We all buy a new cell phone periodically when the old one gets "battery weak" or starts doing wonky stuff.
The ARM V9 generation is here, so the old phones from older generations should get seriously cheaper right about now.When your phone signals its declining years and you start thinking about it, what is it that do you look for in a new phone?==================================================
My wife is a real phone user, she is on her phone talking to her buddies both spontaneously and at scheduled times (when they are driving to work or taking kids to school and can talk hands free as all cars seem to support that now-a-days with blue tooth or a mounting bracket). Women do like to talk, don't they?
She uses up a phone's battery in about 2-3 years battery-wise so I started buying her 5,000 watt/hour models (Motorola calls them the G Power family) to stretch her use life out as far as it will go.
I generally use her old phone as it has life still left in it and it is better than what I am using, generally speaking.
If you buy the phone direct from Google Fi they take responsibility for
all of it, Qualcomm issues and Motorola issues and ARM issues alike.
In pursuit of better battery lifespan I now use the Motorola Moto G Power family exclusively, and I mate it up with Google Fi for the service as it can tag anybody's towers seamlessly and doesn't ever seem to drop a call while doing this. A Google Fi tweeked Motorola phone also will hop on to any available open WiFi signal in preference to using tower minutes and if you instruct the phone properly we can go certain months using zero minutes off the fairly generous allowance Fi gives to a basic plan.
If I ever have a plan overage, it is time to call Fi Customer service as a setting somewhere has gotten messed up by an upgrade as
I should never have more than a handful of minutes charged much less an an actual overage. Fi apologizes, tells you which thing in settings to flip off/on and then gives you your overages back on the next bill. Being consistent about doing this means they can track your intention over the years and they don't argue about the overage charges as they can see you were set up to avoid them before they messed up the update stuff.
Google Fi has good customer service, and being Google they have no out to try to take if an update does something wonky. I have had phones spontaneously die during updates and the rep asked me if it was on charge or doing an update when it died and then they simply said it was their fault and sent me a refurbished like brand new phone by Fed Ex Express. I am on the cheapest plan they have and it made no difference, but they have such a tight relationship with Motorola they know all about whatever strange stuff Qualcomm or Motorola has gotten them into.
This same phone issue was really about a Qualcomm processor going half bad and losing some of the 8 cores due to driver incompatibility in the update, really strange sort of life span stuff that does happen to you if you keep a phone going for a goodly while. That phone had been run by the wife until she got unhappy with it's overall performance then I ran it until the processor half died (battery life was sorta shot too, but it started out with a really big battery for the time it was built in).
Phones come and go, some model years are real improvements in the phone itself and some years are meh, not really worth it. Qualcomm is always used by Motorola, so you always get the best chipset in each generation, but you got to watch those Qualcomm family groups as different ARM levels are used each year, seems like.
Some years of Moto G Power however are outstandingly good. The web has comparison tools to help you to pick out the good ones. This is my existing match up in consideration.
https://versus.com/en/motorola-moto-g-3rd-gen-vs-motorola-moto-g-power looking at my old phone
https://versus.com/en/motorola-moto-g-power-vs-motorola-moto-g7 looking at the current Moto G 7th gen
Now let's talk plan costs.
$20 a month gets you the primary line (the most expensive line). You get one of these and then this phone number is in charge of a group plan that lets you tag on additional 4 lines for $15 each. Each line gets the fairly generous Fi minutes and other features that Fi gives you for free (and all the others charge you extra with little nit-picking charges)
Google Fi doesn't nit-pick you, what you sign up for is what you pay. Fi doesn't do roaming minutes or zone charges or any of the rest of the BS that the other use to double your bill each month.
And if you take the time to work with a Fi phone representative (Fi does live voice and text support on the phone with a real English speaking person) they can customize your set up to
STOP AT&T and VERIZON from adding their little nicky charges to calls made over their systems when you really are off their Fi service map roaming for real.
Purchase Cost of a new Fi phone varies, when they first come out a new phone on Fi is delayed about 6 months to the rest of the world, but when it does become available it is always $100 less than anybody else. General price range for a Motorola G Power is $200-$250 when they first come out and that is to buy it outright. Google Fi does offer rent to own (or financing plans if you like that terminology better) but you are dollars ahead just to buy it outright with a single price.
Spotting a sale price on a good model of an older phone is a matter of looking at the Fi site every few months. I spot a good model that has the good (better than normal) spec bumps when it came out then I look for it to go on sale at a model change over time.
How good does it get?
It can get very good ......https://versus.com/en/motorola-moto-g-3rd-gen-vs-motorola-moto-g-power looking at my old phone
https://versus.com/en/motorola-moto-g-power-vs-motorola-moto-g7 looking at the current Moto G 7th gen
I am buying this new 5,000 watt hour phone for $49 outright, no trade in required.
Being a year old, the cases are now cheap too --- I paid $6.50 for a good multi-layer hard shell case.
A new, better spec'd phone with a fresh big battery for $57 in total ---- not too shabby......... more later when the phone actually gets here.
The ARM V9 generation is here, so the old phones from older generations should get cheaper right about now.
Pages: 1 
