New Net10 Deals

Posted on September 29, 2010 by pbushx2

Just a few days ago, I posted about the end to Net10′s policy of offering 300 free activation minutes. The bundle deals of free phones with airtime cards also disappeared. Now there are some new great deals to fill the void.

Net10′s newest offering is a 750-minute, 30-day card for $25.Further, it appearsthat their $50/month unlimited cards can now be applied to all Net10 phones, whereas it previously would work only on phones specifically branded as “Net10 Unlimited.”

The great deal relates to Net10′s effort to promote the 750 minute card. In the last 24 hours they’ve offered some refurbisheded and now some new phones bundled with the 750 minute card. Initially they had a refurbed Samsung T401g bundled with the 750 minute card for $25. Unfortunately, that package seems to have sold out very quickly, as I didn’t even have time to get this post published before it disappeared.

Currently, they are offering a free LG 300 phone in the 750 minute or unlimited bundle. Other bundles include the Motorola em326g and a new Samsung T401g. These latter two phones seem to be at regular price currently.

However, given how quickly the t401g refurb deal came and went, it appears that in these early stages of the new deals it might be worth checking back occasionally to see if any new deals pop up. Click here to get to Net10′s site and check for current deals.

Also, I’ll monitor the situation and post again as more info becomes available about the Net10 monthly plans. For now, there are a lot of questions. Specifically, I’m wondering what happens when you add a monthly card to an existing Net10 phone with minutes and service days remaining. Will the expiration date be extended by 30 days? For the 750 plan, will the 750 minutes be added to the existing minutes? And if a user switches back to the pay-as-you-go airtime cards after a month or two of monthly service, do any of those 750 minutes roll over? Most likely they will not since it could create a huge advantage to the consumer, but only time will tell for sure.

Anyway, I’ll keep an eye on things and do some testing myself, and fill you in as I gather more info. For now, you might want to check Net10′s site to see what’s available.

Net10 Bonus Change

Posted on September 27, 2010 by pbushx2

I’ve noticed a recent change to Net10′s site, and wanted to take the time to point it out here. It seems Net10 is phasing out their policy of including 300 starter minutes on all newly activated phones.

This first became apparent on their website, where many phone listings no longer indicate “Includes 300 Minutes and 60 Days of Service upon activation.” This is true of some, but not all, listings on their “buy phones” page.

Also gone are the bundle deals that included a free phone with an airtime card purchase. Previously, this had been an excellent way to acquire very inexpensive minutes. Perhaps Net10 caught on to the fact that customers were using the bundles and free activation minutes in this way. Or maybe they decided that they can lower the initial price of the phones if they aren’t giving away minutes.

I haven’t been to any stores yet to confirm that this change is also affecting sales through brick-and-mortar retail outlets, but I believe that most likely it will apply there as well. If you are looking at buying a phone in a store, make sure the packaging advertises the 300 minute activation bonus, or you likely won’t get it.

I believe that if you have any phones not yet activated, but which were purchased while the 300 free minute offer was in effect, you should still receive the 300 minutes when you do activate them.

It also might be worth grabbing a couple of inexpensive phones that are still advertised as including the bonus minutes. Click here to get to Net10.com to find the phones that are still offered with the bonus minutes.

Another option might be to search eBay for phones with the 300 minute bonus advertised on the packaging. Click here to find eBay items with the 300 minute offer included.

LG 620g Review Conclusion

Posted on September 24, 2010 by pbushx2

I’m finally ready with the LG 620g review conclusion. To read earlier segments, use the following links:

Click here to buy the phone at StraightTalk.com.

Here’s the review conclusion:

Extras

I have been rather impressed with the browser on this model. I’m not sure whether the reason is that the phone is Straight Talk rather than the TracFone and Net10 handsets that I typically use, or if it’s related to the hardware of the 620g. Whatever the reason, the browser seems to load as quickly as any phone I’ve used from these three companies.

