Yeah, God forbid you actually use the data connection you're paying for.

Not true, according to my AT&T contact. The $130 is for unlimited voice and data, but does not include SMS text messages. Those are $.20 each, or you need to get a package; the unlimited text package is $20, bringing the real "unlimited everything" price to $150.

[rant]That said, I think SMS is retarded. I don't understand the big fascination with it. If your device is on the internet, why wouldn't one use an instant messenger client? Even then, instant messengers are the biggest productivity black hole since Microsoft Powerpoint.[/rant]

I do think the iPhone is a brilliant device that's just a joy to use. It actually has a usable browser in a tiny little device (first ever, IMHO). Wikipedia, google, and the empegbbs in your pocket (usable) is fantastic. I'm probably going to get one next week, but I wouldn't be considering it if I didn't get reimbursed for my cellular bill.

To text people who still use the old style cell phones without internet access.

Ahh but would any self respecting iPhone owner drop so low?

The more I think about it, I actually feel like there are some situations where SMS is preferable to IM.

IM is an interactive conversation that I have to babysit. SMS is usually one-off texts with no reply or one reply.

I know that's mostly a cultural and situational bias, and maybe it's one that only I experience. Either of those communication methods could be treated as interactive conversations or as one-shot messages, they both work for those purposes. But there are things about the way those two communication methods are handled on the devices that make me tend to lean one way or the other.

For instance, Instant Messenger is a separate application that I must sign on to and leave up and connected in order to get messages. SMS is more like voice mail, and I'll get a notification of the message even when I'm not interacting with the phone. In that way, I see SMS as bridging the gap between voicemail and IM, and I think it still has its place.

Why in holy hell they charge separately for it, I still don't understand. Other than the usual reason of "greed".

It is charged separately because they are two totally different services. The transports aren't the same.

Interesting. I thought that everything came over the same cell carrier, that if I sent a text to someone on my cell phone, it went through all the same connections that a voicemail did. Didn't realize it was different.

Or is "SMS" and "Text message" on a cell phone not the same thing? I thought the two terms meant the same thing.

Couldn't agree more Tony, I think IM is suits conversations and SMS is for information. That doesn't mean you can't use each of them for the other purpose though.

SMS is to 'Text Message' like HTTP is to 'The Web'.

Not sure If I've phrased that correctly or not.......

Weren't you comparing IM services to SMS? A SMS doesn't require you to use a packet data service that a IM service would.

SMS is actually quite complicated. It is capable of doing a lot more than what is usually implemented/used.

That W260g is a nice entry level flip phone. AFIK it wasn't available 1/yr ago.

My C139 went missing for a couple days. Turns out it was hanging out in the washing machine. Efforts to resuscitate it failed. I've gotten the W260g as a replacement.

I like it better than the C139. The menus are mostly the same, but the button usage is more natural.

Getting my Tracfone service updated to use the new phone went like this...

About 30mins on the phone with CS with him wanting to insist that the service had expired so I had lost my number. Service wasn't due to expire till 9-30-08. A date I've been seeing every time I looked at the phone display. (The C139 displays the service current end date as opposed to days left.) He wouldn't admit the service was active till the date I claimed.

After checking, CS guy admitted that my number hadn't been reassigned and I could have it back. After that, getting the new phone activated, went about as expected. It took about 90 mins for the changes to propagate to my phone.

I don't have the minuets from the old phone transferred yet. If the old phone was still active, it could have been done during activation. As it is I'll have to wait 2 wks and call again. I suspect it's so they can see that the old phone hasn't returned to the net.

I decided to enroll in the Service Protection Plan. $6/mo. It only charges if I let the service time run down. But there can't be any dispute about loosing the number now.

FYI: If you have more than one phone on the same account, minuets can be transferred between them. So a low minuet user can subsidize a high minuet user. I figure I used ~200 of the 1000 I purchased. (400&yr with DMFL = 800 plus 200 more I received using a promo code.)

Edit: I really like the increased Volume this phone has.

At least originally it used the signalling channel of the phone system (SS7), thus the message size restrictions.

This makes some sense to me. Like sending an address via SMS or something like that.

My boss has a 13 year old kid who last month sent over 6700 text messages. That's not a typo -- that's over 200 per day. That's why they charge more for it. Teenagers, at least in the US, are fanatically addicted to SMS.

Fair enough.

Here are a couple of links relevant to tracfone users.

http://www.fatwallet.com/forums/hot-deals/834707/m12357799#m12357799 < has more info that just deals.

http://thejmart.com/links.htm < shows step by step what to expect of the online customer service web pages.

Well, so far my cell phone usage has been considerably greater than I had thought. I've had the phone for 70 days now, and have already used up 22 whole minutes of time. [In my defense, 4 minutes were used to set up my voice mail, two minutes were used when I foolishly answered the phone when it was a wrong number, six minutes when SWMBO used it because hers wasn't working right, and I think another two minutes when someone left two voice mail messages.] Only two people know my number, and usually I am in the physical presence of one of them, so now if it rings I just look and see if SWMBO is nearby and if so, I ignore it.

