SIM or no Sim isn't really the issue, the issue is that at the request of the carriers the manufacturers lock the modem and antennae of their phones to only work with one particular carrier. Your phone might be able to make calls and get data on a different carrier, but not it may be a slower speed or may not work at all. And not just because of the difference between GSM and CDMA. They flat out will not pick up the correct wavelength. This is made even worse with Fi since you have to use data. Fortunately it is now possible to buy unlocked versions of most phones, although they are way more expensive.
Dunno about the 3, but my pixel 2 can go SIMless on fi and definitely still has the SIM slot.
The pixels are a little special because they were intentionally produced to have multiband modems that connect to pretty much all of the different networks. The older Fi phones were only designed to have modems compatible with IIRC Sprint and T-Mobile.
There's a big difference between how CDMA phones worked (those were the phones without SIM cards from back in the day) and eSIM technology which is what SIM-less phones are now.
a CDMA phone had to be physically programmed to a phone number/account, and could not be changed without significant intervention from a carrier. It was not meant to be transported between carriers, nor were you meant to change phones easily.
eSIM, which is a new technology, is basically a "digital SIM card." It actually literally stands for "embedded SIM". Those are programmable and changeable, and can be done so by the user, as long as the carrier supports the technology.
the easiest/best example of this is the newer iPad models with cellular; You can sign up for a data plan direct from the phone, and even choose what carrier you want the plan to be on. It then stores the account information in the eSIM, in basically the same manner if you plugged in a physical SIM card. If you can to cancel the service and go with another carrier, it's as simple as..... stopping the service, and signing up with a new service from a new carrier, right on the device. (this is in theory, i think one US carrier doesn't play nice with it, but this is the concept).
A quick Google says the Fi phones still have traditional sim slots (which makes sense since it'd be cheaper to mass manufacture one phone and handle the rest via software) so hopefully switching between services will be easy.
eSIM sounds okay if it's optional and/or a route to going dual SIM for a phone that still has a single physical SIM slot. I know dual SIM is crazy popular in some parts of the world.
Although I do wonder what happens with your eSIM in,the event of your phone bricking for whatever reason.
eSIM sounds okay if it's optional and/or a route to going dual SIM for a phone that still has a single physical SIM slot. I know dual SIM is crazy popular in some parts of the world.
Although I do wonder what happens with your eSIM in,the event of your phone bricking for whatever reason.
Nothing. you just activate an eSIM/physical SIM on another phone and move on with your life.
From what I remember, India is very big on dual SIMs; with people swapping networks almost daily. They can also pick minutes-only and data-only plans, to get the best of both promos
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Dhalphirdon't you open that trapdooryou're a fool if you dareRegistered Userregular
edited November 2018
Just got my OnePlus 6T. First full charge, nearly 9 hours screen on time.
Dhalphir on
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Dhalphirdon't you open that trapdooryou're a fool if you dareRegistered Userregular
That's what I thought, thanks guys. I suspect it's been switched off.
I hope the securing went through.
I've blocked the SIM now and a new one is on its way. (Since Google tracks IMEI, or at least displays it in FMD, I wonder if FMD will still work if by some miracle the phone comes back on.)
I think that if you hit the volume down button while it is ringing it will just silence the call.
I want to be able to set it to silent by just flipping it over while I'm at work without having to block calls entirely, and I don't want to have to remember to turn the ringer back on. That's why the Flip to Shhh feature is so compelling if I could get it to work like that.
I think that if you hit the volume down button while it is ringing it will just silence the call.
I want to be able to set it to silent by just flipping it over while I'm at work without having to block calls entirely, and I don't want to have to remember to turn the ringer back on. That's why the Flip to Shhh feature is so compelling if I could get it to work like that.
That's why I am a big fan of the the slider button on my oneplus
Right, it looks at this point like I'm going to have to buy my mum a new phone.
What's the current hotness under the £200 mark? Maybe closer to £150, even. Decent camera a plus, USB-C would be helpful, and a rear-mounted fingerprint scanner is pretty much a must.
