Best Phone for Walmart Family Mobile HELP

[allenx1966]

I will keep this short and sweet. I need to get a decent phone.

I use Wal-Mart Family mobile , don't like the phones they offer, want to stay with T-Mobile based Phone or a non-proprietary unlocked GSM .

Sorta on a budget, no more than $250. Want normal smartphone, not to picky about most features.

Want either a combo slider w/ full touch screen, or a full touch screen with off screen hang up button at bottom so i can end a call quickly with no fuss. A Blackberry style with touch screen good as well.

want one with good sound for earpiece and speakerphone.

main apps i use are hulu and netflix and email and messaging.

any suggestions would be awesome. thanks

[allenx1966]

Well, I got no suggestions. I learned that for quick easy hang up, you can set phone to hang up with power button. with this in mind, i then changed strategies. i have been burned before with misunderstanding "unlocked" and "proprietary firmware" between me and the seller. so to avoid buying a phone that is unlocked, but still bound by its proprietary maker, i decided to go with a t-mobile phone. wal-mart family mobile uses t-mobile's network. i think i will be fine, from what i have read. getting all the t-mobile firmware and software to work should be ok. i don't think wal-mart/t-mobile will allow the 4g connection but it might, we shall see. here is the phone i choose.

Samsung Exhibit II 4G $198 at amazon.

it seems to have all the features of phones more than twice the price, just not top notch features. i would have liked to had a 1.5 and or dual core cpu, but it has a respectable 1.0 cpu. cam is only 3mp , but i can remember when a 1.5 mp cam thrilled me.

my only question would be this. would unlocking this phone open up any more doorways on network speed or t-mobile proprietary apps?

[Heavy Fluid]

Unlocking a phone only opens up the ability to use it on a network other than the one specified. It has nothing to do with network speed, as that is determined by the network, not if your phone is locked or unlocked.

Taken from the Amazon site: This phone is specifically designed for T-Mobile's 4G HSPA+ mobile broadband network.

I take this to mean that it will only be 4G on the T-Mobile network. Not sure how that will work with the Wal-Mart family mobile.

[allenx1966]

Unlocking a phone only opens up the ability to use it on a network other than the one specified. It has nothing to do with network speed, as that is determined by the network, not if your phone is locked or unlocked.

Taken from the Amazon site: This phone is specifically designed for T-Mobile's 4G HSPA+ mobile broadband network.

I take this to mean that it will only be 4G on the T-Mobile network. Not sure how that will work with the Wal-Mart family mobile.

So do you think it would possibly help to go ahead and unlock it? I could not hurt to try, right? I am using a borrowed phone to see how well I like smart phones. It's a Google Nexus One. I do see that when I am moving around town, it switches from Family mobile, to T-mobile networks. I won't have the Samsung Exhibit II 4G till Monday or Tuesday.

[cluelessL]

Please post a follow-up when you receive your phone. I am looking at this same model to use on T-mobile pre-paid which I believe is the same as the WalMart product. Thanks!

[allenx1966]

Please post a follow-up when you receive your phone. I am looking at this same model to use on T-mobile pre-paid which I believe is the same as the WalMart product. Thanks!

will do. i can tell you this already, from my research, i have picked a very good phone for the money. that's what i always look for, best bang for the buck. i read reviews all the time on amazon, and this has extraordinarily good reviews. one review said it was better than the iphone4.

[Heavy Fluid]

So do you think it would possibly help to go ahead and unlock it? I could not hurt to try, right? I am using a borrowed phone to see how well I like smart phones. It's a Google Nexus One. I do see that when I am moving around town, it switches from Family mobile, to T-mobile networks. I won't have the Samsung Exhibit II 4G till Monday or Tuesday.

So you are already using it on Family Mobile? No need to unlock it if you are already using it and it works. Unlocking would do absolutely nothing, except allow you to use an AT&T or other GSM providers SIM card in it. Nothing else about the phone will change.

[allenx1966]

So you are already using it on Family Mobile? No need to unlock it if you are already using it and it works. Unlocking would do absolutely nothing, except allow you to use an AT&T or other GSM providers SIM card in it. Nothing else about the phone will change.

Here is why i ask, supposedly walmart fam mob does not allow the 4G connection, so even though it is powered by t-mob , it has restrictions built in. my thinking was maybe,the phone i buy being t-mobile, 4g capable and unlocked, it may circumvent some of the restrictions that walmart fam mob has.

[allenx1966]

Please post a follow-up when you receive your phone. I am looking at this same model to use on T-mobile pre-paid which I believe is the same as the WalMart product. Thanks!

I got the phone phone from amazon. it is a -tmobile phone all the way. actually sold as a prepaid t-mobile phone. it came in a t-mobile prepaid box with a sim. you already know im using walmart family mobile with it. so far so good. my only complaint is its loaded down with tons of apps i will never use, but that will be true with any proprietary phone you buy. im going to see if i can flash or root it or whatever it's called, to maybe just have a stand alone version of android. anyway, yea, its a good phone, and for the money you can't touch it! you wont regret it buying it.

[allenx1966]

Please post a follow-up when you receive your phone. I am looking at this same model to use on T-mobile pre-paid which I believe is the same as the WalMart product. Thanks!

I played around with it for hours. i wiped off all the tmobile and samsung software and op system. i actually was able to do what tmobile wont let you. tmobile blocks the upgrade from 2.0 to 4.0 android. i got 4.0 installed and its running way better than it was out of the box. i dont recommend you try it unless you are into that kinda stuff. on its own, out of the box, it was fine too. im really glad i got it now. with the tweeks i made to it, its running as good as phone more than 2 or 3 times the price.

[allenx1966]

i did what i was talking about, it was alot of work and i almost trashed it. thank god for a bootable flash recovery i found that i could put on my micro sd. i rooted it, wiped off the entire rom ( all of samsung's and tmobiles junk ) and reloaded it with CM9 Beta: cm9.beta.033112.zip . it rocks, and is now 4.0 android. a few tweeks in the settings for performance and she was rocking it. it is sooooo much nicer to get rid of all those bloated apps. samsung and tmobile together must have had like 8 different media players, just ridiculous. before i wiped it, there was like 15 or more programs running in background. now there is like 5 at the most.

[cluelessL]

I played around with it for hours. i wiped off all the tmobile and samsung software and op system. i actually was able to do what tmobile wont let you. tmobile blocks the upgrade from 2.0 to 4.0 android. i got 4.0 installed and its running way better than it was out of the box. i dont recommend you try it unless you are into that kinda stuff. on its own, out of the box, it was fine too. im really glad i got it now. with the tweeks i made to it, its running as good as phone more than 2 or 3 times the price.

Thanks for the update! Our phones arrived today. We are definitely going to look into rooting them.

[allenx1966]

Thanks for the update! Our phones arrived today. We are definitely going to look into rooting them.

there is 2 issues with this 4.0 . camera does not work, and i can watch netflix, but not hulu. its still a beta OS, it might pay you to wait till the bugs are worked out. i also noticed that there dont seem to be many apps ready for 4.0.