e-mail-reading-device buying woes continue

[ghostjmf]

I finally decided to get the Alcatel Pop 7 as the cheapest thing that would support that T-Mobile sim card that's supposed to give you free 4G LTE (not much, but free) after you buy the 1st month's worth. I looked up a lot of better tablets (Nexus 7 mainly) used but its tricky because they don't all have the sim card slot & some used dealers lie (imagine that). Sears, apparently, is now selling used stuff, at least on line, but doesn't lie; good on them. I went to them as a reputable dealer & found I couldn't get it there.


Anyway, I go back to T-Mobile, & now they're contradicting themself; nope, I can't get this, because I don't have a post-paid T-Mobile phone. As in "contract". Though they claim to be the "freedom from contracts" network. What I do have is a prepaid (pay-as-you-go) T-Mobile phone, but that doesn't count.


This was confirmed, better than the store person, who didn't know what I was talking about at 1st because I didn't use their exact sales lingo, by the on-line chat person.


I have a feeling my friends who got in on this deal when it really was free (after the 1st month) are still getting it, because phone companies are lax about wiping out old customers. (I know this from my parents' & cousin's service.)


But I'm not going to luck out. I'd have to pay $20.00/month for the 4G LTE connectivity. Which still has a lure to me over getting the cheapest Kindle available & depending on their WiFi.


Didn't get either yet though.


The Chromebook or Surface, both real computers with different good points (chromebook comes with Google's taking care of security, Surface is loaded up with Microsoft stuff, natch, & both have USB ports) paired with one of those WiFi hot spots, would be better for me in the long run but I can't look at the long run right now.


For many reasons I won't go into I can't get into the agonies of tech that doesn't work right now. I've got enough other agonies.


Maybe I should sashay into an (eeek) Walmart as their ads imply they will sell you devices already hooked up to the "free 200MB/month plan". Of course, T-Mobile's ads say the you can even take a tablet you've already purchased into their stores & get this. Provided it has the right sim card slot. I was gonna buy a tablet directly from them but they wouldn't load it up with this.


Its amazing that they've got the internet plastered with ads for stuff no-one in their stores recognizes. Except that one person I talked to a couple months ago. I need to go into the local store when they're there, but I (sob) didn't take down their name.

[ghostjmf]

Bought stupid thing. Everyone's right, the camera stinks (doesn't even have the very flattering, to me, daylight filter that my years-old cell phone has, not that I can find anyway), but I didn't buy it for that.


Also, the e-mail feature, after they set it up in-store for me, has a diff "face" than the demo in the other T-Mobile store. Whatever. All I should care is it works, right? Writing a reply, instead of a forward, is going to be a bitch, but also "whatever". I went to a store I could drive to (& park at) because I'd have to wait for that one savvy salesperson to show up at other store, otherwise they'd keep insisting I buy a data plan.


Even the web sites promising "200MB/month free for life" now point you to data plans instead.


So I went into other-store, said web ads promised "free for life" (they do, just doesn't want to deliver) & asked to buy horrid device for full price in store & have sim that gives me "for life" data on this device put in. Turns out full price was $35.00 more than ads in the store for full price, because those ads are all geared to people with "post paid" plans, i.e. monthly phone data plans. T-Mobile monthly "post paid" plans. Checked again; my pay-as-you-go T-Mobile plan doesn't help.


Yes, I would have rather had a Nexus 7, despite Bob J. saying Nexus doesn't support it when it breaks. Nexus 9 costs too much (around $400.00). Nexus 7 is only available used, & would have to be one that is built to take the T-mobile sim card; there are a lot of WiFi-only Nexi 7s out there, used. Also, I read a few days ago a wealth of comments of people who had bought devices to get the 200MB deal from T-Mobile, brought them to T-Mobile, bought the sim card, & nobody, including store supposed-mavens, could get it to work. But they were stuck with device they had bought elsewhere.


My store-supposed-maven was trying to put my sim card in backwards until their boss pointed out to them the error of their ways. This was after they had given me the lecture about "it goes in this way", too. But they knew Other Things, & did the e-mail setups & WiFi-if-I-need-it stuff with me watching instead of sweating it through.


The WiFi-if-I-need-it is for if/when I exceed the 200MB/month, or when, very likely, I am in a region that doesn't have T-Mobile coverage. Maven was able to set device up to go for roaming coverage in areas that need it even though stuff on-line had told me I wouldn't be able to do that. Even with that, though, I know from my phone use that there are places T-Mobile just can't piggyback on any other service. Piggybacking works in Maine-north-of-Portland, but not in places on the interstates in Connecticut. Go figure.



I find out after I buy the thing that you cannot get into the battery. This really stinks. I'm keeping it anyway. I'm kind of beaten down by now. It does what I want it to; gets e-mail from both my accounts, connects with Google Maps for directions, Google Chrome or Regular to browse web & get this lovely web site, for instance. Except I am currently connected from real computer, thank you.


I will take it home & see if the battery, currently at 46%, actually takes a charge.


