have happily done. We’re still heavy text users because not everyone uses iMessage. But that’s not expensive either.

I made a change which the AT&T’s site said would save us $30 a month on our plan. That was a relief.

Until the next billing cycle started and I saw my bill would not be $1 more than it was before. So I called AT&T and spoke to billing. The woman there basically said changing the plans only saved me about $5 a month. Which I said wasn’t even true based on what I was seeing.

We’re paying our phone off through AT&T Next 24 so that adds about $50 to our plan each month just for the phones since they no longer offer phones on contract. (Well, they do offer it, but it’s more expensive than using their Next program.)

At the end of the day, I was still paying almost $175 for two phones with data plans. There had to be a better way.

After Billing, I spoke to Colton in cancellation to ask what fees we would be charged if we canceled our plan.

Since we’re not under contract, there is no early termination fee. We’d need to pay off the balance of our phones or return them to AT&T. (We’ll see if this is true when we visit the store this week.)

Major Carriers

I looked at Verizon. Their plans are very similar to AT&T and we’d need new phones so we’d be right back where we started.

I debated T-Mobile but I worry about their coverage area. The same with Sprint. Even through they’re running a great deal now. They’re slicing AT&T’s fees in half and offering a second iPhone for free after you have one on the plan. So we’d be back paying for phones over time, but we’d get one of them for free.

I worry about the coverage areas of Sprint and T-Mobile. We’re in the DC area but we often venture out to see family in the middle of nowhere and drive through the country. I need a data signal that will guide my GPS everywhere I need to be. Not just in the middle of downtown.

My wife and I were weighing our options last night and neither of us are married to our iPhones. It’s a fine device. I’ve owned the 4, 5 and now 6 Plus. But they’re not magic. They serve no greater purpose than being pocket computers.

There’s very few apps native to iOS I rely on. And even fewer I can’t use on the iPad instead. So there’s nothing keeping us from Android. There’s no synergy with our old Mac laptops to take advantage of. iCloud is a necessary evil but not a joy to use.

Fi-nally

We are diving headlong into Android with Google’s Project Fi. As of last night, we have two 32GB Nexus 5X phones headed our way. We are leaving Apple for Google and traditional carriers for Project Fi which uses WiFi and a trifecta of cellular carriers to mesh together coverage.

Between Sprint, T-Mobile and US Cellular, they’ve created a network that cover most of the country and blankets the east coast in signal. We’ll see how it works this summer when we travel to San Francisco, Las Vegas and rural Virginia to see if the network holds up.

This will be our grand experiment and will save us money. We don’t use a ton of data each month and Fi’s pricing is a simple $10 per 1GB. If we don’t use what we’ve allotted we’ll get that money back. It’s not billed in round 1GB increments. If we use 1.2GB more, then we pay for 1.2GB, not 2GB. It truly is a pay what you use plan.

The phones should be here this weekend. We’ll be canceling AT&T once they arrive and we port our numbers over. I’m excited to try this out and see how far Android has come since the Motorola Droid.