In need of cell phone advice

My wife, our daughter and I each have an iPhone. A 5s, a 4s and a 4. I've resisted upgrading for years, but each of them is starting to seriously fail. We are on a share plan with Verizon. I'm going to have to bite the bullet and replace each. Any suggestions on how to go about doing so with the least pain?

unless you need great coverage ditch Verizon or ATT. Switch carriers and go with Sprint or T-Mobile. Both will be cheaper. Verizon and ATT are the MOST expensive out of all the carriers.

Or you can buy used/refurb.

If going about this with the least pain means with the least cash outlay then your best route is to change carriers.
The cell phone business model is such the the cell phone companies (carriers) are willing to pay a lot to gain a customer but put less dollars toward actually keeping a customer.
As an example, right now with VZ, if you're a new customer who trades in a working smartphone and starts service, VZ will give you $300 off toward a new handset. As an existing customer, they will give you $100.

The posting above gives a Sprint recommendation but as a past employee (who left there 4 years ago) it is really hard for me to recommend them. In the years since I left, the company is in a complete shambles. I can't begin to tell you how mismanaged the entire company has been. I caution you to be very weary of Sprint's current promotion of "cutting your bill in half." After fees and required insurances on leased (never owned handsets) I hear a lot of stories about savings of $10 per month, etc. Far from half.

As I noted above, VZ is currently giving $300 in handset trade in to new customers. If you happen to be a Sprint customer who does not own your phone (but leases it) and you should happen to "trade-in" that handset to VZ then you can expect a big fee from Sprint because you actually never owned that handset. Like selling a car that you do not own but rather lease w/o expecting to pay off the lease.

Yes, ATT and VZ are the most expensive but have the coverage to back up those prices. You might consider TMo and in Florida, they are not a bad choice.

Buy three of these: http://www.motorola.com/us/products/moto-g

Total price is $537. You get three completely unlocked phones you can use on any GSM network. We use MetroPCS. I currently pay $90 per month for two phones with 5GB of data. Your bill would be $135. And if MetroPCS ticks me off I'm not locked into a contract and can go to a different carrier at will.

My 2014 Moto G replaced my iPhone 4s. It does everything the iPhone did, plus it has a SD Card slot. I've got a 16GB micro SD card in mine right now, which cost me a whopping $4 at Micro Center.

I agree with selfain in that if you do not have to stay with Apple and will go to Android you can open yourself up to a whole additional world of savings.
I too like the Motorola handsets and carry one myself. I find them to be a very good value.

Metro PCS is a wholey owned brand of TMo.

Today, Cricket announced some discounts on Apple handsets. http://www.phonescoop.com/articles/article.php?a=16898

At these discounts you will be required to use these handsets with Cricket service for 6 months after which you can request to have Cricket unlocked to work with other carriers.
Cricket is the prepaid brand wholly owned by ATT.

Does anyone have any firsthand experience with the Google Nexus phones?

Republic Wireless has been awesome to me. sure, a glitch here or there, (usually when it happens it means my cell call starts about 30 seconds after I ask it to - not sure if thats republic or the phone - moto g), but for LESS than 20 bucks a month, I do not complain.

I get better coverage than my wife, who is still on sprint.

calteg wrote: Does anyone have any firsthand experience with the Google Nexus phones?

No personal experience but here is a link to good in depth reviews of all the Nexus offerings.
Take note that Google has contracted with different handset manufacturers to make different models.

http://www.phonescoop.com/search/results.php?q=Nexus+

I like Moto who makes the Nexus 6. I would also look at the Moto X Pure Edition http://www.motorola.com/us/products/moto-x-pure-edition?utm_source=google&utm_medium=cpc&utm_term=moto%20pure&utm_content=VML-PS:X2-Branded-CPC:1000415&utm_campaign=1Brand-MotoXPure&gclid=Cj0KEQiAkIWzBRDK1ayo-Yjt38wBEiQAi7NnPw_hrEe1IG1A9BCkHYRGHKvin0ipTbJomYKvE0e8HXIaAiqf8P8HAQ&dclid=CMOL-dGrw8kCFYtENwod3NwJRA

I would check out straight talk or republic. I'm considering checking them out once my time runs out with verizon.

calteg wrote: Does anyone have any firsthand experience with the Google Nexus phones?

I have a Motorola Nexus 6. Its awesome. I have friends with the newer 6P and 5X and they are equally nice.

We all use google fi for service. It is ridiculously cheap if you don't use much data.

We are likely going to Cricket come the first of the year ATT network, $35 a month per line. If you are buying new phones, I would likely end up on Republic but we already have perfectly fine handsets.

calteg wrote: Does anyone have any firsthand experience with the Google Nexus phones?

I'm typing this on a Google Nexus 6. I'm right at a year of ownership, and it has been great. No real problems, and I get monthly security patches. My only gripe is that AT&T is dragging their feet on my Marshmallow upgrade.