However, I have a complaint about the phone. From the Tracfone website:

Motorola W260g Features:

* Features text messaging, voice mail, free caller ID, free call waiting*
* Color display with screen savers and wallpaper
* Compact Flip Phone
* Crystal Talk™ Voice Enhancement
* Contacts in phonebook stored on SIM
[color: orange]* Battery life with up to 6.5 hours of talk time and up to 18 days of standby time[/color]
* 35 pre-loaded ringtones
* Handsfree speaker
* Vibration Alert
* Phonebook with up to 500 entries
* Alarm Clock
* Games
* Calendar, currency converter and stop watch
* TracFone Airtime Balance Display shows you how much airtime you've used and how much is left
* Includes up to 20 minutes of starter airtime upon activation**

I have yet to get even six days of standby time, and 6.5 hours of talk time? Don't make me laugh. From the tiny little bit I have used the phone, I would estimate my talk time to be in the vicinity of 40-60 minutes maximum. There are three bars of charge status on the battery icon, and every time I have ever talked on the phone, at least one of those bars goes away.

Is this normal, or surprising? Are there variables that affect battery life? Is my battery or phone possibly defective? Should I contact someone about this and complain? Or do cell phone makers routinely make grossly exaggerated claims?

tanstaafl.

If you burn through an entire battery (fully charged to dead) in 60 minutes of talk time on a phone which specs 6.5 hours of talk time, I'd say there is certainly a possibility that the battery is defective.

On the other hand, now that I think about it some more...

If you're in fringe areas where there's not very good cell coverage, a phone might overwork its battery trying to maintain a connection. The various signaling methods used by the phone will change dynamically depending on which cell towers it can see and what their signal strengths are. Some of those signaling methods use more juice than others, especially if the phone has to boost its power output to be "heard" by a given tower.

What's your signal strength indicator usually look like?

Or are in other bad coverage areas. For example, my last cell phone wouldn't last 24 hours inside my office, probably due to the Faraday cage of a metal roof, steel studs, and metal-slatted venetian blinds. The phone spent the whole day trying to get a signal. If I stepped out of the door, I got 4 bars.

If it has bluetooth, then try to disable or turn off the bluetooth. That will save tons of battery life.

Otherwise, the best battery effort will come from being in a small, fully digital cell within the carrier's coverage area. In larger cells, it will consume more power, ditto for cells that don't implement the most modern protocols (eg. 1xRTT is better than plain digital, which is much better than analog..).

Other than that, the battery or handset may be defective. I had a defective handset here once, and after considerable persistence managed to have it replaced under warranty. The replacement lasts weeks on standby. Dunno about talk time -- I'm like you and hardly use it.

Cheers

The battery life quoted for phones is usually as others have said with the highest possible signal strength, everything turned off that can be turned off and not actually touched. If you go over every so often and just turn the backlight on to check something then that will reduce the standby time.

You gotta be kidding me!

I am in the absolute heart of Silicon Valley -- perhaps three quarters of a mile from the Google campus.

Signal strength is five bars. Always.

tanstaafl.

From

GSM phones need the appropriate sim card for the GSM provider in the area where the phone will be used. Sim cards can be identified by a carrier designation code on the sim card itself. TFSIMC4 or TF64SIMC4 designate AT&T, TFSIMT5 designate T-Mobile. If you want to change the phone number of a GSM phone you will need a new sim card in order to do so.

So If you lookup your sim card code, it will tell you which network your phone is operating on. I got no way of knowing if that would be of importance.

Edit: except to say that ATT works much better than t-mobile in my home area.

What are your charging habits?

They say the new lithium batteries don't need conditioning, but I always take a new battery from fully charged down to complaining for a couple of cycles.
After that, I'll charge it when it's about half way down.
I don't have a set schedule for charging it, though. Some people just put their phone on charge every night.

Maybe you can find other people's experiences with exactly your phone and provider over at http://www.howardforums.com/index.php?

I leave the phone in my pocket until it starts beeping and complaining that the battery is low. Then I charge it fully and put it back in my pocket. This happens once or twice a week.

tanstaafl.

Careful with "up to" claims...

- Talktime is likely quoted at minimum TX power, ie you're sitting under a cell station
- Standby time is likely quoted with the maximum interval between network polls (on GSM this is called the DRX level). Whether you get this time depends on how the provider's network is configured - and yes, networks are almost never configured with an interval this long...

Still, it does sound like it's not working right if there's a 6:1 difference between claimed and actual talktime...

Hugo

I don't know, I think you might be on to something with your first point. My mom used to carry her cell in her pocketbook all day long, and even though she charged it every night it would still be out of juice by the time she left for work, and she never even talked on it. At the urging of my dad and I, when she gets to work she takes the phone out of her purse and puts it on her desk. That's all, nothing more, and now when she leaves for the day she has about 3/4 of her battery left.

Ah. The Farady purse.

I know a guy at work that has the same problem, only it's HIM that discharges the phone. If he wears it on his belt it's dead in 8 hours. If he sets it on his desk, it runs for days. Weird stuff.

I think I've got the winning deal so far (as far as cheap cells go)

I went with Tracfone and got:

- Kyocera 126C + 120 minute card +$29.99
- Found a $3.00 off code on the web
- Was a new phone so got 10 bonus minute
- Had issues with web activation so got 3 months free
- The wife had a code good for 30 minutes when activating

So I got 5 months of phone for $27.99 with 160 minutes.

That works out to about $5.90 a month with no hidden fees.

160 minutes should be more than enough for me.

That’s more than the nothing I’ve been paying now (for nothing) but not much.