The joy of new mobile devices

[Bulldog9]

After a friendly visit from the roving AT&t salesman last week, my wife and I decided to change our service from Verizon to ATT.

Makes a lot of sense financially as we cut our cell phone bill by 2/3.

However..... I've been a dedicated Motorola phone user from the beginning. Because I wanted as pure and Android experiences possible, I went for the Google Pixel 10. I generally keep a phone 5 to 6 years and when I buy will buy direct from Motorola off their website on their clearance items. It's worked really well, even though the Motorola phones have lousy cameras by comparison. My wife on the other hand is addicted to Samsung phones and has been getting a new phone every 2 years just because..... She normally goes to the Verizon store and they do all the setup. This time we had the phones mailed to us.

We wanted to keep our numbers so we set up the porting PIN codes and that all works flawlessly for both phones. I did my Google / Android pure changeover from the Motorola to the new Google pixel 10 and it was effortless and flawless.

However..... Now I'm trying to do my wife's, and the stupid Samsung operating system layover of Android is a royal PITA.......

But I shouldn't be complaining we took our bill from over $200 to $85 a month with unlimited data and free phones to boot with trade-ins. Because I couldn't bear to part with my Motorola theme song we are sending one of her older galaxies in place of mine for the trade-in.

As far as operation I don't see any big difference between the pixel and the Motorola think phone, but the camera is my ears better as is the sound and music. Because both use the Android pure OS, everything seems to be about the same.

I'm just glad that she didn't choose to go to an iPhone because I probably have slit my wrists or kill the whole bottle of bourbon by now.....  I'm kidding of course. I really hope this new Google pixel phone will last a 5 to 6 years or more. Because my Motorola is waterproof, I will probably use it as my backup nav and four music and such on the motorcycles. My last Motorola that was completely waterproof was my 2010 G3. It still works perfectly, but the OS is very old and laggy.

Anyhow, this is the age we live in....

[SIR REAL ED]

Thanks for the info.  My IPhone 8 is getting a bit long in the tooth.

My local computer guru likes Androids, and IIRC thinks Motorola has the highest, most robust build quality.

I will probably look into an alternative to Verizon, perhaps Pure Talk or another smaller company than Verizon.

[Dr. Enzo Toma]

Glad you got things squared away and I hear you on Samsung's UI changes to Android. Both Samsung and Google are currently promising 7 years of software updates to their latest flagship phones, so as long as they aren't lost or broken, you may be able to avoid a phone replacement for a very long time.

If you're an Android user and don't desire an exceptionally rugged phone or other unique physical characteristics, it's hard to beat the Google Pixel phones. Android is literally developed on their hardware and earlier this year Google moved much of the Android open source project to "behind closed doors" where they may gain a larger monopoly over the Android market because of that. With Samsung, unless you reflash the phone, you also end up with a lot of Samsung and carrier bloat. Bundled software that may or may not be useful to you. Even on my Google Pixel, I've reflashed the phone with GrapheneOS to remove much of the stuff I don't want on my phone.

Your scenario of getting the phone for "free" is a situation where going with a major carrier makes sense. For "bring your own device", you can typically get the same phone service, or sometimes slightly reduced network priority, for significantly cheaper if you don't need the convenience of being able to walk into a store for the carrier like you can with T-Mobile, AT&T, and Verizon. Each of those carriers have their own "flanker" brands where they sell the same network access for less, and then there are indy MVNOs (Mobile Virtual Network Operators) that resell network access to the big 3 for less with their own more limited support. Some of these are more difficult to navigate and set up service with, but you can typically get an "unlimited" plan for $25-35/mo + tax (Guzzi content). I've been on Boost Mobile (previously Boost Infinite) for a few years now, which is the AT&T network with a fallback of using T-Mobile when that has poor coverage, and pay $26.69/mo total for "unlimited" where data is only throttled after 30 GB in a month.

[n3303j]

If your Pixel 10 is like my Son-in-law's Pixel 9 Pro.

1. It has a daylight readable screen brighter than most competitors. Makes it great as a GPS on the bike.

2. If you are in an area with no cell service the phone automatically switches over to satellite service! There are no more "no connection" events for him as long as there is a reasonably clear path to the sky.

He is using T-Mobile as a provider.

[kballowe]

I recently picked up a heavily discounted (Guzzi content) Pixel 9A for me and a Samsung Galaxy A26 for the Wife.
That Samsung was, and still can be a PITA.  Good pictures, though.

[Vagrant]

If you can check out Spectrum. We have two phones, unlimited everything, better coverage that ATT $50 total a month for the two and no BS taxes or fees. $25 a line is Guzzi content.

[blackcat]

We recently changed from Verizon to AT&T fiber optic home and two iPhones and saved a substantial amount of money. In terms of the keeping your phone number, that is federal law so don't ever give up your number unless you want a new one. I still have my home phone number from the early 1990's.