I also had no trouble navigating to any website I chose. Among those that I tried were Google, Wikipedia, Google Maps, Mapquest (which worked better than Google Maps), Yahoo mail, GMail, ESPN, and CNN. Page load times met my expectations, considering this model doesn’t use 3g data services. Still, I would say that page load much faster on this model than on old dial-up modem phone line connections. Much of that depends on the quality of the site, too. Any well-known site will have a version of the designed specifically for mobile phones, and they will load fine on this phone.

The organizational features are pretty good and include a calendar, alarm clock, note pad, calculator, world clock, task list, stop watch, and unit converter. One unusual feature, similar to the LG 420g for TracFone and Straight Talk, is a “secret notes” section where you can enter notes that are then protected by the phone’s “security code.” Beyond those functions, there’s a fairly versatile voice recorder, with pretty good recording quality and the ability to save VERY long recordings to your phone’s internal memory or to a microSD card.

The calendar function, as well as the alarm clock, work very nicely in my opinion. I’d like to have task list automatically incorporate into the calendar, but that‘s a minor complaint and might be something that would be limited to more complete smart phones rather than a pretty inexpensive feature phone such as this. All in all, if you stick to the calendar and the alarm clock I think this could be a handy organizational device.

The 620g comes with a couple of pre-loaded games, the same that were available on the LG 420g I reviewed recently. There’s a version of Sudoku that I don’t like much because there’s an annoying delay between when you press a key and when the cursor actually moves between squares. There’s also something called “mini game planet” that has 10 very simplistic mini games inside. You can unlock three of the ten to start out, then you’ll have to earn more “credits” by playing the games to unlock more. Some of these are moderately entertaining for the first few minutes, but they get boring pretty quickly.

However, there’s also apparently the ability to add your own java games, which you can download from the internet. This is something that I need to explore more with this model, but I’ve previously done something like this with my LG 600g and Samsung T401g. Here are some tips for adding games to this model (note that this applies to the LG 420g, but should work with this model as well). Hopefully I’ll soon have some more time to look at this more closely and do a full post only on adding games to the 620.

Other info on the LG 620g

I’ve found that the phone is rather slow to refresh the screen when it’s first slid open. This can be mildly annoying if you use your phone for the clock, as for the first second the screen lights up, it displays the time of previous time the screen was lit. It takes a second to refresh to the current time.

As I usually do in my reviews, I’m going to complain that this model doesn’t have voice-activated dialing. For some reason, Straight Talk seems to include this feature only on CDMA handsets, while this one is GSM.

Conclusion

I’ve found a lot of things I like about the LG 620g after using it extensively over the past several weeks. I really enjoy the large screen, compact size, excellent battery life, excellent signal reception, good voice quality, and flexibility in terms of ringtones. Further, the ringtone creator, 1.3 mp camera, mp3 player, and microSD card slot make the phone more fun and useful.

While I won’t personally make use of the organizer functions since I always carry my iPod and use apps on there, I think that the calendar and alarm clock would do the basics just fine if you need to set reminders and plan your schedule. And of course the video camera and voice recorder are nice little extras to have if you ever need them.

I also found some drawbacks. I don’t necessarily think the following list is very significant, but one of these items might be a deal-breaker for any one individual. So I’ll list them out, in the order of what I consider to be most important:

no voice-activated dialing,
proprietary headset or adapter is necessary if you want to use a wired headset for calls or music
no programmable shortcuts
no side rocker switch to change the call volume
takes too many keystrokes to change ringtone volume (although complete muting is easy)
flat keys on the directional pad are hard to get used to
menu navigation is a bit laggy at times

All in all, I have found that after a few weeks of using this as my only phone, the positives definitely outshine the negatives for me. I’ve really learned to love this little phone. I ported my primary phone number to Straight Talk just to write the LG 620g review, even though my usage pattern is really a better fit for Net10 or TracFone. But after using the 620g, even just for a few weeks, I think I’ll be pretty disappointed to switch back to a Net10 or TracFone handset. I may be persuaded to give up my landline and use this phone instead!