I've been looking at the Nokia 6.1, Huawei P Smart, Honor 9 Lite, Moto G6 Play, and then my eyes started to glaze over. Her old phone was a Huawei P8 Lite 2017, for reference, and it served her pretty well.
(I still need to figure out if she had phone insurance, but I'm going to assume not.)
Dhalphirdon't you open that trapdooryou're a fool if you dareRegistered Userregular
Does the Pocophone F1 fit in that price bracket? That phone has been heavily lauded as the best budget buy of 2018 but I don't know what it's actual price is.
It looks really good (blimey, it's even got a faster CPU than my V30!) but it's well above that price range, it's either side of the £300 mark depending on vendor.
I would like to buy from Carphone Warehouse (carphonewarehouse.com), because from experience I know they're good when it comes to after-sales service and I have two easily accessible branches nearby, but I also know they don't tend to be the cheapest (they seem the priciest for the F1, for example). So them stocking something is also a plus.
Sounds crazy, but it may be worth just walking into a branch and see what they can show you. Since you have specific needs and specific vendor, that seems to be the best option.
These are in Freedom Units (under $200), but Android Central is telling me to also check:
Moto E5 Plus
Honor 7X
Xperia XA2
I think that if you hit the volume down button while it is ringing it will just silence the call.
I want to be able to set it to silent by just flipping it over while I'm at work without having to block calls entirely, and I don't want to have to remember to turn the ringer back on. That's why the Flip to Shhh feature is so compelling if I could get it to work like that.
What's the difference in the end result? In DND mode calls just go to voicemail. Silencing your phone just means it will ring silently and then go to voicemail.
Mum got her phone back! No replacement required! It did seem to be behaving a bit oddly with the securing, like it was trying to catch up with it, but we got there in the end. Just need the replacement SIM to show up now.
I think that if you hit the volume down button while it is ringing it will just silence the call.
I want to be able to set it to silent by just flipping it over while I'm at work without having to block calls entirely, and I don't want to have to remember to turn the ringer back on. That's why the Flip to Shhh feature is so compelling if I could get it to work like that.
What's the difference in the end result? In DND mode calls just go to voicemail. Silencing your phone just means it will ring silently and then go to voicemail.
It could vibrate, and/or the notification would go to my smart watch that someone is calling, vs having my phone ring loudly in the middle of the office.
I feel the need to share this because I found it incredibly impressive.
So, my 3XL just up and stopped working earlier today. Battery was fine, no problems prior, etc etc, just completely dead.
I contacted support to, in all likelihood, get a replacement because it's barely a month old.
Did text chat because I don't have a phone to call with.
Got through to a person immediately, went through the "try this" despite already saying I did. Whatever, I'll be your monkey.
Anyway, since I ordered through (previously known as) Project Fi, I technically ordered directly from Google, no dealing with service providers; so the service person said "I need to get some info from them, it'll be a moment".
The next message said "We are #127 in the queue."
...
Google support has to wait in a queue for Google support.
That's it. That's my story. I'm still waiting for the support person who is waiting for the support person. :rotate:
EDIT: 9 minutes and we are now #104. This is riveting.
Ha, I reached out to Google today too to see if they could redirect my Pixel 3 order to a Fedex facility as they're not going to be able to get into my building (or Fedex lied about trying, 50/50 on what happened). Customer Support with Google, pretty quick maybe a 5 minute wait. Google Support wait time while waiting for Project Fi? Maybe an hour? Started #111 in queue...
And Project Fi couldnt even help, just said someone would email me.
Ha, I reached out to Google today too to see if they could redirect my Pixel 3 order to a Fedex facility as they're not going to be able to get into my building (or Fedex lied about trying, 50/50 on what happened). Customer Support with Google, pretty quick maybe a 5 minute wait. Google Support wait time while waiting for Project Fi? Maybe an hour? Started #111 in queue...
And Project Fi couldnt even help, just said someone would email me.
Great, super helpful.
Yep, after half an hour they said "if it's easier we could have support email you and they'll get back in under 24hrs."
To which I said nope! I've got the time, I'll wait!
