Hello everyone!
I'm new to the forums. Our family lives in a hilly area where cellular coverage is spotty at best. Because we only occasionally use cells, we bought Tracfone throw-away cells. Tracfone is a pay-as-you-go service that you buy minutes to use. It costs $20 every 90 days to keep a phone active. (It just isn't worth for us to pay $40 per month per phone to get a regular smartphone in this area. Our cellular use is light.
Last year, one of us decided to take the leap to smartphones. We saw a deal on QVC and purchased a Tracfone LG Optimus Dynamic II L39C smartphone that runs Jellybean 4.1.3 and bought it to try it out. Tracfone is a pretty cheap and cheesy service (you get what you pay for), but with the LG phone, transmission quality is noticeably improved over the previous Motorola V170 throw-away phone.
Does anyone else here use Tracfone? We're coming up on the first anniversary of this phone being activated, and we need to find out when the deadline is for adding minutes so we know when to buy airtime. But our biggest question is this:
The QVC deal for the LG is a nice step up from the throw-aways, but it's a minimal smartphone. It has minimal capabilities. (Only 2 GB removable storage, older Jellybean OS, extra-thick case that can be cracked open to replace battery, but the unit doesn't seem solid as a result, low-res camera, relatively small screen, etc.) We noticed on Tracfone's web page that you can "bring your own phone", provided it is Android. We were wondering how this could work. Does this mean one can buy a new unlocked Android phone, like an Amazon Fire Phone or an HTC or whatever, with all the nice bells and whistles, and couple it with the Tracfone service, and it will work?
I'm new to the forums. Our family lives in a hilly area where cellular coverage is spotty at best. Because we only occasionally use cells, we bought Tracfone throw-away cells. Tracfone is a pay-as-you-go service that you buy minutes to use. It costs $20 every 90 days to keep a phone active. (It just isn't worth for us to pay $40 per month per phone to get a regular smartphone in this area. Our cellular use is light.
Last year, one of us decided to take the leap to smartphones. We saw a deal on QVC and purchased a Tracfone LG Optimus Dynamic II L39C smartphone that runs Jellybean 4.1.3 and bought it to try it out. Tracfone is a pretty cheap and cheesy service (you get what you pay for), but with the LG phone, transmission quality is noticeably improved over the previous Motorola V170 throw-away phone.
Does anyone else here use Tracfone? We're coming up on the first anniversary of this phone being activated, and we need to find out when the deadline is for adding minutes so we know when to buy airtime. But our biggest question is this:
The QVC deal for the LG is a nice step up from the throw-aways, but it's a minimal smartphone. It has minimal capabilities. (Only 2 GB removable storage, older Jellybean OS, extra-thick case that can be cracked open to replace battery, but the unit doesn't seem solid as a result, low-res camera, relatively small screen, etc.) We noticed on Tracfone's web page that you can "bring your own phone", provided it is Android. We were wondering how this could work. Does this mean one can buy a new unlocked Android phone, like an Amazon Fire Phone or an HTC or whatever, with all the nice bells and whistles, and couple it with the Tracfone service, and it will work?
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