Maybe Kevin should have done his part and bought more new Windows phones rather than buy used Windows phones and keep them for 6 years.bill25 wrote:Unfortunately, Microsoft needed more than 2 happy customers to continue a platform with only Office apps...
Mint Mobile
Re: Mint Mobile
Re: Mint Mobile
Fun fact, you can buy Lumia 950s new in box for $150. Used ones are under $100.
Re: Mint Mobile
We got rid of our old phones for different reasons. On mine, it was more of a hardware thing, mainly the battery. On hers, it was more of a software thing. WP10 was buggy and the app support was starting to impact some of the basic things she wanted to do (like use the Facebook app occasionally).
I had no bugginess at all with WP8.1 from the OS itself and that would have been the same case on hers. Mine still ran smoothly, no hard resets or reinstalls required. Problem is, WP8.1 had even worse app support than WP10, which is why we upgraded her phone to WP10 in the first place (and why I never did). So that's pretty much the story.
I only bought 1 used Windows Phone - my 1520. The Titan, Touch Pro (WinMo), Lumia 521 and Jamie's 640 were all new.
I had no bugginess at all with WP8.1 from the OS itself and that would have been the same case on hers. Mine still ran smoothly, no hard resets or reinstalls required. Problem is, WP8.1 had even worse app support than WP10, which is why we upgraded her phone to WP10 in the first place (and why I never did). So that's pretty much the story.
I only bought 1 used Windows Phone - my 1520. The Titan, Touch Pro (WinMo), Lumia 521 and Jamie's 640 were all new.
Re: Mint Mobile
Unfortunately, Microsoft needed more than 4 sales of new devices to continue production.only bought 1 used Windows Phone - my 1520. The Titan, Touch Pro (WinMo), Lumia 521 and Jamie's 640 were all new.
Re: Mint Mobile
Good news! I may have already fixed this. It is still officially unsupported but I found this from a Mint forum:kevm14 wrote:- It does not seem to work on my phone. I have to call a number like it is 1999. This is not good. I e-mailed them and it MAY be a matter of them doing something on their end, as some people seemed to have it working at some point. I will give this a chance. I don't think I can go back to dialing a number and managing VM that way, at least not after having VVM for so long. I have manual VM at work though...
https://play.google.com/store/apps/deta ... ervice.vvm
One of the reviews said to disable wifi calling and wifi, install the app, then reenable. I did that. It works! I will report back if there are any issues but the test message Bill left came up and played back fine. It does NOT have message transcription and honestly another app may very well offer that. I don't care about that so I am happy with this.
Re: Mint Mobile
How come I can't figure out how to get it to read text messages I receive while connected to car BT? This is lame. Sounds like I need yet another app just to do something that WP did out of the box 5 years ago....
No wonder why I made it so long with no apps...it didn't need any to be functional and useful.
No wonder why I made it so long with no apps...it didn't need any to be functional and useful.
Re: Mint Mobile
Another iPhone X comparison.
https://youtu.be/3y0yOc09kLM
https://youtu.be/3y0yOc09kLM
Re: Mint Mobile
Some Mint reviews/videos.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gZCkYcCsopA
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3-RV9rHrXhs
They've pretty much come to the same conclusion I have. One thing I have noticed is that they have been adding features and generally improving the experience continuously. For example, WiFi calling and texting is on the newer side. Visual voicemail for iPhone was added. Other things I forgot...
Oh, they also figured out how to do the auto MMS/APN stuff on the iPhone.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gZCkYcCsopA
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3-RV9rHrXhs
They've pretty much come to the same conclusion I have. One thing I have noticed is that they have been adding features and generally improving the experience continuously. For example, WiFi calling and texting is on the newer side. Visual voicemail for iPhone was added. Other things I forgot...
Oh, they also figured out how to do the auto MMS/APN stuff on the iPhone.
Re: Mint Mobile
So a little over a week later, how is it going?
I am actually quite satisfied with the service. So far it has been unilaterally better in all work areas I frequent, including my desk. That's a pretty big win by itself as I obviously spend a lot of my day at work (sigh).
However I've been just hammering the data usage. It is up to 2.3GB and it's not even been 2 weeks!
Aside from the 500MB of speedtest (so subtract that I guess), the major offenders are:
- Streaming podcasts. 713MB in fact. I have since updated my settings to download more episodes so I don't need to stream. I am behind on my Ben Shapiro so hopefully that helps.
- Pandora. 422MB so far which is actually really high. I wonder if I actually do get a higher bitrate stream than I had with WP.
