Hello guys, Just bought a captivate today and had a few questions, been reading the forums but that just brought more questions and no answers. First I hooked it upto the wifi at home easily but not sure about a few things. How can i tell if it is using my local wifi instead of using my limited data plan? is there a way to default to use wifi? where do I put my music on the phone? also will it play movies i've downloaded off itunes? does using the gps cost data? i think it does, is there a workaround? I don't see why i can't just download a map? also i have yahoo mail from what i read i can get it to work but only with data plan but not on my local wifi? Neat phone but i'm a ditz.... is data different then internet? Thanks for your help
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avgazn91
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Look on the bar at the very top of the screen, if you see the Wifi symbol then you are using Wifi. The symbol looks like a fan shaped object. If you see 3G and 2 arrows (one green, one orange) blinking, then you are using your data plan.
As long as you are hooked up to a wifi network (not just in range, but actually connected) you will not use your data plan for information.
Good thing is that once you are connected to a wifi network, your phone remembers it and the password and auto-connects you to it once you are in range. Of course that will decrease your battery life as your phone is constantly searching for a network. (it doesn't decrease it too badly though)
For movies and music, the Captivate (also called Cappy here) has 16gb of internal storage, you can easily put quite a bit of music and a couple movies in your phone with that amount of storage space. You can also opt for a memory SD card to store more information on there. There are options that range from 2gb or lower (but not sense in getting it then) to 16gb (sometimes even higher, but those are expensive). I believe our phone can only use a maximum of 16gb for an SD card (if I recall correctly).
An app I definitely recommend for music and movies is called doubleTwist. It is free and an excellent app. It has very clear menus and can make your phone act as a USB drive when plugged into your computer (mac or PC). This way you can easily access all the information you have on your phone or your SD card.
GPS does use your data plan and there is no way around it (if you really want the GPS part). This is because it has to access live satellites that track where you are. What I do often times though, is at home, pull up directions from mapquest or google maps (there is an app for that too called maps) and just keep it up on your phone. You can follow the directions as if it were a piece of paper, you just won't have a voice telling you when to turn.
Now your Captivate (and all Android OS phones) are multi-taskers, so if you pulled up mapquest on the internet, you can close your browser and use your phone for other things, and still open up your internet later and have the same mapquest page up.
And a heads up, opening your browser (with a pre-opened page) will not use any data. It is when you access a website (say switching from mapquest to google or androidforums) will it cost you some data.
For email, try K9 email. It is a free app and can connect to any email address (hotmail, yahoo and gmail). It still uses wifi through what I explained above so there are no worries about that.
And data is not the same as internet, you access the internet using data. Actually, in a sense, your wifi and the 3G data (or EDGE) that you use when you don't have wifi is the same exact thing. You just have to pay for 3G because you don't own it like you own your Wifi signal.
All the apps will use Wifi assuming you are connected to a network. Otherwise, it will use 3G data
To get rid of an app or move it, click and hold until the icon starts moving. To get rid of an icon, simply do the method mentioned and drag it to the bottom of the screen where a trash can should have appeared. Simple as that!
You may also want to download a free app called 3G Watchdog. Once you have set it up, it will keep a running balance of 3G usage. It is a free app.
I think that you will find that you are going to use less data than you thought. I have the lower data plan- 200 Megs. Between home, work, and places that I go that have free wifi (I mean, c'mon, even my local Sams Club has free wifi), you will use very little data. My billing runs from the 3rd to the 3rd. So far this month, I've used 29 Megs, just about 15% of my plan. And, I use my phone quite a bit during the day. (I'm hooked on Daily Briefing too.)
I think that you will find that you are going to use less data than you thought. I have the lower data plan- 200 Megs. Between home, work, and places that I go that have free wifi (I mean, c'mon, even my local Sams Club has free wifi), you will use very little data. My billing runs from the 3rd to the 3rd. So far this month, I've used 29 Megs, just about 15% of my plan. And, I use my phone quite a bit during the day. (I'm hooked on Daily Briefing too.)
avgazn91
Member
What limited data plan are you on? Is it the 200mb per month?
You may be surprised as to how hard it is to use 200mb each bill cycle. At first, I was worried, just the same way as you are, of going over the limit, but after a couple months, I just gave up. I'm using mostly 3G unless I am at school, and I even occasionally use the navigation (which takes up the most data of almost all apps out there). Even with fairly heavy 3G usage, the closest I've gotten to 200mb is somewhere along the lines of 65mb.
Now I'm not the heaviest user, especially when I'm not in a wifi network, but you don't have to be scared to use your plan. You are already paying for it, might as well use it!
thiswasatriumph
Newbie
From my experience, as long as you're not using satellite view, GPS takes very little data. The newer versions of Google Maps also cache to the phone so you dont have to re-download in areas you've already been.