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Is 1GB data enoguh for the 4S?

wackymacky

wackymacky

macrumors 68000
Original poster
Sep 20, 2007
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38°39′20″N 27°13′10″W
If I don't plan to download music or watch too much video over 3g is 1 GB of data a month reasonable?

I currently have a plan with 3GB of data and haven’t ever got near this. I'm not sure really about the effect of iCloud and Siri however

I can keep this 3GB plan if I buy the 4S out right, or save $600 by signing up for the 1GB data plan

(and before anyone says it, I can afford the $600 difference, but why give it to a Telco for no reason, when I could use it to buy some clothes and take my family out to dinner)
 
Last edited:
Siri doesnt use that much. About 30mb a month for normal usage so its almost negligible to a 1-3gb limit.

However iCloud it depends on what application you are using

I say if you dont use 3gb right now downgrade to 1gb. Whenever you feel you are close to your 1gb limit on average then upgrade again.

You can monitor your usage on your iPhone or carrier website if they provide.
 
Only you know if the 1Gb will be enough. We don't know exactly how you use your phone so we can't judge for you if it will be good enough for you.
 
wackymacky said:
If I don't plan to download music or watch too much video over 3g is 1 GB of data a month reasonable?

I currently have a plan with 3GB of data and haven’t ever got near this. I'm not sure really about the effect of iCloud and Siri however

I can keep this 3GB plan if I buy the 4S out right, or save $600 by signing up for the 1GB data plan

(and before anyone says it, I can afford the $600 difference, but why give it to a Telco for no reason, when I could use it to buy some clothes and take my family out to dinner)
Click to expand...

Pro tip, Siri's novelty wears off in less than a week. It wont be a problem.
 
MultiMediaWill said:
Save $600. I never go over 200mb cause here on college campus we have wifi everywhere.
Click to expand...

Sure, maybe this gentleman is on the exact same college campus as you with the exact same WiFi everywhere so he too will never go over 200mb. :confused:

1GB will be enough if you don't plan on doing much with your phone, but it's an iPhone and you want to use it.

I have unlimited and use between 2gb and 6gb a month. I use WiFi at home. I never keep track of how much I use since it's unlimited, but if I had to always watch what I do with my iPhone and sometimes not use it for fear of using data, it would be a real pain in the butt. :(

In the future, when all media is streaming and there are apps and features that we can't even imagine yet, having a tiered data plan is going to suck. Just because people don't use 200mb, 1GB or 2GB a month now doesn't mean they won't in the future when technology advances and you can do a lot more with your mobile devices.
 
wackymacky said:
If I don't plan to download music or watch too much video over 3g is 1 GB of data a month reasonable?

I currently have a plan with 3GB of data and haven’t ever got near this. I'm not sure really about the effect of iCloud and Siri however

I can keep this 3GB plan if I buy the 4S out right, or save $600 by signing up for the 1GB data plan

(and before anyone says it, I can afford the $600 difference, but why give it to a Telco for no reason, when I could use it to buy some clothes and take my family out to dinner)
Click to expand...

You will stay under 1GB of data if you:

1. Are in WiFi at least 50% of the time (if you're a heavy user).
2. Do not stream video or music.
3. Do not download many apps via the network.

Texting, Siri, Google Maps, etc don't use much data. If you don't go anywhere near 3GB I'd save yourself the money and go with the 1GB.
 
I do a fair bit of 3G, some streaming on Pandora, and even some tethering of my laptop & iPad. I very seldom break 1GB (though I have 4GB available on my AT&T tethered plan).
 
After switching to the iPhone from a BlackBerry, I was shocked at how much of a data whore the iPhone was. I don't stream video (3G is too slow in this country) and don't do any monstrous downloading. Yet I easily clear a gig.
 
theEconomist said:
After switching to the iPhone from a BlackBerry, I was shocked at how much of a data whore the iPhone was. I don't stream video (3G is too slow in this country) and don't do any monstrous downloading. Yet I easily clear a gig.
Click to expand...

That's bc blackberry compresses their data, you are now getting the full web experience
 
if you using 3G 10 hour a day , 1 GB is not enough , even 5 GB maximum data at att not work either ....

ATT did'nt has plan unlimited data for iphone that suck
i'm using 4 GB , everyday i only used 20 watching movie 3G on ios application
15 days later all my data is complete used .
 
If you not gonna use iPhone much, than yes 1gb. enouph.
I have 6gb. and use 2-3gb. on regular basis. I wouldn't take 1gb. plan
 
Bartboy919 said:
Pro tip, Siri's novelty wears off in less than a week. It wont be a problem.
Click to expand...

I'm using Siri increasingly more and more, especially as I travel a lot and it is really handy in the car, when driving. I don't have to look at the phone, (I use a headset) and it works like magic. And I'm not even a native English speaker.
But every Siri question takes about 64kb, so it's not like your data-plan will be running down in a week orso.
but all in all I use about 400-500Mb.

My wife has a usage of around 1Gb per month. She has wifi at home (accidentally the same home and wifi as I do :) ) and at work (she has an office job) but she uses her phone heavily while traveling by train. All in all about 75 minutes a day and that's all on 3G. In that time she does her social media, sometimes a youtube, a lot of news (well, tabloids and that kind of stuff), forums etc.
 
I stream Pandora and navigation maps often so there's no way I could survive on 1GB, but if you don't use any data intensive apps like that then you should be fine.
 
less

ShionoyaTamaki said:
Siri doesnt use that much. About 30mb a month for normal usage so its almost negligible to a 1-3gb limit.

However iCloud it depends on what application you are using

I say if you dont use 3gb right now downgrade to 1gb. Whenever you feel you are close to your 1gb limit on average then upgrade again.

You can monitor your usage on your iPhone or carrier website if they provide.
Click to expand...

actually siri uses much less than that, maybe 15mb since it only works half the time.

badabing!

:p
 
I think 1gb should be the minimum. I only do web browsing and email and things like that on 3G and the heavy lifting and heavy browsing when I'm on Wifi. At this rate I have used about 700mb and my bill is on the 18th.

And I think I've used... 18 gigs over Wifi; the first month is always the worst ;)

200 comes out to 6.6 megs a day, which is literally loading 4 or so desktop versions of sites.
 
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