Comment by 205guy | Hacker News Reader

Comment by 205guy | Hacker News Reader

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I didn't see this mentioned in a quick scan of the comments: no data plan.

I originally did this with my wife to save money: 2 AT&T grandfathered unlimited data plans for $160 down to $15 for 2 phones on an MVNO talk+text family plan (both plans had limited minutes, but the MVNO is cheaper for add'l minutes).

We use wifi at home and at work, though since I have computers there, I don't find myself connecting on the phone that much. Also, neither of us use facebook through the app or the browser on the phone. We just use home computers or an ipad for that. That feels much safer for being physically tracked and advertised to.

So our phones have our calendar and reminders, notes, and photos, and voice and text of course (just not imessage unless on wifi). It really makes them boring and functional, and not a distraction.

The ONLY thing that we miss that is critical is maps when traveling. My wife once switched to a $40 data plan for a month, I tried to check maps with the hotel wifi so they are cached on the phone. But now we found a Garmin GPS at a yard sale for $20 and use that.

For anyone else looking to save money on their phone plan, check out Project Fi.

My wife and I pay $20 for the first unlimited talk/text line and $15 for the second (all of them after the first line cost $15), plus 10 dollars for each gigabyte of data used.

It's rare for us to use more than 2 gigs of data in a month so our bill is usually between $45 and $55 dollars.

If you are so inclined, phone protection plans cost $5 dollars a month and have reasonable replacement prices ($79 to replace my Pixel 2 that I paid $650 for). They also offer interest free financing over 24 months on all of their phones.

As long as you don't mind the small selection of phones (at the moment the only phones they sell are the Pixel 2, Pixel 2 XL, and Moto X4 I think), it's a very good deal.

I have a tablet that does not have a data plan, I have Maps.me and OSMAnd+ with offline maps, road suggestions and a bunch of other stuff for when we're out of town and our phones are dead.

Maps are the biggest reason I still have a data plan. We even already have a GPS with a giant screen, but when I'm in the middle of nowhere and need to find the nearest gas station/restaurant/whatever, the dedicated GPS is useless.

Even the mere act of inputting an address can be so painful on these GPS models that are so slow, especially because most don't have touch-capacitive screens but rather pressure sensitive ones. Leaning forward to reach it across the dash, it usually registers about 70% of my "key presses".

Assuming you are on Android - you can download maps for offline viewing when you are on wifi, just select an area and that portion of the map will be stored for offline use.

That works on Google Maps for iOS too and I do it for all devices.

On android the reminders are super annoying: Your offline maps will expire in x days, please update! You can disable it, but it took me a while. Totally useless. Just update them when it's time and STFU.

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