Half hour later there were "technical difficulties" and they had to move me to email.
I.E. they didn't want to sit there anymore.
I legitimately didn't want to go to email though. I need a phone that works, and I don't particularly want to dig out my Nexus 6 again while they're figuring their stuff out.
I know they're going to have to replace the phone, so I'd prefer it just move faster. It is highly unlikely (I'm guessing) they'll be able to get anything off this phone, and that is already frustrating enough.
This is the first time, that I can recall anyway, I've had a phone straight up fail on me. Issues after time, sure, but not completely stop working after a month. Pretty disappointed.
I guess I should look into what/how to keep a backup going forward. When I got the 3, it just did a big transfer from my old phone, but since this one is completely broken, that won't be an option.
Mum got her phone back! No replacement required! It did seem to be behaving a bit oddly with the securing, like it was trying to catch up with it, but we got there in the end. Just need the replacement SIM to show up now.
Following this up: replacement SIM arrived, didn't seem to activate when it should have done, then discovered it worked in my phone. Thought mum's phone was damaged; it wasn't, but it had been blacklisted without our knowledge when she told the network it was lost. Phone is now whitelisted (un-blacklisted?) again and all is well, no new phone required.
I use Google photos to back up photos automatically, and any documents I need get backed up on Drive. What else do you use your phone for?
Only other thing I can think of would be message history. Which depends which messaging app you use whether it gets backed up automatically.
I've used SMS Backup and Restore from the Play Store successfully in the past. You can start making periodic backups if you need to but you're screwed if you can't at least get power + data to/from the phone via a computer
I've got my cloud stuff turned off I think, so any photos/movies (there won't be many, I've only had it a month), any app data, i.e. game saves that don't automatically go to the cloud, and a bunch of checklists I have for myself in Keep.
I use hangouts for texts, so I know those should be saved, because I can access them from my PC, though one problem I had with the 3XL was that Hangouts was mostly refusing to update the names in conversations, even if I had them in my contacts. It made it a massive pain to search through texts because it'd just show phone numbers and not names, despite it not having that issue on my Nexus 6.
I'm sure there are better apps than Hangouts, but it is a place I can use both SMS and just general chat via Google/Gmail and have immediate access on my phone and PC, or anywhere I log into my gmail account. I don't know of any other way of having that feature, that conveniently.
EDIT: So I don't really have much that I'd need to recover to begin with, but the few things are just a frustration.
@The Dude With Herpes Did you ever get an email from Google? I havent. And now I just waited an hour for them to call me only to have it fail, but then get a call from Google so I can wait for another 30 minutes to speak to someone.
Fedex apparently tried to deliver my phone again today and didnt leave one of those we missed you notices. Again. Apparently they're going to try again tomorrow, but at some point they're just going to send the phone back as undeliverable which is going to really annoy me.
Nope, haven't heard from them in two days, and they've disabled the chat option on the Fi site.
I could request a call, but I'd need a phone.
It's beyond idiotic that one of the primary support methods for a phone service, if you've got a problem with your phone, is to get a call...to your broken phone.
I might try to get in the normal pixel chat again, but I imagine it'll end up the same way, with them needing to communicate with Fi, which is apparently impossible right now.
EDIT: Yep, went exactly as expected. Just sent me right back to Fi email support. "Is there anything else I can assist you with today?"
Yeah. Maybe assisting me in the first place.
Why even have hardware support if you won't support your hardware. If they're so quick to push off their own internal company support to another division, there's no way they support hardware bought through 3rd parties. So what does their phone hardware support even fucking support? It's designed to send anyone who needs support somewhere else.
Just. Don't even have it. Maybe put those people in the division that clearly can't keep up with their workload, instead of having a shell support program that doesn't provide any.
Apparently the call I got an hour ago (I'm still on hold btw) was from Fi, the Google Store just called me an hour and a half after they said they would...took some notes and is now transferring me to Fi. Jesus.
