I gotta change phone by end of year. Advice?

[Scoop]

Just got notified a couple of weeks ago that my carrier, Boost Mobile, is upgrading to 5G.
My 2017 phone won't be served.

My present program started out as Virgin Mobile way back in 2004 or so.
Boost took over last year.

I only use phone for calls, text messages, alarms, calendar, minimum internet Google searching.
The plan is a flat $35 a month.

I've got to upgrade the phone and the plan.
MUSTS: Phone book info transfers. [I'd love to keep my old texts, but they said that won't happen.]

If you have made the switch or can recommend a service you like, could you help me out?

 

[MikeD]

Went with a Google Pixel 4. Been happy with it so far. Bought the phone outright.

I had to manually transfer everything over (losing all texts, etc.) because I did not have it saved to Googles cloud.

Have ATT for my provider. Been with them for around 15 years. Like the coverage but rates are high. Been looking to change.

 

[fellmann]

So your carrier is upgrading to 5G and at the same time will be ditching 3G etc ?

 

[Ernst]

Scoop, a year ago or so I replace an old phone with an "unlocked" Motorola Moto X4. I think the price was around $200 which is cheap compared to phones from specific carriers.

The place that I bought it, Best Buy, provided a sim card for free and installed it for the carrier of my choice. I've had no problems with it and if I want to change carriers it just a matter of changing sim cards which you can get for free these days. You're phone number stays the same.

My brother just went through the exact situation your encountering and his provider offered him a new phone when he ask about options. I'm not sure who his carrier is but he had an antique flip phone with no compatability with 5G.

The other option I looked at was a "burner" phone. My main use is phone calls and very limited text so a phone where you simple buy minutes might be good if you're not a heavy user.

Regards

 

[Bobster]

I have ATT and they just shafted me out of continuing to use a perfectly good Samsung Galaxy S3 (8yrs old?). More on that in a second... We have 5 phones on the plan and long-time customers. Me, wife, 2 kids and a biz line. To continue using their service I needed phones that support 4G which are all the other phones in the household except for the S3. They are doing away with 3G in Feb. So a few months back, they sent us (my wife and I) 2 "free" phones called "Motivate", similar in features to the S3 but not really. My wife also had an S3 but ended up with my son's Iphone 6S plus (whatever that model name means) because he got himself a new 11 so her Motivate sits unused. Apparently the 6S plus is 4G. I have an S5 and my dot an Iphone 12. I also have an S7 ready to go into service currently serving as the "backup" phone--pop a SIM card in and it works.

My Motivate had to be activated because ATT took it upon themselves to shut off my S3 which was the biz phone. So an inconvenience having to find what I did with the Motivate (found it! ), then to charge it fully (uses an included, but shorter cabled, special adapter UNLIKE the other 20 in the house... ), then to spend a good amount of time turning all the bloatware off and it might work OK for now. I'm not at all crazy about the phone because the volume control is on the right side directly over the power button which is f****g BS! In comparison, the Samsungs have the volume control on the left, on/off on the right and a "home" button on the bottom of the screen with touch-sensitive buttons to either side. I WILL be taking the wife's unused and my slightly used Motivates to the ATT store very soon to see what else they can give me instead and to get a micro-SIM to go in the S7 should I choose to activate it. And to let them know ATT sukzballz getting rid of 3G.

I also store all my pictures/videos on a micro-SD card on the phone. Gugle never touches or sees ANY of my pictures. Be sure to turn off the photo location EXIF data. I have a cousin with an LG phone who worships at the altar of GUGLE and has ALL of the "helpful" crap enabled like updates and Drive and Photo Sorter and whatever other crap they have. When I use my Samsung Health app (which came with the phone), I use GPS to track me. When I turn the GPS on (I usually leave it, data, BT, wifi, etc. OFF) gugle always wants to "improve accuracy" to which I always disagree... The app itself does not transmit info to Samsung or anyone else unless I wanted it to.

As far as switching texts, contacts, etc. to your new phone it can be done and don't let some numbskull tell you differently. There is an app for that... You run the app and it backs up all your old files to a compressed file. Then you install the app on your new phone and transfer the file to your new phone from the old phone. This might require wifi and/or hooking to your computer. The last time I did it I used an app called "SMS Backup & Restore". It is a paid app but I recall there was a less-featured free version that I used. I don't know if the app still exists in the Play store.

Speaking of the Play store, unfortunately you will probably need it installed to download apps you may want to use. Some apps can be downloaded/are installed from the phone mfg (ie: Samsung), some are downloaded/are installed from the phone service carrier (ie: ATT), and the rest will come from gugle usually (I'm talking Android here). But do take the time to go through the phone and disable all the shit that mfg/carrier/gugle installs IF you don't think you will need it. There are hidden menus that you need to access to turn a lot of stuff off...

Don't let them tell you or coerce you into getting a phone that supports 5G--you don't need it for what you do. Hopefully 4G will be around for quite a while longer. I DO remember when 3G was the big "thing".

PS: you might be able to backup your old phone to your phone carrier via wifi using one of their apps.

PPS: I've bought a new screen/digitizer to be able to transfers files off an old phone before. It was worth the $20-$30 I spent...

PPPS: SMS BUPnResto still exists "contains ads" but you will only use it once so NBD...