Smart Phone

[Ed in Tampa]

Okay I got another question.
How many use a smart phone (one that requires a data plan)?
How much do you pay for the data plan?

I have a phone cell phone with ATT it doesn't do anything but make and receive phone calls. I have been trying to decide do I want a smart cell phone or not.

Or would I be just as well of with a tablet and my dumb phone.?

Or would it be better to get 3G tablet?

I have a few friends that regret getting smart phones but now that they have them and have gotten through the pain of cost they keep them. Most has 2 year contracts.

I have other friends that live on a smart phone.

My daughter has a smart phone from her work that she never uses for anything other than taking and making calls. But she lives on the her Ipad.

The cheapest data plan is $20 a month or $240 a year which frankly doesn't do much for me.

What are your thoughts.

[76winger]

I've got both.

This is going to come down to what you want to do with your phone and the various new forms of communication a smart phone and/or tablet gives you.
If you want to a lot of communicating on social networks and web browsing, I'd recommend a tablet over a smartphone unless your young and have really good vision.

If you want to keep up with email and texting, a smartphone isn't bad. Games and other entertaining apps - again it depends on what you want.

For my smartphone needs, I got a no contract plan from http://www.consumercellular.com/ and get by with the lower level of voice and next-lowest data/text plan and pay about $35 a month for my service. If my needs go up one month I can adjust the plan up and then back down the next month. I don't talk on it much and do more texting than anything so this works good for me.

Then for the tablet, AT&T has a no contract tablet plan for $14.99 a month for 250 meg a month, which works for me as I'm usually near a WiFi source and use that 95% of the time. I use my iPad a lot for email, social networking, and showing off the things I make and sell, so this works great and the Celluar option is only there in case I need it while not in WiFi range.

[backhertz]

I hate my Smart phone. I hate the autocorrect feature.

[heathicus]

We're a pretty tech savvy family. I, my wife, and my son all have smart phones (all Android). My wife and I also have Android tablets, and we have an iPad that our kids play on and watch movies on when we travel. We have two other laptops and desktops. I have a Mac Mini connected to the TV in the living room and an Apple TV connected to the TV in our bedroom - both run XBMC (an awesome media center program).

We have the shared data plan, but that is our home Internet as well. Neither cable nor DSL is available here. We had satellite, but dropped it. Our phones were MUCH faster, so we dropped satellite and upgraded our phone plans to include tethering. So at home, one of us turns our phone into a mobile hot spot and the other non-phone devices connect to them.

I was a late arrival to the smart phone, but can't live without it now. And I use my tablet much more than a laptop or desktop when at home. It can't totally replace the desktop, but there really isn't much I need to do that I can't do on the tablet.

[fjimp]

We have two smart phones both Android. One tablet, three laptops and a desktop. The desktop was used primarily for our now closed business. I am trying to switch from the laptop to the tablet. So far find the laptop more comfortable and more versatile. Jim

[claimdude]

Verizon Motorola RAZR MAXX, $97 per/mo, 4GB data, unlimited text and cell to cell minutes.

Jack

[swampgator]

I have a Samsung Galaxy smartphone. I use a prepaid plan. Don't talk much and it costs me on about $100 per year to use. When I need to use the weather or gas buddy, I try to locate a wi fi and get to browse for free. Since my garage is so crowded and it rains off the gulf frequently, it is helpful to be able to check on the weather so I can get my wood and tools in before they get wet. I think most carriers will do this for you.

[robinson46176]

We are looking at a few changes in our setup. We don't have a home phone, my wife's cell is the house phone. We worried at first when we dropped the home phone (a couple of years ago) about one our grand-kids being here and not having a phone to call out on if help were needed. That worry has passed. They all have their own phones and about live on them...
My wife carries a pre-paid Straight-Talk phone for $45 a month, unlimited talk, text and data. Absolutely no complaints about it. Always a good signal.
I carry a pre-paid Tracfone that averages out to about $8 a month. I don't like talking on the phone, I have a minor hearing problem and most people on the other end are doing 6 other things including talking to at least one other person at their location. That and I spent many years constantly on the phone with clients and now I don't want to be bothered. My grown kids all know that if my phone rings somebody had better be bleeding...
Most of my calls both in and out are with my wife, sometimes even here in the house. The cell is a really useful tool here on the farm. I was outside yesterday and I called my wife to tell her I was going to feed the horses. She like to be out there at feeding time. We often call each other just to locate the other, especially when shopping.
We use Verizon's WIFI hot spot for internet service ($50 mo. for 5 gigs) since we can't get DSL or cable here and are generally happy with it. The down side of it is that we do run over once in a while and we rarely look at videos that are posted. The web is shifting to videos but Verizon's minimum is not keeping up. It annoys the crap out of me when I open some page and start reading and when I scroll down half a page there is some video running that I didn't even know was there (I keep my sound turned off).
One of the main things I like about the Verizon WIFI hot-spot is that it is fully portable. If we go on the road I can take it along and always stay connected. It can be a big help to pull up a map of where you are going at any time. I would rather have a map than a GPS.
The changes we want to make is to replace my wife's phone with an Android smart phone and replace my phone with one like the one she has now with a full slide-out qwerty keyboard. I absolutely detest texting on my old flip phone.
One thing we have discovered is to be careful about what phone we buy for Straight-talk. Straight-talk was originally all through Verizon which has great coverage here but most of the Android phones that Straight-talk sells now are not Verizon. Many of them are on Sprint (which sucks big time here) or AT&T which is not much better. There is a code on the package that tells which one is which but the store people will not generally tell you about it...
I keep looking at tablets but am frankly pretty disgusted with their presentation in stores and advertising. No real display or discussion of what they can do, just glitz and sizzle. I also do a lot of extensive researching on-line and really like my 17" wide-screen laptop for all of that reading. I spend a lot of time on-line at home but when away I only want the minimum for maps and checking stuff quickly. I also type bad enough on a full keyboard...


.

[burkhome]

I have an I phone with ATT. $20 for 300 meg data. I use the phone predominately as a PDA. If I use data I am typically at home with wi fi. The only data I use is for GPS function. I spend a lot of time dealing with phone at work and I don't use phone anymore than absolutely necessary when not there.

[joedw00]

I tell everyone that I have a smart phone "It tells me when I have a phone call" That is all it does. We don't have text or internet on any of our phones. I do have a touch screen which I like. We share 550 mins with AT&T for 3 phones and have never gone over, and have roll over mins in the bank. My wife does most of the talking. Our son and I don't talk much. Our bill is about $80.00 a month for 3 of us.