EDIT: Good news, Google Store was able to directly connect me with someone at Fi Support so that was nice. Bad news is that they have to refer my issue to their shipping team who will email me in 24-48 hours. womp womp
EDIT 2: Aaaand got an auto generated email saying it may take them up to 5 business days to respond due to high demand. Pretty sure my phone is being sent back to Google...
Do you have the tracking number? Can you not call FedEx directly and ask them to hold it at the depot? You may have detailed this earlier and I missed it. Even if it's a pain in tnf the ass to get there, at least you'll have a phone in hand.
Do you have the tracking number? Can you not call FedEx directly and ask them to hold it at the depot? You may have detailed this earlier and I missed it. Even if it's a pain in tnf the ass to get there, at least you'll have a phone in hand.
Yeah, tried that first but apparently FedEx can't hold the package because Google told them to deliver it to my apartment. Which sounds like a really dumb reason, everytime someone ships something they're telling FedEx to deliver to a specific place but that doesn't stop the recipient from having FedEx hold stuff. Even stuff that requires signatures.
I'm also not convinced that FedEx has actually attempted to deliver my phone, in the past they've had no problem accessing my building (and Amazon abd USPS seem quite capable of it) and at neither attempt did they leave one of those sorry we missed you slips.
ShadowfireVermont, in the middle of nowhereRegistered Userregular
Anyone familiar with Spotify on Android? We have a regular premium account that you can only stream to one device which is fine. Problem is that the app tries to open on its own constantly so if I'm listening to it on Sonos sometimes my phone or my wife's phone will have Spotify kick in and lock out the Sonos or whatever in the house.
Is there a setting so Spotify will only engage when we open the app?
Package arrived today while I was out of the house and FedEx allowed someone not me to sign for it. When I got that email notification I immediately called FedEx and they said maybe a neighbor signed for it (Setting aside that as far as I know I dont have a neighbor with the name of the individual who apparently signed for my package, what the fuck? If I cant redirect shipment because Google requires my signature why the fuck can FedEx deliver a package to me with my neighbor's signature). I get home a couple of hours later and my package is there...but it only contains a sim-free set up guide.
Reached out to FedEx and they want me to submit a claim, currently waiting for Google Fi support which had an estimated wait time of 70 minutes...
The entire reason I bought the phone when I did was to get the travel card, but I only have 15 days from the ship date to activate the phone. If this screws me out of that promo I'm going to be super pissed.
I'm hoping this is a one off experience (although Dude with Herpes' story is sadly similar to mine) as my previous customer support interactions were incredibly positive.
Posts
PSN:Furlion
The pixels are a little special because they were intentionally produced to have multiband modems that connect to pretty much all of the different networks. The older Fi phones were only designed to have modems compatible with IIRC Sprint and T-Mobile.
a CDMA phone had to be physically programmed to a phone number/account, and could not be changed without significant intervention from a carrier. It was not meant to be transported between carriers, nor were you meant to change phones easily.
eSIM, which is a new technology, is basically a "digital SIM card." It actually literally stands for "embedded SIM". Those are programmable and changeable, and can be done so by the user, as long as the carrier supports the technology.
the easiest/best example of this is the newer iPad models with cellular; You can sign up for a data plan direct from the phone, and even choose what carrier you want the plan to be on. It then stores the account information in the eSIM, in basically the same manner if you plugged in a physical SIM card. If you can to cancel the service and go with another carrier, it's as simple as..... stopping the service, and signing up with a new service from a new carrier, right on the device. (this is in theory, i think one US carrier doesn't play nice with it, but this is the concept).
https://www.verizonwireless.com/support/dual-sim-with-esim-faqs/
A quick Google says the Fi phones still have traditional sim slots (which makes sense since it'd be cheaper to mass manufacture one phone and handle the rest via software) so hopefully switching between services will be easy.
Although I do wonder what happens with your eSIM in,the event of your phone bricking for whatever reason.
Steam | XBL
Nothing. you just activate an eSIM/physical SIM on another phone and move on with your life.
(My mum's lost her phone and I lost track of it right around when I secured it remotely.)
Steam | XBL
You should be able to as long as it is on and has a GPS signal.
PSN:Furlion
I hope the securing went through.
