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AT&T vs. Mint Mobile: Do you really need unlimited data?
Looking to save on wireless? Mint Mobile's 12-month plans can save a lot of money over AT&T
Prepaid wireless service is getting a lot of attention with increased advertising budgets and increased popularity among those looking to reduce their monthly expenses. Mint Mobile has been impossible to ignore with its Ryan Reynolds-driven marketing and promise of cheap data, but it still can’t match all the features that a premium AT&T plan offers. AT&T provides stronger international features, truly unlimited data, and discounts for veterans, military members, nurses, teachers, and more.
Picking up one of our favorite 5G-compatible phones is a great way to improve your connectivity, but even the best phones can't always maintain a perfect connection. Your location, carrier, or phone plan can affect signal strength, but determining the exact cause can be challenging.
How to check your data use on your Android phone or tablet
You might run out of data sooner than you think
With ample affordable streaming services, millions of apps in the Google Play Store, and solid game streaming platforms at your fingertips, it's easy to use a lot of data on your phone. While some carriers are more generous with data than others, most unlimited plans have usage thresholds. If you exceed this threshold, your service could be throttled or you might get a hefty bill.
Even if you've set up data saver mode on your Android phone or tablet, it's easy to go over your data limits by accident. Fortunately, it's easy to keep track of your data usage and weed out those data-hungry apps along the way.
Nest cameras' potato video quality on mobile data seems to be fixed
Dem potatoes are bulbously clear now
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If you have a Nest camera and are trying to livestream its feed or video events while on a mobile data connection, odds are you're squinting at your screen and wondering why the heck everything looks so pixelated. The issue was introduced with version 5.59 of the Nest app and didn't seem to be related to any specific camera, phone, or mobile operator. The problem is now fixed with v5.60 of the Nest app, so you can finally update and get rid of it.
10 things to do when setting up a parent or child's Android phone
Helping to lay the groundwork for a great Android experience
When setting up a phone for someone who's not especially tech-savvy (or simply doesn't care to learn about their phone), Android offers a nice amount of flexibility in terms of what you do or don't have to do. But just because the flexibility is there doesn't mean there aren't a few highly advisable, if technically totally optional, steps you can take to make that phone (and potentially the person using it) a lot less annoying. Here are 10 things we think will make any beginner's experience on an Android smartphone less frustrating, both for them and the person tasked with setting them up.
On the scale of online data-hungry activities, video chatting is certainly high up. Not only are you receiving video, you're also sending it, which puts a toll on your connection and consumes your gee-bees. Google's Duo used to offer a setting to limit mobile data usage, but is now rolling a new Data saving mode that works on both mobile and WiFi connections.
The recently revamped Google News app displays a lot of rich content including high-resolution images and videos. However, you might not always have enough data for those features to work well. That's why Google is rolling out several new data-saving features to the app. Not only will Google News go easier on your mobile data, but the features also activate automatically when needed.
Since Android 8.1 (even 8.0 on Pixel phones), the OS has had a divisive prompt that warns you if you toggle mobile data on or off using the quick settings toggle. Personally, I find this useful, since I never turn data off intentionally. If I do, it's probably by mistake, so this extra step is a good way of mitigating against that risk.
Datally, Google's app that aims to reduce your mobile data consumption, launched in the Philippines about a year ago as Triangle. It got its current name and global availability last November. Now, Google's updated the app with a few new features, including setting data limits for guest users of your device and daily data limits for yourself.
OpenSignal's bi-yearly carrier report for the US was just released, and T-Mobile's rampage from last year seems to be continuing. Although both Verizon and AT&T are seeing some recovery in network speed after the reintroduction of their unlimited plans last year, T-Mobile has again topped nearly every category in OpenSignal's testing. Sprint, though still in 4th overall, is also making great strides in both speed and availability.
Now that Verizon and Google Fi have jumped on the pseudo-unlimited train, it seems like most of the US carriers offer some type of all-you-can-eat data plan. It's not surprising, either, given our ever-increasing appetites for media in all its forms. It's a lot easier to binge a new Netflix series (so psyched for Altered Carbon) if you don't have to worry about the distinction between mobile data and Wi-Fi when it comes to your monthly bill. So how much data do you burn through in a typical month?
Android O contains plenty of power-saving improvements for the platform. But it would appear that at least one of the changes won't be improving your battery life. For some users, on updating to Android Oreo (8.0 or 8.1), "mobile data always active" in Developer options will be enabled. While that will make switching between Wi-Fi and mobile data faster, it may also consume a bit more power.
Over the course of the last few Android versions, Google has seemingly struggled to decide on exactly how some of the quick settings options should work. Some are simple toggles, some bring up extra details in the quick settings pane, and some take you through to the settings app. Several of them also have different behavior depending on whether you short or long-press them.
Data caps are lame, but that's the reality in most parts of the world. People in some regions have to make do with meager amounts of data on prepaid plans, so Google is looking to make it easier to get by with Triangle. It's a new app, currently being tested in the Philippines, that can block apps from using your mobile data and let you earn bonus data.
In other Verizon news today, the cell operator announced two new options for its prepaid customers. Both offer quite a bit of data for prices that are not too bad considering that this is Verizon we're talking about. The first of these new plans is a 5GB for $50 per month tier, followed by 10GB for $70 per month. Both are available starting November 13.
AT&T, a company with a reputation for evil such that placing their logo inside a Death Star has always seemed genuinely appropriate, has announced some changes to pricing on its mobile data plans today. While some of those changes are genuinely good if you're a subscriber with a large data bucket or have some pretty particular usage habits, many new customers can expect to pay $5-10 more a month under the new structure, which AT&T of course claims is a totally innocuous attempt to "simplify" things for customers.
As the de facto flagship phone for Android (or at least that portion of Android that isn't covered in Samsung logos), the Nexus 6 gets an inordinate amount of attention. That's not always a good thing, especially when the hardware and/or software exhibits major flaws or defects. For example: a considerable number of users are reporting a total failure of their phone's mobile data connection. The problem is occurring on multiple software versions and across different carriers and locations.
You might know Steve Perlman as that guy who comes up with really interesting ideas that kind of, sort of don't work out very well. He was the man behind both WebTV and OnLive, but his newest venture has attracted the attention of Dish, which has a big pile of wireless spectrum licenses. Dish has just licensed some of its spectrum to Perlman's Artemis Networks for use in a completely new kind of wireless network, and it could soon be operating in San Francisco.