- OneDrive. 355MB. It uploads pictures and videos. WP had a setting where videos required WiFI but photos went on cellular. I am not sure I have that option here. So a good chunk of this may be uploading videos on cellular. That is not too smart...
Those four are in fact responsible for nearly 2GB so if I want to have a chance at fitting in a 2GB plan I better address that. Well more like 1.5GB if we factor out the speed tests. And if you remove the streaming podcasts (download all on WiFi), then usage so far falls to 777MB. And if I deal with OneDrive and find a way to not upload videos on cellular, it falls even further. So...this isn't that big of a deal actually.
Either that or for an additional $5 than I planned, I just stay at 5GB and worry about it a lot less...factoring out the speedtests, this usage scales to about 5GB/month if I don't change anything. Factoring out streaming podcasts, that falls again to 2.6GB. Which is crazy because I am really not doing anything I didn't do before and we had a SHARED 2GB on 2 lines.
I am actually quite satisfied with the service. So far it has been unilaterally better in all work areas I frequent, including my desk. That's a pretty big win by itself as I obviously spend a lot of my day at work (sigh).
However I've been just hammering the data usage. It is up to 2.3GB and it's not even been 2 weeks!
Aside from the 500MB of speedtest (so subtract that I guess), the major offenders are:
- Streaming podcasts. 713MB in fact. I have since updated my settings to download more episodes so I don't need to stream. I am behind on my Ben Shapiro so hopefully that helps.
- Pandora. 422MB so far which is actually really high. I wonder if I actually do get a higher bitrate stream than I had with WP.
- OneDrive. 355MB. It uploads pictures and videos. WP had a setting where videos required WiFI but photos went on cellular. I am not sure I have that option here. So a good chunk of this may be uploading videos on cellular. That is not too smart...
Those four are in fact responsible for nearly 2GB so if I want to have a chance at fitting in a 2GB plan I better address that. Well more like 1.5GB if we factor out the speed tests. And if you remove the streaming podcasts (download all on WiFi), then usage so far falls to 777MB. And if I deal with OneDrive and find a way to not upload videos on cellular, it falls even further. So...this isn't that big of a deal actually.
Either that or for an additional $5 than I planned, I just stay at 5GB and worry about it a lot less...factoring out the speedtests, this usage scales to about 5GB/month if I don't change anything. Factoring out streaming podcasts, that falls again to 2.6GB. Which is crazy because I am really not doing anything I didn't do before and we had a SHARED 2GB on 2 lines.
Re: Mint Mobile
My first month resets next week. On track to be under my 5GB which is good. Service has been good. I am starting to get more used to Android and trying to embrace the things it does better than Windows Phone, while being less rigid about things it does not do as well...may never get to 100% on that.
I did find my first issue with my phone hardware though. I came to realize the glass that covers the cameras has like dust or something on the inside of it, which makes photos have an excessive amount of glare, and be softer than they should. I did some research and what I found surprised me.
Apparently it is/was a common issue for this glass to shatter, having nothing to do with a drop. Some thermal thing or stress thing, I guess. However, there are many sources for new glass and a variety of kits to replace it. It's cheap, like less than $10. It may even be possible to replace the glass without removing the rear cover which would be nice. My research also indicates that IP68 water-resistance is no longer guaranteed after replacement, so I am going to see if I can find the most OEM solution (namely, the adhesive).
But I guess eventually I will attempt replacement and ensure the new glass is clean before I put it on. Makes me wonder if the "refurbishment" of this phone actually included new glass (because the old glass shattered and maybe someone thought they would get rid of the phone) and they were less than careful about the cleanliness of the repair. I don't feel that bad though since people with brand new phones were reporting shattered camera glass, necessitating replacement anyway.
I did find my first issue with my phone hardware though. I came to realize the glass that covers the cameras has like dust or something on the inside of it, which makes photos have an excessive amount of glare, and be softer than they should. I did some research and what I found surprised me.
Apparently it is/was a common issue for this glass to shatter, having nothing to do with a drop. Some thermal thing or stress thing, I guess. However, there are many sources for new glass and a variety of kits to replace it. It's cheap, like less than $10. It may even be possible to replace the glass without removing the rear cover which would be nice. My research also indicates that IP68 water-resistance is no longer guaranteed after replacement, so I am going to see if I can find the most OEM solution (namely, the adhesive).
But I guess eventually I will attempt replacement and ensure the new glass is clean before I put it on. Makes me wonder if the "refurbishment" of this phone actually included new glass (because the old glass shattered and maybe someone thought they would get rid of the phone) and they were less than careful about the cleanliness of the repair. I don't feel that bad though since people with brand new phones were reporting shattered camera glass, necessitating replacement anyway.