I've blocked the SIM now and a new one is on its way. (Since Google tracks IMEI, or at least displays it in FMD, I wonder if FMD will still work if by some miracle the phone comes back on.)
Steam | XBL
I want to be able to set it to silent by just flipping it over while I'm at work without having to block calls entirely, and I don't want to have to remember to turn the ringer back on. That's why the Flip to Shhh feature is so compelling if I could get it to work like that.
That's why I am a big fan of the the slider button on my oneplus
What's the current hotness under the £200 mark? Maybe closer to £150, even. Decent camera a plus, USB-C would be helpful, and a rear-mounted fingerprint scanner is pretty much a must.
I've been looking at the Nokia 6.1, Huawei P Smart, Honor 9 Lite, Moto G6 Play, and then my eyes started to glaze over. Her old phone was a Huawei P8 Lite 2017, for reference, and it served her pretty well.
(I still need to figure out if she had phone insurance, but I'm going to assume not.)
Steam | XBL
I would like to buy from Carphone Warehouse (carphonewarehouse.com), because from experience I know they're good when it comes to after-sales service and I have two easily accessible branches nearby, but I also know they don't tend to be the cheapest (they seem the priciest for the F1, for example). So them stocking something is also a plus.
Steam | XBL
These are in Freedom Units (under $200), but Android Central is telling me to also check:
Moto E5 Plus
Honor 7X
Xperia XA2
What's the difference in the end result? In DND mode calls just go to voicemail. Silencing your phone just means it will ring silently and then go to voicemail.
Steam | XBL
It could vibrate, and/or the notification would go to my smart watch that someone is calling, vs having my phone ring loudly in the middle of the office.
So, my 3XL just up and stopped working earlier today. Battery was fine, no problems prior, etc etc, just completely dead.
I contacted support to, in all likelihood, get a replacement because it's barely a month old.
Did text chat because I don't have a phone to call with.
Got through to a person immediately, went through the "try this" despite already saying I did. Whatever, I'll be your monkey.
Anyway, since I ordered through (previously known as) Project Fi, I technically ordered directly from Google, no dealing with service providers; so the service person said "I need to get some info from them, it'll be a moment".
The next message said "We are #127 in the queue."
...
Google support has to wait in a queue for Google support.
That's it. That's my story. I'm still waiting for the support person who is waiting for the support person. :rotate:
EDIT: 9 minutes and we are now #104. This is riveting.
Origin: Galedrid - Nintendo: Galedrid/3222-6858-1045
Blizzard: Galedrid#1367 - FFXIV: Galedrid Kingshand
And Project Fi couldnt even help, just said someone would email me.
Great, super helpful.
Yep, after half an hour they said "if it's easier we could have support email you and they'll get back in under 24hrs."
To which I said nope! I've got the time, I'll wait!
Half hour later there were "technical difficulties" and they had to move me to email.
I.E. they didn't want to sit there anymore.
I legitimately didn't want to go to email though. I need a phone that works, and I don't particularly want to dig out my Nexus 6 again while they're figuring their stuff out.
I know they're going to have to replace the phone, so I'd prefer it just move faster. It is highly unlikely (I'm guessing) they'll be able to get anything off this phone, and that is already frustrating enough.
This is the first time, that I can recall anyway, I've had a phone straight up fail on me. Issues after time, sure, but not completely stop working after a month. Pretty disappointed.
I guess I should look into what/how to keep a backup going forward. When I got the 3, it just did a big transfer from my old phone, but since this one is completely broken, that won't be an option.
Origin: Galedrid - Nintendo: Galedrid/3222-6858-1045
Blizzard: Galedrid#1367 - FFXIV: Galedrid Kingshand
Following this up: replacement SIM arrived, didn't seem to activate when it should have done, then discovered it worked in my phone. Thought mum's phone was damaged; it wasn't, but it had been blacklisted without our knowledge when she told the network it was lost. Phone is now whitelisted (un-blacklisted?) again and all is well, no new phone required.
Steam | XBL
Only other thing I can think of would be message history. Which depends which messaging app you use whether it gets backed up automatically.
