T-Mobile vs. Straight Talk (What even is Straight Talk?)

[theological]

I'm definitely getting the Nexus 4, planning on staying up til midnight on Monday just to order it. The only question now is of carrier, and I'm between T-Mo and Straight Talk due to price. As T-Mo is a full carrier, part of the "big four", and has a $30 unlimited everything-but-phone plan, I'm leaning towards that. The coverage is good enough in my area, and I can always switch if it's not. The other option for me is Straight Talk, with a $45 "unlimited" plan. I don't know the bounds of their unlimited-ness, how the service is, which carrier it's through, or really anything about how the service works. What do you think? Can anybody clarify more on the difference between the two carriers?

More information about my own specific setup:
Location - Kingston/Plymouth MA
Phone - Nexus 4 16gb
Usage - I don't do too much calling, and I'm planning on doing everything through Google Voice with GrooVe VOIP. I do a ton of texting, and if the Google Voice app isn't as laggy on the N4 as it is on my GNex, I'll be switching.
Current Phone and Service - Verizon GNex 32gb, my verizon coverage is TERRIBLE in this area, I don't even have enough service to squeeze out a text at certain friend's houses.

If you have any more questions, of course, let me know! Thank you all again for the help!

 

[Woosh]

I'm definitely getting the Nexus 4, planning on staying up til midnight on Monday just to order it. The only question now is of carrier, and I'm between T-Mo and Straight Talk due to price. As T-Mo is a full carrier, part of the "big four", and has a $30 unlimited everything-but-phone plan, I'm leaning towards that. The coverage is good enough in my area, and I can always switch if it's not. The other option for me is Straight Talk, with a $45 "unlimited" plan. I don't know the bounds of their unlimited-ness, how the service is, which carrier it's through, or really anything about how the service works. What do you think? Can anybody clarify more on the difference between the two carriers?

More information about my own specific setup:
Location - Kingston/Plymouth MA
Phone - Nexus 4 16gb
Usage - I don't do too much calling, and I'm planning on doing everything through Google Voice with GrooVe VOIP. I do a ton of texting, and if the Google Voice app isn't as laggy on the N4 as it is on my GNex, I'll be switching.
Current Phone and Service - Verizon GNex 32gb, my verizon coverage is TERRIBLE in this area, I don't even have enough service to squeeze out a text at certain friend's houses.

If you have any more questions, of course, let me know! Thank you all again for the help!

T-Mo prepaid isn't quite the same as the normal T-Mo plans, But I had no probs with mine except what I have with normal T-Mo. Building pen and such.

Its not very transparent which carrier you use, either you buy T-Mo sim or an AT&T sim.

Biggest difference is that you get "unlimited" minutes through ST while T-Mo you are limited to only 100.

Try out the 100 minute plan for a few months and if you can get by with the coverage and the limited minutes then keep that, if not move on and try something else.

 

[2defmouze]

I'm definitely getting the Nexus 4, planning on staying up til midnight on Monday just to order it. The only question now is of carrier, and I'm between T-Mo and Straight Talk due to price. As T-Mo is a full carrier, part of the "big four", and has a $30 unlimited everything-but-phone plan, I'm leaning towards that. The coverage is good enough in my area, and I can always switch if it's not. The other option for me is Straight Talk, with a $45 "unlimited" plan. I don't know the bounds of their unlimited-ness, how the service is, which carrier it's through, or really anything about how the service works. What do you think? Can anybody clarify more on the difference between the two carriers?

More information about my own specific setup:
Location - Kingston/Plymouth MA
Phone - Nexus 4 16gb
Usage - I don't do too much calling, and I'm planning on doing everything through Google Voice with GrooVe VOIP. I do a ton of texting, and if the Google Voice app isn't as laggy on the N4 as it is on my GNex, I'll be switching.
Current Phone and Service - Verizon GNex 32gb, my verizon coverage is TERRIBLE in this area, I don't even have enough service to squeeze out a text at certain friend's houses.

If you have any more questions, of course, let me know! Thank you all again for the help!

T-Mo prepaid isn't quite the same as the normal T-Mo plans, But I had no probs with mine except what I have with normal T-Mo. Building pen and such.

Its not very transparent which carrier you use, either you buy T-Mo sim or an AT&T sim.

Biggest difference is that you get "unlimited" minutes through ST while T-Mo you are limited to only 100.

Try out the 100 minute plan for a few months and if you can get by with the coverage and the limited minutes then keep that, if not move on and try something else.