If you’re on the fence about this model, I strongly suggest you give it a try. As of this writing, the price is $69.99 with free shipping, plus a $30 or $45 airtime card to cover your first month, on Straight Talk’s site. And I’m not sure how long it will last, but they’re currently (September, 2010) offering a $15 gift certificate with all new phone purchases. Click here to check it out!

If you haven’t yet read the other parts of this review, but want to get some more details about the LG 620g, check out the following links:

Click here to buy the phone at StraightTalk.com.

LG 620g Review Part 3

Posted on September 17, 2010 by pbushx2

Here’s part 3 of my LG 620g review. To read previous parts, check out the following links:

LG 620g Review Index

Part 1

Part 2

The 620g is currently available only as a Straight Talk device, though it might make an appearance on Net10 at a later time. For now, you can check out more details or buy the phone at StraightTalk.com.

Connectivity

The 620g can be connected to a computer a couple of different ways, and I’ve found very few limitations in the connections. I have been able to transfer pictures, ringtones, mp3 files, videos, contacts, and even application files both by bluetooth and USB cable. Further, you can also use a removable microSD card to transfer files between the 620g and other devices.

I tried briefly to connect the phone for use as a USB modem, without success. When this model is plugged into a computer via USB, the user is presented with two options for the connection – mass storage, or USB modem. The mass storage modem, of course, allows for files to be transferred to or from the phone.

But when I selected “USB modem,” my computer began searching for an appropriate driver, which it never found. I poked around a few different sites on the web looking for a driver, but still couldn’t get the setup to work. Either way, I’m not too confident that the phone would work as a modem, since Straight Talk has previously been pretty careful about locking down options like that. And even if it did work, the connection would be very slow due to the GPRS connection offered on this device.

I had no problems with the bluetooth audio connection on the LG 620g either. As always, I skipped testing the phone with GPS units and navigation systems since I don’t have access to either of those. Based on previous experience with these phones, however, I think it’s a safe bet that the bluetooth connection will work for audio transmission and probably call answering and ending, but probably not for voice-activated dialing or any other advance services.

I also don’t know whether the mp3 player will play through a stereo bluetooth headset. Looking at the supported bluetooth profiles on the phone, I can see that it supports Advanced Audio Distribution (A2DP), which indicates it can transmit stereo audio over bluetooth. However, I don’t see any option in the mp3 player to change the audio output to bluetooth instead of wired headphones or the built-in speaker. This was the case even when the phone was paired with a bluetooth headset. The only headsets I have are mono, so that could be the problem. So I guess the answer there is simply that I don’t know whether the mp3 player can play through a bluetooth headset.

Camera

The LG 620g camera can take pictures at a resolution of up to 1.3 megapixels (1280 x 960). Other supported resolutions include VGA (640 x 480) and 320 x 240. Videos can also be recorded, but only at 176 x 144 resolution.

The camera offers the usual assortment of options such as super fine, fine, and normal quality settings; 2x zoom (but not at the highest quality settings); white balance and brightness manual adjustment; night mode; self timer; choice of several color settings such as sepia or black and white; and multi-shot mode.

Here are a couple sample photos and a sample video, all taken on the highest quality settings.

MP3 player

Right off the bat, I have a significant complaint with the mp3 player: the phone requires a proprietary headset (or possibly an adapter if you can find one). Unlike the Samsung r355c, which has a standard headset jack on it, the headset connector on this LG 620g is a microUSB port. That means that you’ll probably have to spend more money on accessories in order to listen to music. Of course you could use the built-in speaker, but that doesn’t produce good sound quality. And like I mentioned previously, I don’t believe that bluetooth is going to work for stereo audio. I ended up buying a headset on Amazon for around $10.

Beyond that complaint, the performance of the mp3 player has been alright. Audio quality is acceptable, but not good, through the headphones I bought. I can’t be sure whether the problem is the headphones or the device itself, but I suspect it’s a combination. The sounds just aren’t as sharp as I would like, even compared to my iPod and standard Apple headphones, which aren’t the highest quality for music playback.

