(Part 2) Best products from r/tmobile

I love my SyncUP DRIVE because it is able to add a whole dimension to our SUV.

I don't know what it is about FM radio in cars, but the last couple vehicles, the signal and audio quality has been absolutely atrocious. Unless you have that HD Radio feature built-in on your car's entertainment system, it's so staticky and low quality that it's not even worth listening to.

So, I grabbed a second-gen Amazon Echo Dot on sale for $30 and plugged it in my car, with a 1A micro-USB charger and an audio cable (plus a ground loop noise isolator to remove the humming/hissing noise), and now my wife and I are able to stream our favorite FM radio stations via iHeartRadio and TuneIn, not to mention Amazon Music, Pandora, and Spotify. Granted, Amazon streams their audio through an encrypted network connection (akin to a VPN connection), so T-Mobile is not able to downsample it and therefore is not Music Freedom-eligible, so that streaming counts against my monthly data allotment.

We've got the grandfathered Mobile Internet 6GB plan with Binge On and Music Freedom for $40, with a $10 discount for having phone lines, and $5 discount for AutoPay, ultimately bringing it to $25 per month. Surprisingly, there's also another 6GB plan for $25, but T-Force says the discounts are already applied to that, and the plan is tweaked, but not for the better: throttling on these new plans specifically state that they're forced down to 2G speeds, whereas my grandfathered plan says it's just "slowed down." I've never broken the 6GB barrier in a single month, as I use up 4-5GB per month with encrypted music streaming, so I don't know what the speeds are after that. I also have 4G LTE tethering, but I hardly use that as well.

In addition, I also grabbed an Amazon Fire TV Stick for $30 and plugged it into the Rear Entertainment System's HDMI port (and USB port for power), so the kids can watch Netflix, Hulu, Amazon Video, and even the SlingPlayer app back to my Slingbox connected to my TiVo at home, so they can watch their recorded shows and live TV. All those streams are zero-rated for Binge On, so they can watch all they want to their hearts' content. No more swapping DVDs and Blu-rays, it's all on demand.

All that, plus vehicle monitoring/tracking/logging, diagnostics, and included Roadside Assistance, this is probably the coolest thing to have on my T-Mobile account.

I'm over in Mobile, and yes, coverage is not good over there. It wasn't too good in West Mobile until a few months ago. I was at 2 bars (with Verizon and T-Mobile). Verizon continues to be at 2 bars, but T-Mobile is up to 4. They are making improvements, but timing is your issue.

I found this on Amazon.

SureCall Fusion4Home Omni/Whip, Cell Phone Signal Booster Kit for All Carriers 3G/4G LTE up to 2,000 Sq Ft https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01AWGY4TE

The good thing about this is it supports both bands 2 and 4, according to the user manual and has an external antenna. In your area you are probably dealing with band 2.

There are a number of boosters that only support band 4 so you have to research.

If you install cellmapper on your phone, you can determine where the closest tower is and where you should place the antenna. I did the same thing for a friend's home but we used the T-Mobile booster. If you PM or tell me your general area, I'll see if I can locate some towers for you. Maybe that will help with your current booster? I'll give it my best shot.

When looking for unlocked phones you should look for phones that support LTE bands 2 (1900 MHz PCS), 4 (1700/2100 MHz AWS) and 12(700 MHz for extended coverage). VoLTE isn't necessary, but is recommended because T-Mobile has been recently shutting down their 3G network which means that voice calls will be going through the 2G network which can probably become congested or cause some people to miss phone calls because they're going straight to voicemail. Since you're looking in the $200 price range I'd recommend looking at Blu phones as they really have great specs for their prices and a lot of them support the T-Mobile network. Here's a model that supports VoLTE and is within your price range if you're interested: https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B01N0TJZ3T/ref=psdcmw_2407749011_t3_B01IVV81NC?th=1&psc=1

Google Voice number is a good idea. I had my old desk phone setup as another phone in GV, however the problem was that due to working the night shift, and not a M-F job, there was no easy way to have GV toggled on and off for it. Plus I was always on a separate line (it was a tier-two IT callcenter job) so I couldn't always answer it when I was working, especially not on a weekday.

For the booster situation, any postpaid customer should be able to get a T-Mobile LTE Cel-Fi for free (maybe with a $25 deposit). Stick the Network Unit ("Window Unit" as T-Mobile calls it) in whatever part of your floor has the best reception (use your phone's About > Status screen to get your current signal strength in -dBm. Higher the number (closer to 0), the better the signal). Then stick the Coverage Unit either in the center of the building, or closest to your area as possible while still within range of the Window Unit.

Lastly for the headset, I highly recommend a Plantronics Voyager Legend. It's an excellent Bluetooth headset with the best quality I've seen, and can easily last through a whole day of talking or streaming audio. It supports wideband audio, meaning you can take advantage of T-Mobile UMTS/VoLTE/Wi-Fi Calling's HD Voice quality. They also make a "CS" model which is the same thing, but has a Bluetooth base station you can hook up to your desk phone for a little over $100 more. Whichever of the two you go with, I also recommend picking up one accessory: the charging case. It lets you store and charge the headset using its built-in battery two or three times (meaning you can easily have 18 hours of talk-time, days of standby time, without having to plug anything in) and the charge case will charge itself and the headset at the same time using a standard micro-USB cable (the headset uses a proprietary cable sort of like an Apple Magsafe adapter).

