Electronics

[hckynut]

On 5/14/2014 kleo said:

hckynt, I find that the LG840G, that I use mainly for texting is very economical. My sister bought it at my suggestion and feels the same. I text a lot having 3 children, grand children plus other relatives. I bought the LG840G with 1500 minutes plus triple for life for 70.00 + tax and s&h. I have had it about 3 weeks and have 1441.67 remaining minutes. This is my 3rd LG. I keep buying because it is cheaper to buy the specials than buy the minutes online plus you get a new phone with accessories. The Samsung Centura seems to eat up the text minutes much faster than the LG. I know it won't cost me $45.00 a month which I am spending now on the Android.

Since I don't text I am basing what I said about texting with the LG840G was how it worked for my wife. All I know is she was having to buy more minutes once she decided "texting was her thing" and the way she was blowing through the minutes? It was cheaper for her to have a $35 monthly plan. Did I like it? Nope, but she is a big girl and if she wants to text that is up to her.

The brand of Android phone does not make any difference when texting with TracFone. They say you can get 3 texts with every minute of calling time. My wife found out differently. I guess it depends on the length of the text or something. As I've said here repeatedly, I do not text and have no reason to think I ever will. I am basing this texting thing on what my wife experienced. A minute is a minute regardless of if you have a Samsung Android or an LG Android cell phone.

I would have to have my wife discuss this texting stuff with you. I only know when they advertise any TracFone Smart Phone on hsn, they say you get 3 text with every minute of talk time. My wife found that to not be true for her thus using up her minutes at a faster pace.

Now I do have the Samsung Centura and the only reason I have it was that I needed to extend my expiration time on my old phone and the Centura looked like a pretty good deal to me on hsn, so I chose that one. I have yet to use it for texting or to send any data. Heck, I can't remember the last time I used it to talk. Most of my cell phone use is for "keeping the time of night" during my adult hockey league games.

With the cost of the ice being $3.00 per minute and the ice rink goes strictly by cell phone time? I use it to make sure our games do not run over, thus I keep phone turned on once I get to the rink. Expensive time piece for sure, but I do also keep it with my when mowing or doing anything outdoors on our acreage when I am home alone. Had 1 heart attack too many when I was home alone and a long ways from the phone in our home.

Now I carry it to call 911 should I have a 3rd heart attack while alone and not close to our home on our acreage. Other than that I do carry it when I go places but as I said, I cannot remember the last time I even turned it on. The only time I turn "power on" is when I plan on using it. When I am done making a call it goes to "power off", unless my wife wants to call me back, then I leave it on.

When it comes to cell phones if I had my way they never would have been available to the public.Too many people have their faces in these things when driving/walking and almost anything else one can think about. I would guess the majority of those with these Smart Phones rarely use them to actually "talk with someone", instead there is the texting/e-mailing/Facebook and so on.

I am glad what you are doing is working out well with you. For me my $5.95 per month is way more stuff than I actually need, but it is a pretty cheap price for the things I can do with this phone should I ever feel the need.

[Qgirl26]

I can't speak for the TSV and this is something I need to find out, but on the LG840G, one text is 160 characters. So if you type 161 characters, they count that as two texts.

[Runner26]

I bought the Samsung Galaxy Centura in September when it was HSN's TSV. I had LG840 prior to that (which unlike majority of people did not like). I'm still using the Centura but as a backup. This was my first foray to smartphones. I saw the presentation on HSN and I thought for the price what do I have to lose.

I like my Centura. Like everyone else points out, this is an entry level phone. But I thought it was great then and still think I got a good deal.

One thing you must be aware of as far as Centura is that depending on what you use the phone for, the time on the phone will randomly reset itself 5-6 hours behind. There is an app on Google Play Store called ClockSync that will fix this. I did not install this app since I never used my phone for alarm clock or reminders.

What you have to remember about Tracfone's smartphone offerings: they all run on Verizon's native network (no roaming) so even if you've had Tracfone's featured phones that used Verizon, their smartphones do not roam. Not a problem for me as I haven't run into any problems with lost services (my first time on Verizon).

