Smartphones

I'm with Verizon and had the unlimited data plan, but since I almost always have wifi everywhere I go except for in the car, I use hardly any data. I figured it was stupid to be paying over $100 a month when I wasn't even using most of it, so I looked at lowering my plan to the minimum (250MB). That seems ridiculously small to me, but I haven't gone over it in the past two years, so I figured I'd risk it and just turn the data completely off so it was there if I ever needed it.

Of course, once I did that, I realized that I could get a brand new HTC m8 for about $20 more a month (still $30 less than what I was paying) on that EDGE program. I've never been a big fan of that sort of thing, but I figured fuck it, you guys are saying it is a good deal, and from what I understand I'll be able to upgrade my phone in a year once I've paid off half of it? If not, I should have just paid the $200 up front instead of $600 over 2 years, so tell me if I'm wrong.

Got the phone today, and it is obviously much faster than my 2-year old Galaxy Nexus. I can't say I've really done much with it, but things like installing all the apps was really fast, and they have a nice HTC app that lets you copy over a bunch of your stuff from your previous phone, which is nice. Everything is clearly better than what I had, but I can't compare it to anything recent, so sorry about that. I splurged on the Otterbox case and I have to say I really like it. One thing I'm confused about is that I guess they expect you to keep the clear plastic part over the screen? Mine was already sort of jacked up and crinkled, so looked like just some cheap filler. I took it out, but then saw all the sticky glue that I guess was supposed to hold it in, so I'm guessing it was supposed to stay. Honestly I can't see how that would be something I'd want though, that piece of plastic was on par with a fake screen on a kid's toy phone, and doesn't seem like it would be fun to use. Besides, the bundle I bought had screen protectors so I just put one of those on. Was I supposed to leave that crappy piece of plastic in?

One other thing I noticed, that seems like it would be a griefer's paradise: I always put a pattern to unlock on my phones, and this one says "10 attempts remain before device data is deleted." WTF? I mean, I get the reasoning behind that, but if someone grabs my phone and wants to fuck with me, they can just fail 10 times and delete my phone? How is that the default option? Hopefully there is somewhere I can turn that off, because I'm not keeping state secrets in there or anything, I just don't like anyone being able to look at it without me allowing it.

Vaclav_sl said:

The cover thing with an Otterbox? That was supposed to stay, yea. They're waterproof cases, thus the Otter part of the name - shouldn't harm it besides water issues though.

If you decide you want to ditch the case since its "damaged", look at the DotView cases. I'm more excited about the case than the phone itself here. (Not to say I'm not excited for it though)

http://www.htc.com/us/accessories/ht...157p4717893g-cthere's a video talking about the stuff it does down the page. I'm just flabbergasted by the awesomeness.

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I'm not sure how it could be waterproof, since the clear plastic piece has cutouts where the speaker and camera are. And the cutouts are terribly done, with rough unfinished edges, which is why I figured it was just a prop.

Inque_sl said:

There is a single-line, $50 Loyalty Plan w/ Unlimited Talk & Text and 1GB you can pair with EDGE for $70 a month. What was your old plan?

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It was something like 450 minutes, unlimited text, and unlimited data. If there is a better option than what I have, they didn't make it obvious. I'm guessing it is something you can offer when helping someone directly, but it isn't on display on their website? If you think you could switch me over, let me know what info you'd need from me and I'll PM it to you.