I know this is going to sound like an ad but I feel like more people need to know their options when it comes to getting a decent smartphone on a good plan.
About a month ago the screen on my Nexus 7 2012 edition somehow cracked in my jacket pocket while at work. It was disappointing but not terrible because I bought it back in November of 2012 and spent only $200 on it at the time.
It was at this time that I decided to look into getting a new smartphone. For the past year and a half I have been using a Kyocera DuraPro on US Cellular’s $35/month prepaid plan. Combined with the Nexus 7 and Google Voice, I essentially had the best of both worlds; a decent tablet providing me with adequate smartphone capabilities over wifi (including Swipe texting via the Google Voice app) and a robust feature phone on a cheap plan that still let me save contacts with my prepended Google Voice account information so my call recipients would see my “official” phone number. Also, another feature of Google Voice allows you to directly reply to texts sent to a Google Voice number without having to prepend anything to their number. I just needed to reply to the seemingly random number I received from a known sender and they’d see the number I wanted to see.
It wasn’t perfect and obviously the features provided by the Google Voice tablet app were only available to me when connected to a wifi network but it was good enough for me to tolerate having a feature phone for over a year while observing on the sidelines the newer and better smartphones coming to market.
The phone I initially planned on getting was the OnePlus One. The specs alone blew away the Nexus 5 as its biggest competitor and, combined with the price, it seemed too good to be true. Turns out it was too good to be true, so far. After spending a week last month investigating the process by which one can purchase a OnePlus One, I gave up and settled on the Moto G Google Play Edition. Signing up for the OnePlus account and having to shill for them without a definitive release date doesn’t settle well with me. My rationale behind not going with the Nexus 5 is that the Nexus 6 is coming out this fall and I didn’t see a reason to go with Google’s flagship phone right before the fall release season.
For me, price was the biggest factor that led me to the Moto G GPE. At $200 unlocked for the 8GB model, I was essentially replacing, at cost, my 7″ wifi-only tablet with a more powerful (albeit slight less roomy) unlocked GSM phone. Additionally it has none of the bloatware many of the more popular phones are unfortunately stuck with right out of the box. It’s the best cheap Android phone currently on the market in 2014 IMHO (I don’t recommend getting the 8GB model unless you’re on a tight budget. Spending the $20 extra will be well-worth it).
I confirmed that the mobile virtual network operator (mvno) Straight Talk works with the Moto G GPE and joined their service by picking up one of their bring your own phone (BYOP) packets. It comes with four different SIM cards (2 AT&T and 2 T-Mobile). The package includes one month’s worth of service and after that month you pay either $45/month for unlimited voice, texting, and data up to 3GB or $60/month unlimited (includes international calls).
I live in Humboldt County, California so GSM coverage from either carrier here can leave much to be desired. I went with the AT&T SIM after witnessing how bad my sister’s coverage on T-Mobile was here.
Thanks to Bob Thompson’s post on smartphonematters.com I found the APN settings I needed to get 3G mobile Internet access working on my Moto G GPE. Here are the settings distilled into a series of screenshots:
My coverage here on the north coast of California is surprisingly good. At home I end up on HSDPA but I still get ok speeds:
I’m able to get decent 3G speeds in Arcata, Blue Lake, and Eureka. Coverage in McKinleyville is spotty in the outlying areas and coverage in Trinidad is relegated to the immediate town center. I’ve also had great coverage in southern Oregon as well.
This is exactly how it should be with smartphones. $200-$220 for a decent unlocked GSM phone and $45/month for decent 3G service with no overages.