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200MB enough?

vong

vong

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Jan 31, 2010
847
8
going to be first time iPhone user soon, and I dont know whether or not 200MB will be enough. what I plan to with my iPhone 4 is:

1) check mail daily
2) look at news while i am in the restroom (#2)
3) use AIM, TEXTING and etc
4) SOME youtube.

i tried to MRoogle 200MB but coudlnt find anything.
 
Those things will put your right over 200mb if you ask me. I do all of those things on a regular basis and I am always over 200mb.
 
Well, is a lot of the times you do those things at home on Wi-Fi?

It's really hard to say. I've never been over 200MB, but I'm sticking with my unlimited plan for now.

I mainly use my phone at home though, on the go, it's just a quick phone call, or email checks.
 
if you will be using youtube and emails, i dont think 200MB is enough.

a youtube vid can be as big as 50MB depending on its length. its harder to tell for the mobile devices but they sure can chew through that bandwidth.

the emails are especially devious! if you can cut down and just keep it to IM/emails/news and watch closely then you SHOULD be ok.

200MB is only ~6.5MB per day! the MR page itself is about 1MB to load!
 
powerbook911 said:
Well, is a lot of the times you do those things at home on Wi-Fi?
Click to expand...

that's probably the most important question right there. I use the crap out of my iPhone in terms of data usage but most of it is done over WiFi so my actual data usage is always under 500mb/month. However I see that going up for me with the iPhone 4, so I'm holding on to my unlimited data plan with a tight clenched fist. :cool:
 
thanks for the link, i'll be browsing that thread

powerbook911 said:
Well, is a lot of the times you do those things at home on Wi-Fi?

It's really hard to say. I've never been over 200MB, but I'm sticking with my unlimited plan for now.

I mainly use my phone at home though, on the go, it's just a quick phone call, or email checks.
Click to expand...

i will probably use my data for when i am out of my house. also is there a way to check how much data you've used on your iPhone? w/o going to AT&T site or w/e
 
vong said:
i will probably use my data for when i am out of my house. also is there a way to check how much data you've used on your iPhone? w/o going to AT&T site or w/e
Click to expand...

it says on the iphone itself i believe. not sure though, i dont have one. its in the System Preferences somewhere.
 
appleguy123 said:
That also counts the DATA that you use on WiFi.
Click to expand...

You have to check the ATT website (assuming we're in the US)


OP I've been sick with mononucleosis for the past month so I've pretty much only been in the house with wifi...today I went out to do some things, I burned through 40MB of data over 3G in a day. And that's without what I would consider "heavy usage" I only updated a couple apps and some other things.

I'd go with the 2GB plan. For myself I'm sticking with unlimited.
 
Minimoose 360 said:
You have to check the ATT website (assuming we're in the US)


OP I've been sick with mononucleosis for the past month so I've pretty much only been in the house with wifi...today I went out to do some things, I burned through 40MB of data over 3G in a day. And that's without what I would consider "heavy usage" I only updated a couple apps and some other things.

I'd go with the 2GB plan. For myself I'm sticking with unlimited.
Click to expand...

Please see above and see if that works for you.
 
I get 1GB of data allowance a month, and have never come close to reaching that. Using my home wi-fi is a big contributor, but unless you're downloading large apps or email attachments while on the go, you should be fine with 200MB.

Just make sure you have a way of checking how much you have gone through in order to avoid going over your limit.
 
appleguy123 said:
Please see above and see if that works for you.
Click to expand...

"Text from '104' - We're sorry. Requested information is currently unavailable. Please try again later."

It's been saying that for all *___# triggers. AT&T is all botched up.


I just usually look at the data usage in the myWireless app.
 
I'm not a heavy user at all. I only use my iPhone for email, social networking (twitter, facebook) and light web browsing, no video/audio streaming, and my usage is at least 300MB+ per month according to AT&T. Good luck staying under 200MB if you do Youtube.
 
vong said:
going to be first time iPhone user soon, and I dont know whether or not 200MB will be enough. what I plan to with my iPhone 4 is:

1) check mail daily
2) look at news while i am in the restroom (#2)
3) use AIM, TEXTING and etc
4) SOME youtube.

i tried to MRoogle 200MB but coudlnt find anything.
Click to expand...
How long do you plan on staying in the restroom? You can probably use quite a bit of date in there. I think you should go for the 2GB. Its only $10 more and you wont have to worry about going over.
 
If you're using your iPhone as an internet device, it's tough to stay under 200 megabytes. I think that plan is mostly for people that are really only planning on using the phone as a phone the majority of the time.

That being said, you could always START with the 200 mb plan, monitor you usage, and if it turns out to not be enough, you can upgrade your plan to the 2 GB plan. AT&T would love to upgrade you to the more expensive plan if you ask.
 
I tried to use wifi as much as possible this month just to see what happened, I'll still be close to 400mb. So I vote no.
 
mikethebigo said:
AT&T would love to upgrade you to the more expensive plan if you ask.
Click to expand...

Didn't I also read that ATT will let you up your data package from the 200mb to the 2gb one if you start to go over as long as you do it before the end of your billing cycle? I believe then they will also let you put it back down to 200 again for the next month but it will all be manual so you have to initiate the process.

It would have been nice if the 200mb plan would just jump up to the 2gb plan if you went over instead of another 200mb for $15 without having to call though...

Yep...found where I read that...on this site actually :D

iPhone users can bump up from the $15 200 MB data plan to the $25 2 GB plan without penalty as long as they initiate the change before the end of the desired billing cycle. This will allow users on the lower tier to simply bump up to the $25 plan as needed rather than having to pay $15 per additional 200 MB over the initial 200 MB limit. Users can then bump themselves back down for their next billing cycle. It is unclear at this time whether users on the higher tier will be able to drop down to the lower tier mid-cycle if they see that their data usage will be low for that period.
Click to expand...

https://www.macrumors.com/2010/06/02/more-details-on-atandts-data-plan-changes-for-iphone-and-ipad/
 
vong said:
going to be first time iPhone user soon, and I dont know whether or not 200MB will be enough. what I plan to with my iPhone 4 is:

1) check mail daily
2) look at news while i am in the restroom (#2)
3) use AIM, TEXTING and etc
4) SOME youtube.

i tried to MRoogle 200MB but coudlnt find anything.
Click to expand...

200MB won't be anough. All my wife uses it for is e-mail and Facebook and she is pushing 100MB. 2GB, in all honesty, should be enough for what you want to do.

You said you are a first time iPhone user soon. Trust me, you will use it more than you think you will.
 
Settings > General > Usage > Reset Statistics

This is what I have done.

checked sent and received data, divide by the day used = average 15MB a day for me. Should be an average of 450/500MB a month.
 
The wifi chip in my phone hasn't worked for a year so I'm stuck using 3G every day, and I still don't go over 200MB. Ever. I download apps, and I'm always on youtube.

Does texting count towards your data plan? I always thought they were completely separate plans?
 
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