On the plus side, there are a handful of preset “equalizer” options that actually do change the sound somewhat, if only minimally. The playlist function is also more user friendly than on previous Straight Talk phones. It definitely is far from perfect, as it takes a while to set up playlists especially if you have a lot of music on your phone. But once you have songs added to a playlist, you can then change the order within the playlist – something that is not possible, to my knowledge, with the Samsung mp3 player phones from Straight Talk. I also like the fact that the headset includes a button to start and stop playback right on the cord, eliminating the need to pull out the phone to pause music.

To sum up the mp3 player – it’s a nice feature to have, and it’s definitely handy to have a few songs on a microSD card for occasional use. But to take advantage of it, you’ll need special headphones. And if you already have a separate mp3 player you like, you’re not going to want to ditch that separate device for this phone, because the organization and audio quality on just about any other stand-alone music player will greatly surpass what’s available on this phone.

That’s all for now, next week I’ll be back to discuss some of the other features and to wrap it all up, including my final conclusion on the LG 620g review.

For now, you can check out more details or buy the phone at StraightTalk.com.

http://www.jdoqocy.com/click-2908593-10712118?sid=Part+3+LG+620g+Review

LG 620g Review Part 2

Posted on September 14, 2010 by pbushx2

This post is Part 2 of my LG 620g phone review. For Part 1, click here.
To buy this phone from Straight Talk, click here.

Here are my most recent findings on this device:

General Phone Function

I have been VERY impressed with the signal reception on this model. I spent Labor Day weekend in an area with a very weak GSM signal. Previously, the only phone on which I’ve been consistently able to receive a signal in that area was the Motorola w376g. However, the LG 620g performed as well as the w376g in this weak-signal area.

Call quality is also very good, though not quite as good as the w376g, which I consider to be the benchmark for both reception and audio quality among TracFone, Net10, and Straight Talk handsets. I had no trouble hearing or being heard using the 620, although there did seem to be a very slight hissing sound in the background when I listened to the other party on voice calls. This hissing didn’t really limit my ability to clearly understand the other person. In fact, I didn’t even notice it until I sat down to write this review and made some test calls, specifically listening for anything less than perfection. But it is an imperfection.

Call volume is very good, both on regular handset mode and in speaker phone. I found the volume to be adequate even in a car at highway speed. In a normal, relatively quiet environment, the volume is actually too loud for me on the highest two or three levels.

The biggest complaint I have about volume is that there is no volume rocker switch on the side of the phone, so adjusting the audio volume during a call requires that you pull the phone away from your head and use the up and down arrows on the directional keypad. I also have to point out here that when I did adjust the volume during a call, the other party complained of a very loud clicking noise on their end, so it was quite annoying.

Similarly, the ringtones available can be heard as easily as, or perhaps even more easily than, on any other handset I’ve reviewed on this blog. On the highest volume settings, even the default tones produce ear-splitting sound. You can also add your own mp3 ringtones to your heart’s content, which is nice, especially since it’s easy to add ringtones via the microSD card slot. This is also true of message alert tones.

Again, though, I have a complaint in this department. To adjust the ringtone or message alert volume is more complex than on other models. Due to the aforementioned lack of external volume buttons, you cannot easily adjust the ringtone volume without entering the menus. It is possible to toggle between “silent mode” and the current sound profile by pressing and holding the # key for several seconds. To actually adjust the ringtone volume to a higher or lower setting, however, you’ll need to go to Menu>Settings>Sound Profiles>Options>Edit>Ring Volume. As you can see, this is more cumbersome than simply pressing a volume up or down key on the side of the phone, which is how it works on most current models.

On the positive side, you can assign ringtones, including your own mp3 ringtones, to specific contacts or groups of contacts. Unfortunately, like we’ve seen with most previous Straight Talk, Net10, and TracFone models, it is impossible to assign specific message alert tones, which is important to some people.

Another cool thing with ringtones is a ringtone creator application, where you can load a standard mp3 file and cut it down to save only the portion of the song you want to play as a ringtone. This works only for mp3’s already in the “sounds” folder, but it’s a cool feature to be able to do this right on the phone, with no need for extra computer software or file transferring.

