• After 15+ years, we've made a big change: Android Forums is now Early Bird Club. Learn more here.

Help Old deactivated phone - what can I do with it?

D

dmanindfw

Well-Known Member
So my GS3 is set to arrive today and both my wife and I are retiring our DX's. Thinking about possibilities of what to do with these. Likely sell one, but thinking about downloading a bunch of crap on the other to pass to my son for gaming, etc (he's 4 years old).

Can I do this? Do I need to download everything before having Verizon turn if off or will I still be able to access the Play store with Wifi?

I saw someone turned their old phone into a VOIP phone. How do I go about doing this?

Thoughts, ideas?
 
If you want to make it so it has more battery, you can put it into airplane mode first then turn on wifi. You won't have bluetooth (if you want to use bluetooth controllers), but the battery will last a long time and you don't have to worry about accidental dials.
 
u'll still be able to access Play Store with your gmail account. it will essentially be an aPod.
 
and you can still use all your apps and mail and everything? as long as you are on wifi?

very interesting.
 
jerofld said:
If you want to make it so it has more battery, you can put it into airplane mode first then turn on wifi. You won't have bluetooth (if you want to use bluetooth controllers), but the battery will last a long time and you don't have to worry about accidental dials.
Click to expand...

Great suggestions from all! Thank you, thank you, thank you.

Currently don't use any controllers with our phones.

My son will be so happy that he'll still be able to play his MegaStump (really it's called MegaStunt) monster truck game and be able to access his e-books (childrens). Great news.
 
Well, that is both a pro and a con.

When you put it in the hands of your progeny, keep it in airplane mode completely. No accidental purchasing of apps or in-app-stuff, or clicks on adverts, that way...
 
Now any way to use as a VOIP phone? Will googletalk be able to provide this functionality?

I am not one to have a home phone as the only people that call me are those damn telemarketers (always at dinner time or when the kids are going to bed) but it would be nice to use one of these as a VOIP phone without burning any minutes on my cell plan.
 
Flumme said:
Well, that is both a pro and a con.

When you put it in the hands of your progeny, keep it in airplane mode completely. No accidental purchasing of apps or in-app-stuff, or clicks on adverts, that way...
Click to expand...

Haha, lesson learned about 6 months ago. Son was playing the drag racing game and he got a little click happy. Asked me what was wrong with the game and he had purchase, not just 10 or 100 tokens, but INFINITE tokens! All at a whopping $40!!! Never got the charges reversed even though the developer in some 3rd world country said they would.

Right after this happened, I unlinked my credit card from my google account. Won't happen again.

But, yeah switching to airplane hopefully will keep him from accessing less than appropriate sites :)
 
You might even want to give them their own gmail address for it instead of having it linked to yours. That will keep them from somehow doing bad things with your account (i.e. deleting contacts/calendar events, etc.). The downside to that is that any apps you have purchased won't be available on it.

BTW, if you want to factory reset, there's a way past the activation screen. Just tap each of the four corners of the screen. Supposedly, the order doesn't matter, but I usually do upper left, upper right, lower right, lower left.
 
dmanindfw said:
Now any way to use as a VOIP phone? Will googletalk be able to provide this functionality?

I am not one to have a home phone as the only people that call me are those damn telemarketers (always at dinner time or when the kids are going to bed) but it would be nice to use one of these as a VOIP phone without burning any minutes on my cell plan.
Click to expand...

It would be Google Voice, not Google Talk, that would have this capability. But yes, it will work if you get something like GrooveIP (free for wifi use) to go with it.


----------------------------------

Also, for the OP: You can PIN lock the market. I believe that prevents in-app purchases without the PIN, as well. It's in the market settings.
 
So i just did a reset on my gf's old incredible.

Now its going through the initial set up of picking a language and the next step is making a call to activate the phone. Will that mess up anything?? I just want to use it for internet and games over wifi etc
 
I plan on using my Droid X for wifi only, maybe as a dashcam in my vehicle. Anything that uses data (Google Play, Youtube, apps, etc) will still work if it's hooked up to a wifi signal.
 
scooz16 said:
So i just did a reset on my gf's old incredible.

Now its going through the initial set up of picking a language and the next step is making a call to activate the phone. Will that mess up anything?? I just want to use it for internet and games over wifi etc
Click to expand...

Touch the corners like I mentioned in a previous post.
 
No. You need to be on the activation screen. I'm guessing that it works on the Incredible. It definitely works on the DX.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom