The S425G is a good phone so far. I like it a lot better than I do the 505C, mainly because I cannot get used to the touch screen on the 505C (spoiled by the multitude of Android phones I have used and now the Lumia 710). One thing I wonder about, though. I seem to be being charged per ‘kb’ on data, and not but the minute. After activation, I downloaded Opera Mini. The download took under 2 minutes, but I was charged 5.039 units. I’ve sent an ‘trouble ticket’ to Tracfone to see if this is the new standard for their 3G phones, but have not heard back yet, and I didn’t notice anything on the packaging, either.
Yup. No resistive screen feature phones for me either. Interesting thing with the data usage. Seems like they're charging by the megabyte now? I guess that would make more sense since 3G would be able to download much more in one minute than a slow 1X or GPRS/EDGE phone. I guess that's okay with me to gain 3G. The internet on my TracFones are so slow and I have a lot of minutes to burn so that's not a problem.
I bought the S425g to lower my costs for my Craigslist line. Right now I use a $25/mo Virgin Mobile line but I hardly use it so it's not worth the cost. Nice to have an extra line with data but I have data with T-Mobile already so I need to economize. All I really need is a disposable phone number and a phone with a keyboard.
I'll be posting a review of the phone once I get it!
One thing I wonder about, though. I seem to be being charged per ‘kb’ on data, and not by the minute. After activation, I downloaded Opera Mini. The download took under 2 minutes, but I was charged 5.039 units. I’ve sent an ‘trouble ticket’ to Tracfone to see if this is the new standard for their 3G phones, but have not heard back yet, and I didn’t notice anything on the packaging, either.
Hi Sweeper -
I also noticed the higher charges when I downloaded Opera Mini.
MMS messaging charges the same as data so I tested the rates by sending a picture.
Normal Tracfone mms/data rates are 1.0 minutes to establish the connection plus .5 per minute to transmit data. So a 1 minute message would be 1.5, 2 minute message would be 2.0, 3 minute message would be 2.5 and so on.
But not on the S425g. The 1.0 minutes to establish the connection is still there, but the data transmission is Holy Crap!
I sent a short picture message, 50K picture with 3 word text from the Sam S425 to a Trac LG 800. On the receiving end, the LG 800 charged 1.0 + .5 minutes, which is the normal charge for a data message that size. But to send from the S425, it was 1.0 connection plus 8.79 transmission. As I said, Holy Crap.
Total charges 1.5 LG 800 vs 9.79 Sam S425.
But the data portion alone was .5 LG 800 vs 8.79 Sam S425. That's about a 16 to 1 ratio.
I will keep track of data charges and check into some things that might be specific to my phone.
Called Exec Res / Corporate yesterday about data rates. They were no help, not a clue, real screaming match. But just tested again and both MMS and data (ebay using Opera Mini) seem to be working. If anything, rates are LOWER than other Tracfones. MMS was 1.0 units for connection plus 0.3 not (0.5). And data was only 0.7 units for about 10 mins. Oh well, I'll stay tuned.
Called Exec Res / Corporate yesterday about data rates. They were no help, not a clue, real screaming match. But just tested again and both MMS and data (ebay using Opera Mini) seem to be working. If anything, rates are LOWER than other Tracfones. MMS was 1.0 units for connection plus 0.3 not (0.5). And data was only 0.7 units for about 10 mins. Oh well, I'll stay tuned.
So Island_Boy it's not all bleak.
Thanks for the update. I feel better now. The phone should be here so I'm going to check the mail and head out for the day. I'll try and post a review later. I think this S425g plus the S390g are going to be popular phones since they're both 3G. That opens up a ton more coverage/capacity on the AT&T side of things.
Got my S425g up and running! Web browsing is significantly cheaper than the older phones, I'm guessing it's charging her kb/mb, but MMS ran me 8.5 units for the data + 1.0 unit for the connection = 9.5 units for each MMS. That's pretty high, but I don't picture message often.
And this phone is definitely 3G. That will expand coverage/quality by a lot. AT&T's 2G network is not so great in my area so that was what drew me to this phone. That and TMFL. I'm happy. Will post a review later once I use the phone more.
Hello all,
If anyone here has switched to the Tracfone s425g from the LG800g, can you tell me in general how you like this phone, and is web surfing faster, and how's the signal reception compared to the LG800g.
Considering switching and wondering how they compare.
Sounds like they still have a few glitches to work out.
Until then, I guess a call to Exec Res is in order to get the MMS message rate corrected.
Ugh. I hate calling TracFone, whether that be CS or ER. I just tried MMS again. This time, my picture was ~250kb instead of 550kb so my data charge was less. 1 unit for the message itself, plus 3.3 units for the data. It's weird though, because now your units show up as 900.000 when it's using data because that's how detailed the charge is. I say "3.3 units for data" but it's actually more like 3.335 etc.
Well, we'll see how it goes as more people get 3G TracFones. I think it's more because we're getting charged per KB and this Samsung doesn't shrink the picture as much. At this point I'm going to wait until the dust settles and see what other people experience.
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Originally Posted by The_Sweeper
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