One thing that has been a definite positive has been the battery life. Soon after I activated my new LG 620g, I fully charged the battery and then left the phone on, without charging, until it died completely. During this time I talked nearly 100 minutes, received around two hundred text messages, did some minor web browsing, and also spent nearly 48 hours in a weak signal area, which can often be hard on battery life. Further, I spent time exploring the menus and features on this phone and took a dozen pictures and a few short videos. Despite this fairly heavy use, I was able to go 6 days without plugging in the phone! I thought this was incredible for what I put it through. I definitely give it two thumbs up for battery life.

Display/Menus/Keypad

The display is large, measuring 2.2 inches diagonally. The extra screen real estate is obviously beneficial for web browsing and viewing pictures. The display is also crisp and bright. I found this phone very easy to work with in direct, bright sunlight.

As I’ve previously stated, I generally like the layout of LG’s menus, as I find them intuitive to navigate. This phone continues that trend. However, similar to what I reported with the LG 420g a few weeks ago, I had a problem with the slow navigation through the menus. It’s not a huge problem, but there’s sometimes a lag between when the navigation keys are pressed and when the scrolling actually happens on the screen. I think this device is perhaps a little faster than the 420g, but still I had a few instances where I navigated to the wrong menu item because my keystrokes got ahead of the system.

Fortunately, this lag isn’t present in text message entry mode. There, the both the T9 and the standard multi-tap entry modes were very responsive. The 620g also works for me in terms of how easy it is to handle. I’ve found it to be well-balanced, making for easy one-handed use.

I’ve had no complaints with the main keyboard. A little “click” provides some tactile feedback when each key is pressed. However, just like on the 420g flip phone, I don’t really care for the directional pad on this model. It is large enough, but I really don’t like the fact that it is flat. This makes it hard to tell where ends of the keys are, and also makes it difficult to feel the separation between the directional keys and the center “ok” key. I feel that both the LG 290c and the LG 600g have better directional keypads as a result of raised arrow keys, and I’m curious as to why LG decided to use this flat style on this newer handset.

Another thing I don’t like is that the shortcut keys – left, right, up and down on the directional pad, as well as the right soft key – cannot be customized. They are hard-coded, as follows:

Up: Compose new text message
Down: Contact list
Left: Camera
Right: Music Player
Right soft: Browser

The browser cannot be locked as far as I can tell. However, this isn’t so much of a problem with Straight Talk phones as with other repaid services, since the Straight Talk plans offer web browsing as a part of the package and it won’t cost you extra money if you accidentally activate the browser.

The “settings” menu actually has a place to set user-defined shortcuts. This menu offers 10 programmable memory slots, but I can’t figure out how to use these shortcuts without navigating to menu>settings>phone settings>set shortcuts. Maybe there is a way that I haven’t figured out yet, but unless you can figure out how to activate the shortcuts through a couple of quick keystrokes, these programmable shortcuts are useless.

Well, that’s all I’ve got for now – I’ll be back soon with the next installment of the LG 620g review, where I’ll discuss the web browser and bluetooth, camera, and mp3 player.

To buy this phone from Straight Talk, click here.

LG 620g Review Part 1

Posted on September 9, 2010 by pbushx2

General Overview

The LG 620g is a new slider GSM handset from Straight Talk. (Click here to check it out at StraightTalk.com) For those who don’t know, GSM refers to the type of hardware in the phone, and this determines which network(s) the phone can use. In the case of GSM, a phone can use the networks of AT&T and/or T-Mobile. This is noteworthy because up until earlier this summer, only Verizon-based phones were available on Straight Talk’s service.

The 620 is a nice compact phone and pretty light-weight, weighing in at just 3.4 ounces. Especially when compared to the 4.4 ounce Samsung t401g I’ve been toting for the last 11 months, the 620g seems extremely sleek. The new phone is also a nice drop from the 4.1 ounce LG 290c from 2009.