I've used SMS Backup and Restore from the Play Store successfully in the past. You can start making periodic backups if you need to but you're screwed if you can't at least get power + data to/from the phone via a computer
I use hangouts for texts, so I know those should be saved, because I can access them from my PC, though one problem I had with the 3XL was that Hangouts was mostly refusing to update the names in conversations, even if I had them in my contacts. It made it a massive pain to search through texts because it'd just show phone numbers and not names, despite it not having that issue on my Nexus 6.
I'm sure there are better apps than Hangouts, but it is a place I can use both SMS and just general chat via Google/Gmail and have immediate access on my phone and PC, or anywhere I log into my gmail account. I don't know of any other way of having that feature, that conveniently.
EDIT: So I don't really have much that I'd need to recover to begin with, but the few things are just a frustration.
Origin: Galedrid - Nintendo: Galedrid/3222-6858-1045
Blizzard: Galedrid#1367 - FFXIV: Galedrid Kingshand
Fedex apparently tried to deliver my phone again today and didnt leave one of those we missed you notices. Again. Apparently they're going to try again tomorrow, but at some point they're just going to send the phone back as undeliverable which is going to really annoy me.
I could request a call, but I'd need a phone.
It's beyond idiotic that one of the primary support methods for a phone service, if you've got a problem with your phone, is to get a call...to your broken phone.
I might try to get in the normal pixel chat again, but I imagine it'll end up the same way, with them needing to communicate with Fi, which is apparently impossible right now.
EDIT: Yep, went exactly as expected. Just sent me right back to Fi email support. "Is there anything else I can assist you with today?"
Yeah. Maybe assisting me in the first place.
Why even have hardware support if you won't support your hardware. If they're so quick to push off their own internal company support to another division, there's no way they support hardware bought through 3rd parties. So what does their phone hardware support even fucking support? It's designed to send anyone who needs support somewhere else.
Just. Don't even have it. Maybe put those people in the division that clearly can't keep up with their workload, instead of having a shell support program that doesn't provide any.
FFFFFFFFFFFFFfffffffffffffffffffffffff
Origin: Galedrid - Nintendo: Galedrid/3222-6858-1045
Blizzard: Galedrid#1367 - FFXIV: Galedrid Kingshand
EDIT: Good news, Google Store was able to directly connect me with someone at Fi Support so that was nice. Bad news is that they have to refer my issue to their shipping team who will email me in 24-48 hours. womp womp
EDIT 2: Aaaand got an auto generated email saying it may take them up to 5 business days to respond due to high demand. Pretty sure my phone is being sent back to Google...
Yeah, tried that first but apparently FedEx can't hold the package because Google told them to deliver it to my apartment. Which sounds like a really dumb reason, everytime someone ships something they're telling FedEx to deliver to a specific place but that doesn't stop the recipient from having FedEx hold stuff. Even stuff that requires signatures.
I'm also not convinced that FedEx has actually attempted to deliver my phone, in the past they've had no problem accessing my building (and Amazon abd USPS seem quite capable of it) and at neither attempt did they leave one of those sorry we missed you slips.
Is there a setting so Spotify will only engage when we open the app?
Package arrived today while I was out of the house and FedEx allowed someone not me to sign for it. When I got that email notification I immediately called FedEx and they said maybe a neighbor signed for it (Setting aside that as far as I know I dont have a neighbor with the name of the individual who apparently signed for my package, what the fuck? If I cant redirect shipment because Google requires my signature why the fuck can FedEx deliver a package to me with my neighbor's signature). I get home a couple of hours later and my package is there...but it only contains a sim-free set up guide.
Reached out to FedEx and they want me to submit a claim, currently waiting for Google Fi support which had an estimated wait time of 70 minutes...
The entire reason I bought the phone when I did was to get the travel card, but I only have 15 days from the ship date to activate the phone. If this screws me out of that promo I'm going to be super pissed.
I'm hoping this is a one off experience (although Dude with Herpes' story is sadly similar to mine) as my previous customer support interactions were incredibly positive.