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Gnex from Google - What's the deal

C

Ciggy

Well-Known Member
Ok I've had the Verizon Galaxy Nexus from release day. I love the phone, rooted and running AOKP.

Let's just say the phone is no longer in my possession and I am leaving my parents Verizon account that had me grandfathered into unlimited data. That being said I was using Pandora constantly and using the phone for a lot of web browsing and I tended to only use up to 3.5 gigs a month.

Now I can buy another Verizon GNex for $50 from amazon. Pay the $30 for activation and also get a plan of $60 for 250 minutes of talk which i will never go over and unlimited texting which I NEED. I can also get 4gb of 4g for $30 a month as long as I purchase before June 3rd. Including insurance it will be just about $100 a month for everything I need and only $50 for the phone. In my mind GREAT DEAL!


Here's where the questions comes in. With all this crap going on with unlimited plans being taken away and all that what else is my incentive to purchase the $400 gnex straight from Google. I like the idea of being able to sell next year to buy a newer Nexus but can also live with the idea of having the Gnex for 2 long years.

How do i obtain an At&t 4g sim card?
or maybe T-mobile? if there 4g is good.

I am researching the prepaid plans online and some look to be priced very good but I see no where to actually create a prepaid plan and order a sim card.

How does this stuff work?? :confused:

And does at&t 4g match the speeds of Verizon LTE because that internet is fast as hell?

Thanks for the help! I hope someone here can help with my questions.
 
ok. The GSM versions of the G nex that you would buy directly from google are not 4G.

The VZW Gnex sim card is only for the vzw g nex.

Tmobile doesn't have real 4G

The VZW G nex can only be used with VZW

AT&T are about to start rolling out their LTE variant. (i think that is the case with them, as they advertise 4G but until now i think it's really just been hspa+ or whatever, not true LTE)


i hope that answered some of your questions. If not don't hesitate to ask more. :)
 
So the GSM version Gnex doesn't have 4G radios? That's absurd lol. The speed I got when browsing the web on LTE was amazing.

I really liked the idea of getting onto a prepaid card that way I can switch carriers at will if one wasn't working great.

Tmobile and At&t both advertise 4g :eek:

I like the prepaid plans I saw from tmobile as well. They offer unlimited data of 4g and then throttle you when you pass a certain extent. Which is nice because at least you still have internet. But if they don't actually have 4g networks. Might as well just lock into 2 years at verizon.

Thanks for the info!!
 
Thank you for the good read. So basically Sprint sucks. I knew that haha.

Verizon has the fastest and only true LTE network. Wonderful I like that. There 3G speeds however are suffering.

At&t has decent speeds but nothing compared to the LTE network of Verizon.

T-mobile which actually surprised me has double the speeds of the other companys on what they call there 4G network.

Rite now my choice is between Tmobile and Verizon.

How would I go about purchasing just the sim cards from tmobile I can not find anywhere on their site where I can pick a plan and order a sim card this way I can order the phone and the card at the same time. Would i have to order the phone then walk into a Tmobile?


edit: I found the card here: T-Mobile SIM Card Activation Kit | T-Mobile

Assuming you get the card and then register your account online to choose your features. Is this correct?
 
The plan and phone on Verizon will be roughly $2500 for two years.

The plan and phone on Tmobile including the $400 to google for the phone is roughly $1850.
 
If the T-mobile service is good in your area, I suggest you go that route. While the speeds of VZW LTE are quite delicious, in the end overall cost and flexibility should be key deciding factors (IMO).
 
I agree with the above ONLY IF YOU'RE ALWAYS GOING TO BE IN A GOOD TURD MOBILE AREA. For me i don't have one of those areas close to me and i travel a lot and don't want to take that chance.
 
Though it's not true 4G speed, HSPA+ data on GSM network is much faster than 3G/CDMA on verizon. I believe the GSM/HSPA radio in Nexus can get up to 21Mbps. LTE is true and faster 4G that VZW and at&t are pushing. It's actually evolution of HSPA+, so it should handle 3G/4G hand-off better with HSPA radio.

As for your choice, it really depends on your location. If you are in major metro area, you can likely go either way. Otherwise you need to check on coverage maps and get advice from neighbors.
 
Just remember that not all phones will work on all carriers.... you really need to look at the specs of the phone and what frequencies it operates on. For example, VZW and Sprint are both CDMA and both will be LTE for 4G.... but they actually use different frequencies thus there are 2 different LTE Galaxy Nexuses. You couldn't buy the Verizon one and then use it on Sprint.

GSM is more 'switchable' but still not 100%. AT&T and T-mobile do have some overlap, but some of their frequencies are different....especially if ATT ever gets LTE rolled out.

Just make sure that any phone you buy supports the frequencies of the carriers you plan to use.
 
GNex works fine on T-Mo, I got mine recently and I get about 13Mbps download speed. The only problem I had was the radio/baseband, before I flashed a new one I was getting 2G (Edge) speeds. So if you go down the T-Mo path I highly suggest you flash a new radio.
 
I do plan to run AOKP.. now that I have almost made the decision to go Tmobile. Mainly because the costs. Maybe I should wait for the s3. Idk though when I go up in the mountains in the winter im sure Tmo is going to suck where Verizon covered 4g at the base and had plenty of 3g to run pandora at the peaks.

Such a hard decision. I thank all of you for your help! Also the information on radios. Thanks!
 
Only question i have left is how does choosing your prepaid plan on Tmo work? Online shows you the plans but no information on the purchase. I know I can go to the store and accomplish this but those reps don't know squat lol
 
You need to order the SIM card from the internet (Amazon is preferred I'd say), and with the prepaid SIM card activation kit - there will be instructions that will explain how to set up any one of those plans. I did the same thing and I get the unlimited 4G data/100 min/unlimited text.

I gtg real fast but I'll edit this later with the link to the Amazon listing of the Prepaid SIM Card Activation kit

EDIT: T-Mobile SIM Card Pre-Paid Kit
 
Oozy I could totally get away with unlim4g unli txt and only 100 minutes mind if I ask how much your paying?

and sucks that the white phone only has 16gbs of storage. Because id pay the extra $30 on Amazon for a white one but no way id pay $30 extra for half the storage lol
 
I retract my statement about internal storage I guess only GSM version available is the 16gb.

Another question Oozy is with tmo prepaid is there an equipment insurance program because I NEED that and that could be a deal breaker for me.
 
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