The 1200 minutes included in QVC's TSV means you get 1200 minutes (talk) AND 1200 texts And 1200 MB. If you use all your talk minutes, you cannot call anyone til you buy another minute card. However, you'll still be able to text and use data provided you didn't go through them also.

Texting on Centura is easy and fast ONCE I downloaded SwiftKey (I think it was 4.99, not sure). I think they give you a month of trial period. Swype (Swipe?) is also good. I also like TouchPal X which is free but I didn't discovered this until I purchased the SwiftKey. I text so fast now that I'm amazed. It gets better the more you use it.

It was a win-win for me because on LG840 I used almost all my minutes for talking. I texted infrequently and data usage was usually accidental.

If you currently use most of your minutes texting, I don't think smartphone on Tracfone is a good choice for you unless you're willing to do a work-around: Get Google Voice and use Hangout for texting which used either wifi or data.

Currently, Tracfone does not offer "texting" cards only. They do, however, offer "data" cards only (if you use a lot of data). Their minute cards have been a value to me because for my use it was virtually getting the same thing I was getting on LG840 plus text allotment and data allotment for free.

My average usage on Tracfone is about 400 minutes a month. I buy the 1-year 1500 minutes (4500 minutes after tripled) and try to make that last me a year.

[pickleslarue]

There has been some good info on this thread. Very helpful. I appreciate it.

Do you get a virtual keyboard for inputting contacts? That is a silly deficit on the LG840 when there is a keyboard for texts.

I finally get how the minutes work. During the presentation they were very clear that when you purchase more time you get that amount tripled for each of the three categories. They also match transferred minutes with texts and data.

I am also pretty sure that unlike the other Tracfones with 3 texts/min. this one uses one for one. Well, it isn't even really like that because you get texts, not minutes to use for texts. But however many minutes you get, that's how many texts you get. For people who don't text a lot it is a value because you're not using talk mins. for texts so you have all your talk mins. plus plenty of texts. If you text a lot you'll notice having 1/3 the texts for the same amount of time on the older phones.

I have seen a lot about the clock issue. Some people have a problem, some don't. That's always vexing and makes it difficult to decide. I'll have to go back and read more because I thought the ClockSync app wasn't working for everyone. I would be very frustrated and unhappy if the phone doesn't have a working clock. OK I just looked at the app and it requires root and some people complain about adware. This is unnecessarily complicated! How can the darn clock not work??? Grrrrr.

[cddh]

Transferring minutes on the LG is is different than transferring minutes on the Android. The LG is not divided into 3 sections as is the Android.

[Moonlady]

On 5/14/2014 hckynut said:

On 5/14/2014 pickleslarue said:

I'm not grasping how the text, talk, and other minutes work. Do you purchase a different card than for the other, older Tracfones? Or does the time just get divided among the three? I'd probably be in the reverse situation and bank the text while using the talk. I have triple minutes and use the phone infrequently so the $100 card has been more than enough. But if it works such that I'll only get 1/3 talk minutes I'm used to I might be getting close. I also wonder what will happen to the minutes I transfer. Will they all stay talk or get split up? I hope they explain all this.

When I bought the Samsung Centura it came with 300 Text/Talk and Data along with a 1 year expiration. Since my old phone had close to 4500 minutes left they added the 4500 Text/4500 Data and 4500 talk minutes to my phone. They also extended the expiration 3 months along with adding the triple "everything with this phone".

I think that once you have this "triple plan" with TracFone after you buy a specific phone with these features, each time you buy minutes all of these features triple. Nothing is split into 3rds with my plan. I don't buy cards and never have. I've always waited till hsn had a special on a particular phone and bought the whole package. It has always been cheaper to do this and each time it upgrades my phone.

I would assume if you buy a card and you are on a plan with TracFone where you that Text/Talk and Data, that when you buy a specific card all of these will be tripled and not cut into 3 sections.

Mentioned in my previous post that when I bought this phone they moved my 4500 minutes to the new phone and added 4500 in Text and Data along with the Talk.