To build on the "try it out" suggestion.. I know this option isn't for everyone, but my plan will be to get the phone and activate it on Tmo's $30 prepaid plan, getting a number assigned from them, try it out for a day or 2 and make sure it gets service where I need it to and I'm satisfied with that and general usage factors, like battery life (I bring a charger wherever I go anyways, lol, so as long as it isn't atrocious I should be fine). Once I'm satisfied I'm going to import my VZW number into Google Voice, cancel the VZW service, and set it up to work with the Nexus 4. Once you import your number into Google Voice you can set it to work on any phone and it can easily follow you forever, basically. This guide I've been linking to in the threads around here has great info on doing all that: [GUIDE] Smartphone Service for just $30/month - xda-developers

 

[Andrew Martonik]

I'm definitely getting the Nexus 4, planning on staying up til midnight on Monday just to order it. The only question now is of carrier, and I'm between T-Mo and Straight Talk due to price. As T-Mo is a full carrier, part of the "big four", and has a $30 unlimited everything-but-phone plan, I'm leaning towards that. The coverage is good enough in my area, and I can always switch if it's not. The other option for me is Straight Talk, with a $45 "unlimited" plan. I don't know the bounds of their unlimited-ness, how the service is, which carrier it's through, or really anything about how the service works. What do you think? Can anybody clarify more on the difference between the two carriers?

T-Mobile's prepaid offerings and Straight Talk's offerings are on-par with eachother. T-Mobile Monthly 4G (the prepaid side of T-Mobile USA) offers really cheap plans like the $30 one you mentioned, as well as two good $60 and $70 options as well. They're pay-per-month with no contract or device subsidy. There's also no fees involved, just sales tax on the refills you buy. On the $30 plan, you get 100 minutes, but no nights/weekends/mobile-to-mobile minutes. Just 100. Your data is "unlimited" but throttled to 2G speeds after 5GB.

Straight Talk is an MVNO (Mobile Virtual Network Operator) that buys service from AT&T and T-Mobile, then re-sells it under their own name. The Nexus 4 lets you have the choice of going with either AT&T or T-Mo, which is nice. You choose at the time of checkout with Straight Talk wich service you want. You get unlimited talk/text, and "unlimited" data. Depending on your area, you'll get more or less data before they throttle you or cut you off completely. For pretty much anywhere in the nation, you stay under 2GB and you're safe with Straight Talk. In certain areas where its less populous and there are fewer Straight Talk users, you may be able to use upwards of 5GB per month. YMMV.

If you need more info, there are a lot (I mean a LOT) of threads in this forum about it, people have been breathlessly explaining this over and over again in the N4 and GNex forums especially. I also would like to refer you to a post that ran on the site a couple months ago referring to prepaid that should answer some questions:

Prepaid: Not just for burner phones anymore | Android Central

I suggest you do a lot of research on your own. These things have been talked about over and over again all with the same answers. There's a lot to take in, but there's not really anything new to be discussed. Once you decide what works for you then you can choose it and be done. If you have a specific question about a policy or something on a certain carrier, chime back in in the forums and see if someone can help out.

 

[pete1118]

I Have not use ST yet, currently on the $30 T-Mobile plan. When the coverage is good TM works fine as you would expect. One problem however, is in the west TM's coverage outside of cities can be very spotty. If you don't travel in the west much then may work for you. Make sure you study the coverage maps, there are different ones for contract TM and pre-pay. Contract TM lets you roam on other networks (with limits), prepay does not roam. Maps seem accurate enough.

ST coverage maps are not very good, one of the things that has held me back from them but you do as has been pointed out have a choice of ATT or TM. You can get a pretty good idea of what ST ATT coverage will be like by going to the ATT website and looking at the maps for the GO Phone which looks to have similar coverage to ST. Have fun!

Sent from my Transformer TF101 using Tapatalk 2

 

[TheMarcus]

From what I heard about Straight Talk is that THEY decide when they feel you've used too much data and there's no guideline so you could be throttled without notice.

Just do what I'm going to do: try them all. I'm currently a T-Mobile family plan, but, once my contract is up, I'm going to try out both Simple Mobile and Straight Talk. If I'm not satisfied with their service, then I'll pick up the $30 T-Mobile plan.

Also, kind of related, does anyone else with T-Mobile feel like they calculate your data usage kind of off? When I had Virgin Mobile, my monthly usage was between 3 and 4 GB. When I first got T-Mobile and the first few months of me using it, my data usage would EASILY exceed 5 GB. I don't think I used my phone any differently, except that I did stop streaming music and YouTube as often to keep my data usage down. I recently switched to their unlimited, no throttling plan and my usage is close to 10 GB just using my phone how I'd like to use. That seems excessive.

 

[Andrew Martonik]

Also, kind of related, does anyone else with T-Mobile feel like they calculate your data usage kind of off? When I had Virgin Mobile, my monthly usage was between 3 and 4 GB. When I first got T-Mobile and the first few months of me using it, my data usage would EASILY exceed 5 GB. I don't think I used my phone any differently, except that I did stop streaming music and YouTube as often to keep my data usage down. I recently switched to their unlimited, no throttling plan and my usage is close to 10 GB just using my phone how I'd like to use. That seems excessive.

Everyone uses their phone differently, so hard to say. In my time with T-Mobile, their online usage tracker and my usage tracking on the phone were within about 15-50MB of eachother at the end of the month with 3-5GB of usage. Always seemed accurate to me.