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How to Have and Use a Spare Phone?

S

smg65

Member
I know... probably a dumb question. My wife and I have original Droid Incredibles. Verizon is the provider. Mine is rooted and is pretty "incredible" in all aspects. My wife's is not rooted and has been a little buggy from time to time. This past weekend, our daughter gave me the old Incredible she hasn't used for a couple of years.

If possible, what I'd like to do is charge the battery on the old phone, reset it to default settings, then simply "play" with it it. I'd root it and try to build a better phone than what she has. How can I switch back and forth between the two phones? Do I have to call Verizon to activate a phone each time? Also, I imagine that if nothing else, the phone can be used as a non-Verizon wireless device only?

Thanks for your consideration!

Steve
 
But...
I've read (no first hand experience) that you can only do so a certain number of times in a certain period (I like to be precise with my knowledge sharing). Hopefully someone actually knows the real rules, I just know they are out there.
 
Clementine_3 said:
But...
I've read (no first hand experience) that you can only do so a certain number of times in a certain period (I like to be precise with my knowledge sharing). Hopefully someone actually knows the real rules, I just know they are out there.
Click to expand...

I think this is more for switching between a 3G and 4G phone. It was something like if you have a 4G phone and activated a 3G phone on that line you can switch back to the 4G phone within 24 hours and not have SIM card issues. If you didn't switch back, your 4G SIM card turns into a pumpkin and you would need to get a new one from VZN...

This is going off memory from back when 4G started rolling out, so I may be way off or things might be different now.

I think 3G to 3G or 4G to 4G is fine. I've been switching back and forth between my S3 and a Droid RAZR without issues.
 
Yeah, I'm not sure of the rules or what 'G' it was for. Just recall seeing/hearing of limits. Was just tossing it out there in case it was still a 'thing'.
 
The shelf-life of deactivated SIMs has been extended, I think I read up to a year at one point, but YMMV. In any case, I wouldn't worry about pumpkin syndrome for several weeks/months after removal as long as the account stays in good standing in the meantime.

To the OP, I would just bypass the activation on the phone and use it on WiFi to get it rooted and working how you want it to. You can do pretty much everything but cellular calls and cellular data. If you have a fast enough WiFi connection, you can even set up VOIP calls and use Google Voice for texting, giving you the opportunity to make sure all the hardware is working and put the device through its paces without needing to activate it.

If you do decide to activate it for a while, I think as long as you are switching between two 3G phones, you can just dial *611 on the new handset and put in your phone number to swap the phones and program. Another option would be to throw the phone on an MVNO like PagePlus with a $10 card so you can take it out and about and test cheaply without giving up the phone you know is working well.
 
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