Oh, & despite maven in previous store saying it does not take USB drive (does take a card to put photos or data on, like a phone does), there is some convoluted way, it turns out, to connect USB drive to it through that card port. I will wait on exploring that. All of my USB stuff is written in Microsoft Word anyway.

[ghostjmf]

Store maven may have misrepresented how you turn the thing off; according to store maven, touching off button lightly turns it off. However, according to actual tiny manual, holding off button for many secs gets you a menu with "off" as an option. Otherwise, you're just in screen-saver mode. Which will leave me still eating up connect-time if apps are running. Of course, this thing comes loaded with apps, which I have to assume are running. I don't want to get rid any of them yet, & getting to where you can see how much connect time they each drain/per increment of real time appears to be convoluted.


So I guess I will be turning this thing all the way off each time. If I could get a straight answer about whether power-saver mode saves me any connect-time, or just saves the battery, it would be nice. Charger appears to work, by the way. No explanation why one little icon shows "46" when actual battery icon showed 26%, though. Perhaps they are measuring different things, in which case I'd like to know what the "46" icon means.


Well, I've managed to locate an online manual (http://support.bell.ca/_web/Guides/User ... -guide.pdf; pasting this here mainly for my own benefit) which can't decide if its for the Alcatel Pop 7 phone, tablet or both, & which has a mindnumbing amount of data. When I really feel like it I'll try to get the GPS function to work. Could be useful. But this info-load does not give me "which apps to turn off to save connect-time".

[Jeemie]

I'd have to have a picture of the icons in question before I could even begin to guess what the "46" icon you are talking about is.

[ghostjmf]

Its a little set of bars at the top mid right of the screen. Store maven assumed it related to battery. But it doesn't. Tablet is at home now, charging, but that's where I remember it being.

[ghostjmf]

Ahem: It wasn't "46". It was "4G". Positioned as it is, right up against the battery icon, it is misleading. Its also something you need a magnifying glass to see clearly. Magic movements with fingers on screen do not enlarge this area. The otherwise-knowledgeable maven at other store informed me, when a magic-finger swipe did not work on store demo, that Alcatel doesn't work with those. They were wrong. It does. In general, just not on "4G" icon. Everyone must be licensing this technology from Apple (or there'd be more big suits).


Boy, today's news is that Google is aiming to buy T-Mobile. For their broadcast spectrum. And drive data access prices down down down, as Google wants people perusing data, whereas all the existing phone companies are selling access, so want to keep the prices for it up. Couldn't happen fast enough for me, a not-so-happy T-Mobile customer of long standing.


I know about good tablet connectivity from my sister's I-Pad on Verizon. You can post to this list from Verizon on an I-Pad. From T-Mobile on an Alcatel you can read the list, & that's about all. And it takes several tries to get a post to even open. But I didn't buy the damn things to read this list, but read emergency e-mail, which I can do.


I can answer an e-mail from myself; I tested that before I left the store parking lot. Awkward, but did work. We shall see if it works for other people's e-mails.

[ghostjmf]

As far as I can tell, store-person misinforming me that stand-by mode was "off" switch had me use up 124 MB in one day, & I've only got 200 for the month. I will be visiting the store to buy more connectivity before long, this month anyway.


I used 131 MB leaving the thing on all day today but I was piggybacking on a free WiFi, so I used it in WiFi mode. Which I guess I will be doing a lot of with this thing.


And yes, I've already been clued in to turn the WiFi-seeker off when not in use.



The tons & tons of apps this things comes loaded with are real connectivity drains, but I'm loathe to axe them all for fear I'll never get them back, or at least not for free.


I also know something from bleak experience about shared WiFi; enough sharers, & no-one can get anything to open. People in my cousin's building are horning in on my sister's WiFi, but she doesn't want to lock it up because of various things that are supposed to connect to it. At least theoretically. The upshot of it all is that her actual laptop, the stationary laptop that cousin, the actual owner, won't allow to leave its post, is now connected by real cable. Which I love & she hates.

[Jeemie]

Google isn't buying T-Mobile. They are partnering with them (and Sprint) to sell wireless services.

[ghostjmf]

I got my info from an NPR piece. The piece said, T-Mobile has been "for sale to the highest bidder" for some time now. Whether it gets taken over by partnering agreements or wholesale really doesn't matter much to the end user.


The idea is that Google can get valuable frequencies to use without having had to go through the regulations & expenses to get them, just by leasing them from T-Mobile (&, probably, Sprint as well).

[a1mamacat]

I don'[t have this stress.

I don't own a cell anything..

[ghostjmf]

I bought my 1st cell phone specifically because I hoped BAM would be calling. Oh, those were the days. In many, many ways.

[goongas]

I also know something from bleak experience about shared WiFi; enough sharers, & no-one can get anything to open. People in my cousin's building are horning in on my sister's WiFi, but she doesn't want to lock it up because of various things that are supposed to connect to it. At least theoretically. The upshot of it all is that her actual laptop, the stationary laptop that cousin, the actual owner, won't allow to leave its post, is now connected by real cable. Which I love & she hates.

My experience with public WiFi is not good either. Once there are a number of people using it, like enough people in a Starbucks, it stops working well. My Verizon 4GTE ends up being better in those cases.

