Verizon Nokia Icon user thinking about grabbing an unlocked 1520 for T-Mobile. Is that wise?

[Nogitsune Micah]

1520>930>830

Top three Lumia Devices right now IMHO

everything else is below them somewhere

I'd probably say 1520>930>640 xl tied with830

 

[bo_woods]

I'd probably say 1520>930>640 xl tied with830

Touch?

I think that's how its spelled/used

 

[TrueMetalGeek]

So far I've been loving the phone.
Now I'm torturing it with the latest windows 10 build. Which looks great but is buggy too.

I haven't turned in my Nokia Icon back to Verizon yet. I wonder what they would charge me to keep it as a spare for testing.

 

[xrs22]

So far I've been loving the phone.
Now I'm torturing it with the latest windows 10 build. Which looks great but is buggy too.

I haven't turned in my Nokia Icon back to Verizon yet. I wonder what they would charge me to keep it as a spare for testing.

Im still on the fence about it with T-Mobile and of course I would go the same route as you with the 1520. I dunno if att had a demo model I can check out. I would have to come up with some money for that but T-Mobile will pay for my early term fee and whatever for my phone I think. I like the no contract deal and their gb packes for each phone line. I just worry about the coverage. Although the wireless call is cool and you can get a wider range router than what we have now. Plus we wouldn't need to be on their jump program so we'd save well over $100 on our bill.

 

[TrueMetalGeek]

Im still on the fence about it with T-Mobile and of course I would go the same route as you with the 1520. I dunno if att had a demo model I can check out. I would have to come up with some money for that but T-Mobile will pay for my early term fee and whatever for my phone I think. I like the no contract deal and their gb packes for each phone line. I just worry about the coverage. Although the wireless call is cool and you can get a wider range router than what we have now. Plus we wouldn't need to be on their jump program so we'd save well over $100 on our bill.

To get T-Mobile to pay off your old line at another carrier you are required to BUY one of their phones.
So with me buying a used 1520 I did not receive that option. Someday Verizon will send me the final bill and I'm afraid to see it since we had about a year left of contract on two of the four lines.

So far the phone is nice. I tried Windows 10 Build 10136 for about 4 days but used the recovery tool to roll back to the more stable Windows 8.1 for now.

One bad thing is T-Mobile around here does NOT work so hot inside buildings as I was used to with Verizon.

I'm hoping there might be some settings I can play with but don't see any.

Luckily most of my work is outside now and not running out of data is awesome.

 

[xrs22]

To get T-Mobile to pay off your old line at another carrier you are required to BUY one of their phones.
So with me buying a used 1520 I did not receive that option. Someday Verizon will send me the final bill and I'm afraid to see it since we had about a year left of contract on two of the four lines.

So far the phone is nice. I tried Windows 10 Build 10136 for about 4 days but used the recovery tool to roll back to the more stable Windows 8.1 for now.

One bad thing is T-Mobile around here does NOT work so hot inside buildings as I was used to with Verizon.

I'm hoping there might be some settings I can play with but don't see any.

Luckily most of my work is outside now and not running out of data is awesome.

Price wise, did you save a lot? Well if I get a cheap flip and use the sim for a 1520 and sell the flip phone?

 

[RumoredNow]

Price wise, did you save a lot? Well if I get a cheap flip and use the sim for a 1520 and sell the flip phone?

Flip a flip phone? :grincry: Why would you even bother?

FWIW, I'm not sure getting a $29.99 outright purchase phone qualifies you to have T-Mo buy out your contract from another carrier. I was on T-Mo for some time with Simple Choice. Of all the major nationwide carriers they have the lowest plan costs for what you get. I research this stuff all the time. However, if you really want to save, look at mvno carriers and use the savings to justify you buying out your Vzw.

For example, Cricket is very reasonable per month and the more lines you add the more you save per line. (Full price first line is $40, save $10 on the second line, $20 off the third line, $30 off the fourth line and the 5th line is free baby!!!) It uses ATT towers so geat coverage in most areas. Hands down probably the best way to transition a family of 4 or 5 lines to an mvno and save a ton of money each month.

Is it just one line? Buy a 1520 and take it to Straight Talk. $45 a month gets you 5GB high speed data if you Bring Your Own Device. The most generous data allotment of the mvno plans ATM at a reasonable price... They have ATT or T-Mo SIMs or if you just want to keep the phone you have now they can activate a Vzw or Sprint device. Get a 1520, get a $45/month plan. Pay off your Vzw contract and sell the Vzw phone. I'll bet it pays for itself inside of a year.


Sure you loose things on an mvno, like Hotspot and VVM. It's worth it if you don;t have to tether to your phone all the time and you can add 3rd party VVM. They cap your LTE at 8mbps. Plenty fast for me.

 

[xrs22]

Flip a flip phone? :grincry: Why would you even bother?


Sure you loose things on an mvno, like Hotspot and VVM. It's worth it if you don;t have to tether to your phone all the time and you can add 3rd party VVM. They cap your LTE at 8mbps. Plenty fast for me.

We have 4 lines on VZW, 3 smarts and one basic. Wife has a galaxy s5, oldest son has a HTC one M8, youngest flip phone and I'm the windows fan boy, Nokia icon. We pay $260 a month with 10gb's, coverage is awesome especially the mountains, att and tmo can't get that good of service unless in the nearest town with the tower. Just looking to save money and at least have some options. I took tmo for a test drive in an android phone. Service was spotty in the house, couldn't text unless I was on wifi calling. I drive around to different regions in central Cali so I gotta have service. 1520 or 1520.3 are my options to still have a year old WP. I gotta have my wife and son use tmo to see how they like it though.

 

[RumoredNow]

Sounds like coverage on Vzw towers is the main criteria?

How about tethering? Do any in the family need to tether?

Some mvno's use Vzw towers and will activate free and clear (no money owed) Verizon branded phones on their network. Page Plus and Straight Talk both activate Verizon 4G devices. On Straight Talk you now get 5GB high speed data/month if you bring your own phone to a $45/month plan. You + your wife + oldest son. Unlimited talk, text, 411 information and 5GB high speed apiece (total = 1.5x what you have) for $135 + taxes. You data doesn't go away after the 5GB, just slowed down. For $180/month your youngest son can get in on it with a smartphone too and the family is now getting 2x the data you have on Vzw and saving $80 a month even with upgrading the youngest son.. No tethering, no VVM... No paying for phones over time. You can add your VVM back via 3rd party service. Look into YouMail.

 

[xrs22]

What's tethering? Our contract is up in Feb 2016, our middle son is only 11 and don't wanna take the chance of him dropping the phone.

 

[RumoredNow]

Tethering is sharing the internet from the phone to another device... The term goes back to when it used to be a physical "tether" over USB cable.

If your youngest gets a flip phone from Straight Talk it would be significantly cheaper for his portion.

 

[anotherlab]

If the preview bricks your new $300 1520 to the point USB will not recognize it (thus redering the recovery tool useless, and yes it has done this very thing to many people) you will remember this advice.

If you have bricked a Lumia with the Inside Preview and the Windows Phone Recovery Tool doesn't work, use the Nokia recovery tool. I bricked my 1520 with an Inside Preview and that was the only way I was able to store WP81 back on the phone. I was then able to get the Insider Preview on the 1520 and haven't had that issue repeat,