My experience with an unlocked Note 9 on AT&T

[tomcat777]

Good luck! Either which way you go, The Note 9 is an awesome phone. As much as I liked my Note 8, the 9 just seems to go above and beyond in every way.

 

[sfrrr]

Rabbit watch together

 

[sfrrr]

Please delete my post about rabbit. I dropped my phone and greaves it wrong. Very sorry.

 

[OmegaSparks]

Rabbit watch together

Lol what?

 

[Rukbat]

Re: My experience with an unlocked Note 9 on AT&T

Tomcat777.. Now you have me rethinking this. Shoot... My coverage is not great. Wonder if I flashed Att firmware if that would make it better?

No, it's a combination of the modem (the same for all GSM carriers) and the signal strength. If you don't have great signal strength with AT&T, you're using the wrong carrier (and it's costing you battery).

 

[Rukbat]

- There is no visual voice mail (you have to manually dial in to vmail). I fixed this by signing up for a Google Voice number and having unanswered calls and busy calls forwarded to that and use that as voice mail instead. It is much better than AT&T visual voice mail, so I would probably do this even if I had AT&T visual voicemail.

You can change thast tgo have the Google Voice number call your cellphone. Then give out your Google Voice number. No worry about porting anything if you change carriers, part of the country, parts of the world (planet, when we get to Mars and have Mars internet and Earth internet connected together), etc. I'm still not sure of my phone number, but I've been using my GV number as "my" number for years. When they ask if I want my old number ported, I say "no, don't bother, that's not the one I use anyway", then have to explain how GV works.

 

[aggie]

Well, for me it was supposed to be the ability to switch to Verizon this fall. AT&T is terrible in the Albuquerque/Santa Fe area, so I had a grand plan to get the free headphones and $400 for my Note 8 and then switch the whole family over (iPhone users) in October. I had no idea of the issues with losing features until after I had ordered the phone and the pre-order deals went away. It was then then I started coming across posts about unlocked phones, and that they are even worse on Verizon.

So, it seems to be working fine for me so far (we'll see how it goes when I travel in rural areas) and I plan on sticking with this phone for the next year. AT&T is so bad out here that I might not notice a difference! If it goes fine, I will stay with unlocked for the flexibility. If nothing else, I'll know a lot more about unlocked phones! Still might switch to Verizon this fall...

Actually, I have used the Note 9 unlocked on both AT&T and Verizon and in my experience this is not accurate. Got my unlocked Note 9 last Friday and had it on AT&T until Tuesday. No VOLTE or HD Calling. You can talk and use data simultaneously but it drops you down to HSPA+ for data. With Verizon, VOLTE works and I have been able to talk and browse on LTE. Not that that is a deal breaker, I find HSPA to be plenty fine and I'm not talking and browsing at the same time very often.

Wifi Calling does not appear to work for either carrier. I've yet to try to set up visual voicemail for Verizon but I use Google Voice for my voicemail so there is no need for native visual voicemail.

 

[Itsa_Me_Mario]

I thought ATT had a visual voicemail app available on the Play Store... I think I've read threads about it before.

I think it may only work on AT&T branded phones. Same with WiFi calling and HD Voice, etc.

 

[zavandiver]

The ATT visual voicemail does work on unlocked phones, but the transcription leaves a lot to be desired.

 

[droidiac13]

Actually, I have used the Note 9 unlocked on both AT&T and Verizon and in my experience this is not accurate. Got my unlocked Note 9 last Friday and had it on AT&T until Tuesday. No VOLTE or HD Calling. You can talk and use data simultaneously but it drops you down to HSPA+ for data. With Verizon, VOLTE works and I have been able to talk and browse on LTE. Not that that is a deal breaker, I find HSPA to be plenty fine and I'm not talking and browsing at the same time very often.

Wifi Calling does not appear to work for either carrier. I've yet to try to set up visual voicemail for Verizon but I use Google Voice for my voicemail so there is no need for native visual voicemail.

100% agree with everything you have written. Started out with my unlocked on Verizon, VoLTE worked great, could talk and surf on LTE without any issues. No wifi calling, but I don't use it.

Moved it to AT&T and when on a call can only get H+. I was able to download AT&T visual voicemail and it works perfectly as it should. No VoLTE or HD calling for me either. I have messed with the APN settings and no luck. AT&T reps say it should work fine, but I'm not sure they know what they are talking about. One other note, while I am on LTE, the speeds jump up and down terribly. 10 to 50 for download. It's absolutely terrible.

 

[droidiac13]

See attached screenshot of speeds.

 

[anon(5719825)]

Re: My experience with an unlocked Note 9 on AT&T

No, it's a combination of the modem (the same for all GSM carriers) and the signal strength. If you don't have great signal strength with AT&T, you're using the wrong carrier (and it's costing you battery).

This is true. At home, I have to use WiFi calling on AT&T or else I have no signal at least during the day time. At night, my signal is good enough that I can stream YouTube videos on 720p. WiFi calling has saved my battery life and on phones where I could not use WiFi calling, the battery life has lasted maybe 16 hrs with very light screen use.

Because of this, I bought an AT&T Note 9 so that I could use WiFi calling.

I've been able to use my AT&T sim on iPhones with no problems because any iPhone supports AT&T WiFi calling straight out of the box no matter what phone as long as it's carrier unlocked, factory unlocked or the AT&T model. It's just Android phones that don't always support WiFi calling.

On my AT&T Note 9, I'm getting 1-1.5 days standby with 4-5 hrs screen time which is great and that's with WiFi calling on so WiFi calling does improve the battery with a weak signal.

I have a few lines on T-Mobile still and I've been buying unlocked phones to use on it. I have a unlocked S9+ that I'm using on T-Mobile and a factory unlocked iPhone 8+.

I came back to AT&T in March to try it out and I may or may not keep my two lines due to the signal at home issue and that's why I still have T-Mobile. Before WiFi calling existed, I could not use AT&T at all and bailed on them around 2011 or so.

Thank God WiFi calling exists.

 

[srgonu]

The best part of T-mobile. I get all of these on my unlocked note 8.
WiFi calling, video calling, HD voice and Visual voicemail.
No compromises.

 

[Harlemknight]

Can't you use wifi calling with Google voice?

 

[anon(5719825)]

Can't you use wifi calling with Google voice?

Google Voice is just an app.

 

[Harlemknight]

Google Voice is just an app.

https://support.google.com/voice/answer/7649189?co=GENIE.Platform=Android&hl=en

 

[anon(5719825)]

https://support.google.com/voice/answer/7649189?co=GENIE.Platform=Android&hl=en

Looks like those instructions are outdated because I can find no reference to WiFi calling in Google Voice settings.

 

[Harlemknight]

Mine shows it.

 

[anon(5719825)]

Mine shows it.

I just don't see it anywhere in settings. I guess that's why I never knew it was possible.

 

[Harlemknight]

I just don't see it anywhere in settings. I guess that's why I never knew it was possible.

Try the first link that I posted, I think you have to sign up for it.