Yes. If you have an older model phone with "triple minutes," the 60-minute card (for example) will give you 180 minutes which can be used for anything (talk, text, data). The newer phones (androids) split the buckets so that same card will add 180/180/180 (talk, text, data "buckets"). You cannot access the units in one bucket when you run out of them in another. This plan is not the best for texters as it's more expensive at one unit per text (sent and received--even if you don't open it). The LG840g, along with previous models, deducted .30 per text sent and opened, so it was much cheaper.

Clearly, texting and data are Tracfone's cash cows. IMO, it's still a great plan, and I love the LG Optimus Dynamic--seems I'm discovering somethinig new every day.

[Runner26]

kleo: Let's say you have 800 minutes currently on your LG phone, when you transfer your minutes from LG to Centura, that 800 minutes will be 800 talk minutes & 800 texts & 800 MB of data, plus the minutes that comes with the Centura (1200 talk minutes, 1200 texts, 1200 MB).

One thing though: If you decide you don't like Centura and have transferred your LG minutes to the Centura, your old minutes do not transfer back to LG. That is, you're able to transfer your minutes from a featured phone to Android but you are not able to transfer your minutes from Android to feature phone.

pickleslarue: yes, virtual qwerty keyboard to enter your contacts. I think I transferred my contacts from LG to Centura via bluetooth. Or you can just add contacts to you gmail account and just sync the contacts to your phone.

Just my speculation, I'm not very techy, just trial and error, but my experience with the time changing happened when I was playing games (2 different ones) and downloading my music from Google and Amazon (syncing). I first thought I had a bad phone so I got it replaced but it happened to the second one also. I tried all the "fixes" I've googled but none took. Sometimes I saw the time change as soon I exited out of an app, but sometimes I saw it change as I was charging the phone.

The ClockSync has 2 options: root and non-root. The time changed depending on how heavily I used my phone. But that's about as much as I know about ClockSync that since people installed that app, their time has kept. I didn't know about the ads but makes sense.

In January, I got a Moto X and am back to Tmobile and use my Centura as one of the phones Google Voice forwards. Since January, I've only been using my Centura very lightly and only as a phone. I do check my balance online withe the Tracfone app every few days on the phone and check Google Play for updates every day or every other day at most, and my Centura has kept correct time. No resetting time 5 hours behind.

You may want to check out LG Dynamic II (LG39C): it has a little bigger screen 3.8 vs 3.5; new OS 4.1.2 vs 4.0.4; faster processor.

[BradyW]

I've had this phone since October, purchased from the other channel for a lot more money. It's very slow at 3G. It does work well on Wi-Fi, as in a restaurant or office. The clock definitely has issues. Just last night, I was trying to get it to reset just by turning off and on, and every time I did that, it showed a different time. Finally I removed the back and took the battery out and put it back in. Since then it seems to be OK. Lately, when even playing a game, I'm getting a constant message about not having a good internet connection. They may have improved this phone. The Q is selling it as Galaxy Android. HSN's was called Galaxy Centura Andoid, and it received very bad reviews for the most part. I don't understand why Q is now selling this outdated phone, except that the price is good.

[pickleslarue]

On 5/15/2014 BradyW said:

I've had this phone since October, purchased from the other channel for a lot more money. It's very slow at 3G. It does work well on Wi-Fi, as in a restaurant or office. The clock definitely has issues. Just last night, I was trying to get it to reset just by turning off and on, and every time I did that, it showed a different time. Finally I removed the back and took the battery out and put it back in. Since then it seems to be OK. Lately, when even playing a game, I'm getting a constant message about not having a good internet connection. They may have improved this phone. The Q is selling it as Galaxy Android. HSN's was called Galaxy Centura Andoid, and it received very bad reviews for the most part. I don't understand why Q is now selling this outdated phone, except that the price is good.

That might be it. The description calls it the Centura. I do not want to have to deal with a crazy clock. I've come to rely on my phone clock. I figured I could deal with it if it were consistently off by the same number of hours because I would know if it were 10 am or 3 pm, or whatever, but that isn't gonna work when I use the alarm functions.

[cddh]

Runner26, I don't have a bluetooth. Are they expensive? I have the Samsung Centura, just ordered the TSV for the minutes. You said I can transfer with bluetooth? How exactly is that done?