(X-posted from MacNN)
I'm the kind of person wireless companies love because I pay $80-90/mo for voice minutes I hardly use and a data quota that I rarely exceed. Starting with the original iPhone to present day with my iPhone 4S, that's a lot of money!
As always the new iPhones are great, but feel it's an expensive option for my needs.
Some facts before I lay out the plan.
* An unlocked 16GB 4G iPad mini is $459, with pay-as-you-go data (sweet).
* An unlocked 16GB iPhone 5c is $549.
* An unlocked 16GB iPhone 5s is $649.
My plan is to:
1. Sell my iPhone 4S and Retina iPad and replace both with a 4G iPad mini (may wait for next version). The pay as you go data plans are about $20-30 mo, compared to $80-90/mo as it is now.
2. Try porting my number to a VoIP provider.
3. Use something like Google Voice or another provider to handle SMS messages.
4. Already using iMessage and Google Hangouts to chat with iOS and Android users, respectively so this will flow through 4G and Wifi seamlessly.
Is anyone doing something like this? Would love to hear your thoughts, and think I could get by with carrying it in my hand if it doesn't fit in my pocket. As for it's use as a phone, I might seem doable by using it upside down, as the microphone and speaker locations are reversed. Always an option for a headset, but unnecessary. I'd save over $700 in phone bills a year, and have 1 iOS device that can do everything I want. Thanks!
I'm the kind of person wireless companies love because I pay $80-90/mo for voice minutes I hardly use and a data quota that I rarely exceed. Starting with the original iPhone to present day with my iPhone 4S, that's a lot of money!
As always the new iPhones are great, but feel it's an expensive option for my needs.
Some facts before I lay out the plan.
* An unlocked 16GB 4G iPad mini is $459, with pay-as-you-go data (sweet).
* An unlocked 16GB iPhone 5c is $549.
* An unlocked 16GB iPhone 5s is $649.
My plan is to:
1. Sell my iPhone 4S and Retina iPad and replace both with a 4G iPad mini (may wait for next version). The pay as you go data plans are about $20-30 mo, compared to $80-90/mo as it is now.
2. Try porting my number to a VoIP provider.
3. Use something like Google Voice or another provider to handle SMS messages.
4. Already using iMessage and Google Hangouts to chat with iOS and Android users, respectively so this will flow through 4G and Wifi seamlessly.
Is anyone doing something like this? Would love to hear your thoughts, and think I could get by with carrying it in my hand if it doesn't fit in my pocket. As for it's use as a phone, I might seem doable by using it upside down, as the microphone and speaker locations are reversed. Always an option for a headset, but unnecessary. I'd save over $700 in phone bills a year, and have 1 iOS device that can do everything I want. Thanks!