So I know this isn't a direct answer for you in finding the cellfi duo booster but it's a solution I worked out for my friend who lives in an apartment building such as yours with only wifi.

I picked up one of these off amazon
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B018YPWORE/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_i_L13wDbPEHHXG3

And as long as your wifi network in the apartment building is just a simple you enter a password and it doesn't have a webpage for you to sign in (RADIUS or a captive login portal) then you can configure it to connect to the wifi network giving you an ethernet port that has an internet connection, he then plugged that into his cellspot and has had great results from what I've heard.

Again this isn't T-Mobile advised at all but its somthing I used to help my friend out who moved to an apartment with no service on the ground floor and no ethernet ports in his APT.

To have a smartphone smaller than a closed Alcatel go-flip you'd need to buy this piece of garbage

So I disagree with you. You are a part of a niche market that is being left in the dust. The return of feature phones is hardly existent, and only there to offer a device for people such as yourself.

The LTE radios you think take up more space, would not take up more space. The radios, and necessary antenna sizes have gone down, not up.


Seriously why would a company focus manufacturing for a phone they MIGHT sell 250,000 units, at a profit margin much smaller than a smart phone? Especially when they've gotten so good at making smart phones?

Until 4g gets phased out (what maybe 25-35 years in the future) Then you may get a new class of flip phones, and they'll likely be as large as the zte cymbal or Alcatel go-flip.

Fun fact, Alcatel and zte have been making phones nearly as long as Samsung, and had some of the best feature phones on a budget in it's time, super sturdy, long battery life, and clear calls.

It's a business line reseller like Teltik. Teltik offers the same ONE plan but for $3.50 more.

You have access to post paid benefits like T-mobile Tuesday.

There is nothing that can backfire on you. It's prepaid billing. If you don't like it, simply port out like any other carrier.

The sims are available on Amazon for $10 here.

Good luck.

> We have older phones (iPhone 5s and Galaxy S4)...Is there a marked difference in performance between the two?

Yeah, the iPhone 5s is known for having crappy reception, while the Galaxy s4 has very good reception (but no band 12 of course).

But even worse, the Samsung Galaxy s4 from Verizon doesn't work very well when put on TMobile. If I remember right it loses LTE, some bands, something else...it doesn't work well at all. The iPhone 5s will support everything (except again band 12).

Looking at the official tmobile coverage map and flipping between devices (change device in the upper right hand corner, choose "my device is not in the list" for no band 12, or a samsung galaxy note 5 for band 12), you're going to run into substantially reduced coverage if your phone does not have band 12. You'll be ok in Grand Forks and Crookston, but most anywhere outside of that in North Dakota you'll only have roaming coverage which means little data. Whereas if you had Band 12 you'd get high speed data.

If you want to try out TMobile, in North Dakota, I would highly suggest at least one of you gets a phone that supports Band 12. You could do this with:

ZTE Obsidian $40 - absolute cheapest phone you can use for test tmobile coverage:
http://www.walmart.com/ip/Walmart-Family-Mobile-ZTE-Obsidian-Smartphone/46429848

LG K7 $90 - Cheapest "good as a phone" phone for testing tmobile:
http://www.bestbuy.com/site/t-mobile-lg-k7-4g-lte-with-8gb-memory-no-contract-cell-phone-titan/4984401.p?id=bb4984401&skuId=4984401

Axon Zte Pro $325 - Very nice screen but will only work on gsm carriers (tmobile and at&t):
http://www.amazon.com/ZTE-Axon-Factory-Unlocked-Phone/dp/B01685JEMK/ref=sr_1_5?s=wireless&ie=UTF8&qid=1458517370&sr=1-5&keywords=zte+axon+pro

Nexus 5x $325 - Midrange phone. The advantage here is that you can use it on either Verizon or TMobile, so if you need to switch back you can just keep using it:
http://www.amazon.com/LG-Nexus-5X-Unlocked-Smartphone/dp/B0178GE900/ref=sr_1_4?s=wireless&ie=UTF8&qid=1458517520&sr=1-4&keywords=nexus+5x

Nexus 6p $450 - same as above but it's a bigger and nicer model:
http://www.amazon.com/Huawei-Nexus-6P-Smartphone-32/dp/B019TWO6WM/ref=sr_1_6?s=wireless&ie=UTF8&qid=1458517401&sr=1-6&keywords=nexus+6p

iPhone 6s $650 - Expensive phone, but again it works the same on both tmobile and verizon so if you switch back to verizon you can keep using it:
http://www.apple.com/shop/buy-iphone/iphone6s

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The problem is, a lot of tmobile's coverage in north dakota is newer and is band 12. Your s4 from verizon won't work well with getting data or signal on tmobile at all. Your iphone will work better but still no band 12, and it has a reputation of getting poor signal overall. I just don't see a good way to test tmobile in your area without having a band 12 capable phone.