The LG 620g has most of the features you’d expect from a feature phone at this price point. Namely, it offers a 1.3 megapixel camera, web browser, MMS messaging, voice recorder, mp3 player, FM radio (requires headset) MicroSD card slot, and video recording capacity, although the video will be at a max resolution of 176 x 144.

This device measures 3.75” x 1.75” x 0.6”. When the slider is opened, the phone measures 5.2” long. As I mentioned earlier, it’s very light weight compared to other phones that offer all of these features, and even compares favorably to very basic phones, like the LG 420g or 220c, in terms of size and weight.

External/Appearance

The appearance of the 620g is a lot like the LG 290c, which is also available for Straight Talk but is a CDMA phone rather than GSM. There’s nothing flashy or outstanding about the appearance, just a basic vertical-sliding feature phone.

It’s black all over, with only very slight touches of chrome-ish sliver around the directional pad, earpiece and camera lens (on the back). The black body of the phone is not glossy like on the 220c, 420g, or 600g from LG.

The 2.2” screen consumes most of the face of the phone when it’s closed. Sliding the phone open reveals a basic numeric keypad with white numbers and letters on flat, separate, slightly raised keys.

The “LG” logo is printed just above the screen, and embossed on the rear battery cover. The only “prepaid” branding is in the form of a concentric-circle TracFone logo just below the screen and above the directional keypad, but this does not have any wording, just the circles. The display is free of any TracFone or Straight Talk branding, but does have the “Home” text that seemingly cannot be removed, as with previous phones.

The corners are somewhat rounded, but not as much as on the LG 420g or 220c. This contributes to a somewhat boxier look. Still, the LG 620g easily slides in and out of a pants pocket.

The construction of the phone seems solid, with a reliable slider mechanism that has very little “give” to it when the slider is open. The quality of material might at first seem a little suspect to some, due to the light weight of the device. I think this falls under the category of “you can’t please everybody” – if the phone was made of heavier materials, some people would complain that it’s too heavy. And when it’s made of light materials, others will say it feels cheap. In my opinion, you need to consider that cell phones these days are usually exchanged every 2 years. I’m sure that this model will last at least that long and beyond.

In my next post, I’ll cover the general function as a phone, including signal reception, audio quality, volume, and battery life. So far, I must say I’m happy with these aspects. But I’ll get into more details next time.

(Click here to check out this phone at StraightTalk.com)

Net10 Deal: Samsung T401g

Posted on September 3, 2010 by pbushx2

Net10 has recently offered a new bargain on the popular Samsung T401g qwerty slider phone. Their site now offers a bundle deal including a refurbished T401g along with a 200 minute card for $49.99. Check out a screen shot of the deal below.

As with all phones, new or refurbished, the t401g will include 300 minutes and 60 days of service when you activate, which is what really makes this a good deal. At this price, you’ll get the phone and 500 minutes, as well as 90 days of service, all for $50.

To make the deal even sweeter, you’ll still get free shipping when you choose FedEx 3-day delivery, and you can use two promotional codes to further reduce the cost to $41.99. (Click here for the Net10 promotional codes.) This effectively means you’re getting 500 minutes at less than the standard rate of 10 cents per minute, plus the phone for free. The phone alone is $79.99 brand new.

Of course this model is reconditioned, which might scare some people off. Personally, I have no reservations about ordering reconditioned handsets, as I have always found them to be in like-new condition. I have ordered dozens of refurbished phones from TracFone and Net10 over the years, and never had any problems. I have never observed any indication whatsoever that the phone was previously used. Everything about them appear brand new.

In my opinion, this is one of the most appealing deals offered by either TracFone or Net10 in a long time. Click here to look for it at Net10.com.

If you want to check out my review of the t401g, click here to get started.

Pbushx2s Weblog

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Monthly Archives: September 2010

New Net10 Deals

Net10 Bonus Change

LG 620g Review Conclusion

LG 620g Review Part 3

LG 620g Review Part 2

LG 620g Review Part 1

Net10 Deal: Samsung T401g