Robbie wrote: Republic Wireless has been awesome to me. sure, a glitch here or there, (usually when it happens it means my cell call starts about 30 seconds after I ask it to - not sure if thats republic or the phone - moto g), but for LESS than 20 bucks a month, I do not complain. I get better coverage than my wife, who is still on sprint.

Republic Wireless is just WIFI calling with Spring towers as a non-wifi backup.

What phone does your wife have?

Thanks folks. I am going to head to Verizon today to see how painful they're going to make it. From there, I'll investigate the alternatives.

second all the props for Republic but then I rarely use my phone. $10 a month then the govt. adds approximately 27% in taxes Living in a 'big' city probably makes it easier as there is wi-fi everywhere even if you have to ask for passwords. The $5 plan was a bit too ambitious I found however.

Try to visit a true VZ corporate store rather than an independent retailer. The Corp store will have more power.
To tell the difference, notice the slight variation in the sign.

This is Wireless iCon who is an independent retailer contracted to sell VZ products and considered a Premium Retailer.

The true and direct Corp stores will not have this second line of text on the sign. It will just say Verizon.

I was all ready to say, " don't text and drive." based on the thread title, then I read the first post.

Mike wrote:

calteg wrote: Does anyone have any firsthand experience with the Google Nexus phones?

I'm typing this on a Google Nexus 6. I'm right at a year of ownership, and it has been great. No real problems, and I get monthly security patches. My only gripe is that AT&T is dragging their feet on my Marshmallow upgrade.

buy a Nexus device outright from Google (Play store) and you'll get Android updates immediately.

I had a Nexus 4 and Nexus 5. Liked them both better than the Galaxy S5 I was given by my employer.

My wife and son have iPhones on Cricket. About $80/month for both (with autopay) . 2 gigs and 5 gigs of data, IIRC. We're in a metro area but ATT network, when traveling, is great. And you still get data if you go over the allowance, it just gets throttled to 2G speeds.

singleslammer wrote: We are likely going to Cricket come the first of the year ATT network, $35 a month per line. If you are buying new phones, I would likely end up on Republic but we already have perfectly fine handsets.

Do understand that AT&T throttles Cricket as a secondary user on their towers.

OHSCrifle wrote:

Mike wrote:

calteg wrote: Does anyone have any firsthand experience with the Google Nexus phones?

I'm typing this on a Google Nexus 6. I'm right at a year of ownership, and it has been great. No real problems, and I get monthly security patches. My only gripe is that AT&T is dragging their feet on my Marshmallow upgrade.

buy a Nexus device outright from Google (Play store) and you'll get Android updates immediately. I had a Nexus 4 and Nexus 5. Liked them both better than the Galaxy S5 I was given by my employer. My wife and son have iPhones on Cricket. About $80/month for both (with autopay) . 2 gigs and 5 gigs of data, IIRC. We're in a metro area but ATT network, when traveling, is great. And you still get data if you go over the allowance, it just gets throttled to 2G speeds.

I've gone the unlocked route a few times, and it's nice to have a phone that was made primarily for the person using the phone instead of the faceless corporation who sold it. This is my first Nexus phone. I wanted to go Android again, but I didn't want to be left out in the cold for updates on the most vulnerable smartphone platform again. Before this phone, I've had to take updates into my own hands as firmware releases missed promised release dates over and over. I figured a Nexus would be my best bet.

My previous updates within Lollipop were quick. I think AT&T doesn't care about year-old phones. I'm about to go the manual flash route, since 6.0.1 was released yesterday, and I still don't have my OTA of 6.0.

Buy everyone a Nexus 5x and get on the Google FI Project phone service. I did it and will never go back

Flight Service wrote:

Robbie wrote: Republic Wireless has been awesome to me. sure, a glitch here or there, (usually when it happens it means my cell call starts about 30 seconds after I ask it to - not sure if thats republic or the phone - moto g), but for LESS than 20 bucks a month, I do not complain. I get better coverage than my wife, who is still on sprint.

Republic Wireless is just WIFI calling with Spring towers as a non-wifi backup. What phone does your wife have?

Wife has iPhone 5 I think. Republic also uses Verizon to back up Sprint if it can find no Sprint signal. So signal far outpaces sprint network.

Plus, even in the boonies, I am constantly surprised how many free wifi hotspots exist.

I have a moto-G , purchased new, unlocked, from amazon. Under $200 about a year ago, now under $150. The only thing I don't like is it doesn't have enough memory for all the apps that I want, and I haven't figured out how to delete all the factory installed apps that I don't use. I think that if I figured that out, I'd have more than enough memory.

My family is currently on at&t, which has great coverage, but IMO, costs way to much, we will be going back to T-Mobile when all devices are out of contract. We had them previously, and coverage was good enough back then, probably better now, and all of our devices should be compatible.

If my moto-G dies prematurely I would replace it with another Motorola product in a heartbeat.

In reply to foxtrapper:

I understand that but I am not a heavy user. The largest thing I stream regularly is Pandora. Most of my data is done over wifi and just use data in emergencies.