P.S. One more thing, TMobile has a "coverage guarantee" thing where you could buy a new phone and plan and if it doesn't work for you return it in the first 30 days and get your money back.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B079F6GD22/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o00_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

This is the one I went with. Looks pretty sweet. Note my awesome review as well. ;) ha ha

Install pfSense. It’s free, open-source, regularly updated, and private, because you skip the middle-man servers by establishing your own endpoint at home. It does the job, even when running off an old computer/laptop and will be better than any $300 SoHo router you buy, which likely only allows certain types of VPN passthrough (no VPN generation, and passthrough is often limited to cracked protocols like PPTP), i.e. you need to pay for 3rd party VPN service or live with their ads and hope they don’t look at your traffic. pfSense allows you to generate the VPN connection. pfSense is a total router replacement and does everything: QoS, encryption, can take many ISP connections as input, load balancing, multiple VPN types (including the safer OpenVPN), customizable firewall rules, add-on packages that sniff malicious traffic, allows you to hand out guest vouchers that expire, etc. If installing on a laptop that has only one wired NIC, you can split that with any spare old router or switch. If that router or switch has no Wi-Fi, you can use the laptop’s built-in wireless NIC as a wireless AP. If installing on a desktop with no Wi-Fi capable accessories, wireless NICs are cheap. If installing on a desktop with only one wired NIC and no router or switch, PCI-E quad-port NICs are cheap. Because your hardware likely exceeds the recommended system requirements, you likely can handle millions of simultaneous connections and never be forced to reboot your rig.

Amazon has a good handful of cases; one of them was bundled with a 'fee' screen protector. As of right now, it was $9.99 (... teehee /r/SquaredCircle) with amazon prime eligibility. So, I flat 1 day shipping purchased that and will get it by tomorrow. I'll be extra careful today/tomorrow until then.

Keep in mind that I'm using it mainly as a crutch until my real stuff comes in from overseas. I also purchased a legit tempered glass protector and a case that will fit my needs from Roxfit's Book Case Touch - People are happy with that Nillkin protector and Roxfit's gotten a few good nods around Reddit/other websites so I'm willing to wait with fodder until then.

Good sites for bands on tmobile and make sure to get a band 71 phone if you are buying today are:
http://band71.batcave.net/ and
http://www.spectrumgateway.com/compatible-phones
Second link hasn't been updated in like 6 months but still good info on it especially for wifi calling.

If it where me I would go with moto g7 play https://www.amazon.com/Moto-G7-Play-Alexa-Unlocked/dp/B07N91914Z or the power with way more battery life for 50 bucks more (still under ur budget) https://www.amazon.com/Moto-G7-Power-Alexa-Unlocked/dp/B07N929634

It has monster battery (power) life and just released so it not a end of life phone like the lg v30 that other people are recommending. Both have every tmobile band and wifi calling and come under budget.

170 right now brand new le S3 also has Quick Charge 3.0 super fast charging
LeEco - Le S3 unlocked smartphone 32GB, Grey (U.S. Warranty) https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01MXLZIDS/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_Fm9gzb63WAQPT

another post had the amazon link for the clear ones:

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B06XJCDRSX/ref=od_aui_detailpages00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

and the flip cover:

https://www.amazon.com/Samsung-Galaxy-S-View-Cover-Kickstand/dp/B06XJHZJZD/ref=pd_sbs_107_6?_encoding=UTF8&pd_rd_i=B06XJHZJZD&pd_rd_r=3VSY5WBN4H34D4KKKM7J&pd_rd_w=o8Gxq&pd_rd_wg=gyM4o&psc=1&refRID=3VSY5WBN4H34D4KKKM7J

https://www.amazon.com/PROMO-12GB-EXTENDED-ORANGE-Holidays-Europe/dp/B06Y4CJL1T/ref=pd_sbs_107_3?_encoding=UTF8&pd_rd_i=B06Y4CJL1T&pd_rd_r=FP2EQ34G1D2ZF6MC5TNG&pd_rd_w=Ts7sj&pd_rd_wg=NPALO&psc=1&refRID=FP2EQ34G1D2ZF6MC5TNG

I would like to keep my number during, for sake of simplicity this seems like the way to go.

LeEco Le S3 is a good option, full T-Mobile VoLTE + WiFi calling support with a Snapdragon 652 (X8 LTE modem for carrier aggregation) for $200. The downsides: 32 GB of internal storage without microSD support and no headphone jack (digital adapter). Camera is meh.

https://www.amazon.com/LeEco-unlocked-smartphone-32GB-Warranty/dp/B01MXLZIDS

It's a bit cheaper on Amazon. https://www.amazon.com/dp/B019TWO6WM/ref=twister_B019BX7F86
(If you want the gold color)
I Just ordered it yesterday (My MXPE has horrible battery life and it overheats like crazy)