Essential Phone on Metro PCS

Trineki13

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Nov 27, 2017
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Like the title, I was thinking of picking up the essential for $400 as an upgrade to my galaxy s7 so that I have a new phone and my gf can use my old phone. However, we both use metro pcs and I was wondering if anyone knows if it is compatible.

also if that is a worthy upgrade - for info I am fairly technical and "beta" testing wont bug me, im mostly concerned with how my compatibility with metro pcs will work.
 

antomic

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Oct 7, 2013
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I am using the Essential phone on MetroPCS and it works fine. I have noticed though that the signal strength indicator at my location shows weaker reception than my other phones and the phone that preceded this Essential. The others (Samsung, LG and ZTE) show stronger reception, usually 4 out of five bars (80%).

The Essential does not have a bar indicator but my best approximation of its signal strength indicator is that it fluctuates between 25% and 50%. Yes, it fluctuates even when I am seated and not moving around. I am located in a metropolitan area so I am surprised that the Essential shows weaker reception than my other phones.

I have observed 100% reception strength on the Essential when I am outside the home such as the mall.

Despite the indicated weaker reception, it has not affected my use of the Essential. It works fine. 25% or 100% signal strength, I wouldn't know the difference when using it if I did not look at the indicator.

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Update, Jan. 21, 2018:

Looks like I spoke too soon. Bottom line for my experience is that this phone does not work well with MetroPCS. Obviously, some others on T-Mobile and MetroPCS do not have any problems. So, it is a YMMV (your mileage may vary) situation.

From my experience over the past month (though it started well), the phone is "temperamental" at my location on MetroPCS. Sometimes, it works very well and is fast and at other times, its slowness gets me so very frustrated. The inconsistent performance happens at the same location, not that I am moving around. Some days good, some days bad. Even on the same day, I get inconsistent performance.

I have tried very hard to give it a chance, trying different settings, etc. I have read forums here and elsewhere and taken others' suggestions. Alas, the Essential phone is still temperamental. I wanted to wait for the Oreo update (I did not do the beta) but it is coming to the end of January and it is still not out.

Essential's latest Reddit communications give vague and somewhat evasive answers to the reception issue. I do not feel assured they know what the problem is. No information as to what they are doing to address the problem.

I am generally willing to give any company a chance but I'll be damned if I will go through another "BlackBerry-like" experience. I was so loyal to the berry, even getting the Passport which failed on me after only a few months and I never was able to get recourse on that. That was the last straw and I switched to Android and have wondered why I did not do so sooner.

I very much want to keep this Essential phone but I keep thinking of my misplaced loyalty to BlackBerry so I have decided that I will sell the Essential. If they do release another phone with no reception problems and the reviews are good, I will certainly consider getting it.

I now regret getting rid of my Huawei Mate 9 for the Essential.

Understand that I am not saying that the Essential phone doesn't work well with MetroPCS. Just that it doesn't play nice where I am. Switching carrier is not an option for me because I have four phones on a very good deal with MetroPCS.
 
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