Cricket is literally AT&T. It's 100% owned by AT&T now and is just a budget version of AT&T service. It uses the exact same towers. There's no difference in service except that Cricket gets throttled to 8 mb/s.
Precisely. I recommend Cricket to anyone looking for a pre-paid option who wants good service. I do think at&t should have changed the name of Cricket to something else. Too many people think it's the old CDMA cricket that had roaming agreements with Sprint which was just bad+bad=terribad
To be fair, Sprint has improved quite a bit. Those were some dark times when they bungled their 4G rollout by first trying WiMax and then only deploying a 5x5 LTE network with very questionable backhaul upgrades. T-Mobile was late to the 4G era but at least they had invested in useful HSPA technology and properly rolled out LTE. Sprint has improved quite a bit since then. They fixed their voice quality and coverage problems in much of the country by re-purposing part of the Nextel 800 mhz spectrum for 1x CDMA voice and they are re-purposing the rest for nice low band LTE coverage (although it too is only a 5x5 channel). Why it took them until 2013 to shut down the Nextel network is beyond me. Nextel's iDEN technology had no upgrade path. It was already outdated when Sprint bought Nextel and somehow managed to keep the network alive for another 7 years. Sprint's problem is that in spite of their recent progress they still have lots of catching up to do because in many areas their tower spacing stinks and the backhaul on their towers is awful. Also most of their usable spectrum is tied up in the 2.5 ghz range which is great for speed and capacity but ultimately will require significantly more towers to make the experience usable. Dont write off Sprint entirely. In some markets, they really are a great choice. They have the best network portfolio for speed and capacity. They just need to figure out how to properly deploy it. Where I live, Sprint is fine. And I'd have no problem using Sprint if it weren't for the fact that CDMA doesn't support simultaneous voice and data.
Either android phones suck, Samsung phones, or to bile One of the above has been causing my phone to drop text messages. I'm getting a message not found from people trying to text me and I don't know who they are.
I've been using Cricket back when they were Aio since April '14 and haven't had an issues at all. The LTE 8MB cap isn't bad since I just stream Pandora, the occasional show/movie here and there along with their 10GB plan for $60 ($55 autopay) is a steal I've used the service in NJ/NY/Vegas/NOLA with no problems.
Did you previously own an iphone and use iMessage by any chance? Reason I ask is that if you were, then friends who also have iphones will still try to send texts to you via iMessage (which obviously doesnt exist on android) instead of regular SMS. The other variable is the carrier that you're on. What carrier do you use?
I sincerely doubt it. The major problem facing Windows phones is that it took Microsoft 5 years to respond to the iPhone. The iPhone came out in 2007 and it wasn't until Windows Phone 7 in 2012 that Microsoft had a competitive product at least in terms of hardware+OS. They made the same fatal mistake that killed Palm, Nokia and Blackberry (primarily due to their arrogance toward Apple products) by not moving to the touch interface. By that time, the lion's share of developer resources (and users) had gone to IOS & Android. What was worse for Microsoft, was that by that time Windows phones had become "me too" devices that offered no real compelling reason to users to make the move from IOS or Android. The lack of useful apps only served to exacerbate the issue. Today, in spite of their best efforts, Windows phone usage in the US remains stuck in the 3%-4% range despite excellent hardware. Simply switching to Intel processors isn't going to reverse the fortunes of the Windows phone which is why Microsoft is pinning its hopes on Windows 10 to draw PC & tablet users to their mobile devices.
The charging port on my Galaxy S5 took a **** last week so I got a replacement sent out. Can we just move to wireless charging already? 8 months left to pay off on this S5, and at that point I will probably upgrade to the Note 5.
When my AT&T contract ended earlier this year, I looked at moving to Cricket because AT&T was offering me 3 GB data per month for $45 plus $20 to use a smartphone (in my case, an HTC M7). My research turned up issues in the Dallas area with Cricket so I ended up going to Straight Talk which gives me 5 GB of data per month for $45 ($40 on autopay). Straight Talk is really Tracfone which uses AT&T towers so I haven't noticed any difference in service travelling around Texas, Florida and elsewhere. Since I don't stream video unless when connected to WiFi, 5 GB is more than enough for my uses. The only issue I have now is that my trusty old M7 has developed the dreaded "purple camera" and needs replacing. I've looked at the HTC M9, Alcatel One Touch Idol 3, Moto X and Sony Xperia Z3 (very hard to find). I'm leaning toward the HTC M9 because the M7 has been the best mobile I've ever owned. Too bad HTC the company may not make it especially as the Chinese begin to flood the marketplace.
Not a bad thing really, I personally think both Xiaomi and Huawei makes better phones than HTC nowadays.
They make a wireless charging back for the S5, FYI. For example: http://www.bestbuy.com/site/samsung...lack/7162123.p?id=1219255554401&skuId=7162123
I'm using the M9. I really like the look and feel of the phone, and I stuck a 128GB micro-SD card in for tons of music and media that I work on. Most complaints you'll find are that it's not vastly different from the M8, but I skipped that generation. Biggest drawback would be that Youtube / heavy browsing drains the battery pretty quick. USB charging is very slow, but invest a few bucks in a better rated outlet charger and it charges from zero in about an hour. My battery tends to last about 36 hours with fairly heavy use, a few days in passive mode. Might not be the "best" phone on the market, but I kinda enjoy going against the grain anyway. Happy hunting.
Anybody tried Project Fi by Google? I'm thinking about making the jump when the new Nexus 5 comes out. The Nexus 6 is just too big and too pricey.
I must confess that I am not that familiar with them outside of seeing their discount prepaid phones in stores. BTW, if it's Chinese phones that you're after, take a look here: http://www.lightinthebox.com/c/cell-phones_206?icn=mainflash_3_20150817_en&ici=pic1
Exactly. Regardless of one's carrier and how strongly you feel about them, we can all be grateful AT&T wasn't allowed to devour T-Mobile and cement the wireless duopoly.