[ghostjmf]

My experience, as of today, with the "free" xfinity WiFi my little new toy picks up at my house is that it takes over all browsers with xfinity ads instead of going to the address you (I, natch) have oh-so-painfully typed in, making it far worse than "just" worthless.

[ghostjmf]

The speaker on this is pathetic. Reminds me of an old transistor radio. Speakers on i-pads are decent, of course. And loud enough.
T-Mobile has already screwed me again; machine told me I was near my 200MB limit already. So I bought a $10.00 1GB month pass. Then I find diff register on machine which says my official use, per T-Mobile, is only 27MB, & by the way that's only a week pass you bought. Agent in store, diff than the one I've been dealing with, says T-Mobile changed the terms on those passes for prepaid pariahs like me just last week. Which is not yet reflected in their online ads, where I found out about them. I will get call from manager about fix for this. Or not.

On the brighter side, Linksys (sp?) WiFi, available as I sit here in my apt, does not take over your browsers.

[goongas]

The Linksys Wifi is someone else's wifi in your building that is not secured by them. Linksys is the company of the wifi router they are using.

[ghostjmf]

In the interest of total honesty in reviews, I find sound quality on some stuff far better than other stuff. It may well depend on what media Spotify read them in from, not the Alcatel's speaker after all. I'm also impressed Spotify even has some of my esoteric folkie stuff. You have to ask by exact name/artist though. These things are not on their prefab lists. On a real computer I'd have done a general search, & come up w/youtube results mostly, which I can't afford connectivity-wise to play on this.

[ghostjmf]

When I got the Alcatel, it was running a big message on the front screen declaring that "all music services will be free". There was something in there saying you didn't spend your connect-time on them. Can't remember exact wording, but the message & the app to which it applied suddenly disappeared. Replaced by a radio-button sort of affair that played nothing. When I complained to the agent in the store, they said "you removed the app". Which I had not. Which is why I downloaded Spotify. So far it hasn't cost me anything but connect-time. And that may have been only during the act of downloading it. Hard to tell.


Oh yeah; I was monkeying around with the "record" feature, & recorded myself giving out my name & phone #s to anyone who found said device, presuming I'd lost it. Now when you go to that radio-button on the front screen, its says "unknown artist" & plays....my message! This is not the most intuitive device I've ever used.

[ghostjmf]

They never got back to me. Of course. I could have pressed it, but there was a big snowstorm here you may have read about. So my tablet continued to drain its itty-bitty 200MB connect-time without ever touching the 1G I had bought for a month that only lasted a week. Good to know it uses up your free time 1st. Not worth $10.00 to find out.


Meanwhile, mysterious usage of free time was up to 62.something. that was OK for 10 days use; means I won't be using 200 up in 30 days. I connect to local WiFi whenever its available. That was yesterday; this morning I'm told I have used 167MB. And the tablet was off overnight, but plugged in to charge its thirsty little battery. I checked what is "running in the background all the time"; nothing obviously time-sucking or new. Also, when I tried to turn off the one I'll never use, Google Play, I got all kinds of dire warnings about screwing up my tablet. Any Android tablet is a slave to Google, just like Apple tabs are slaves to Apple.


When I next looked into my connectivity usage, it said 135MB. So it dialed itself down from previous usage? Interesting. Also meaningless, apparently. Just like the other meter, the one that told me I was close to my 200MB allotment, causing me to buy that month pass that only lasted a week, was meaningless. They'll turn me off when they turn me off, & I'll take it from there.

[ghostjmf]

I found one important thing using up my connect-time; el tablito turns itself on when it feels like it. Impossible to mistake, as it takes at least a minute, accompanied by what Alcatel thinks are cute graphics, & a dramatic increase in brightness when its almost there. Gotta love these T-Mobile thingies. Can't convince myself I somehow just didn't turn it off all the way after that. Now my little old T-M flip phone, the thing that's supposed to be on all the time, it turns itself off when its feeling stressed.

[Beebs52]

I'm flummoxed by all the probs you're having. It sounds awful.

[ghostjmf]

More lies from the lying liars:

Turn out that T-Mobile promise of "we never cut off your service, we just change it from 4G to 2G" only applies to post-paid, not prepaid customers. So when I'm out, I'm really out. Being out means that if you can't link up to somebody's WiFi, you can't even buy more data from them via the tablet. Which is dumb of them. As their phone reps are not native English speakers, & let's leave it at that. Also turns out musical service streaming isn't free. as in "doesn't use up data-connect-time", for prepaid customers.


Also, they are giving the tablet I paid $238.00 (that includes SIM card) for away for free this weekend (they were giving it away free last November, too). But only to people who already have a T-Mobile smart phone & data plan. If you already have a T-Mobile smart phone, you don't need this tablet, unless your eyesight needs a bigger screen (mine does anyway).


So I bought another $10 1GB pass to get me to the end of my initial 30-day period. The tablet now tells me in one place that I have 1GB, but a couple lines below says I only have 200MB. Again.

It might be that they throw that free 200MB in with every & any pass you buy. Or it might be that they think I only have 200MB, again.


You gotta love them.