latest
Google Fi's Pixel 5a deal might be good enough to switch carriers
A huge discount on your next phone
With a metal frame and unbeatable battery performance, there's a lot to love about the Pixel 5a. It's even cheaper than last year's Pixel 4a 5G, dropping its cost down to just $449. If that price tag still feels just a bit too steep for a year-old processor, you're in luck. Google Fi has brought back its best deal from 2020 that lets subscribers grab a brand-new Pixel 5a for just $216.
Google Fi's new Simply Unlimited plan isn't going to disrupt anything
Pay carrier money for an MVNO experience
Google Fi used to have the simplest billing around: A single flat rate, plus however much data you used. It was disruptive when it landed six years ago, flexible in a way that saved some customers quite a lot of money, but one size doesn't always fit all. Back in 2019, it rolled out an "Unlimited" plan with extra flat-rate bells and whistles. Today that $70/mo plan has been renamed "Unlimited Plus," and it's joined by a new $60/mo "Simply Unlimited" plan — though the value of either in 2021 is a question.
Google is now pushing its subscription services on its hardware store
One place to subscribe to them all
Google is an advertising business first and foremost, though over the last few years, the company has introduced many paid services: YouTube Premium, Google One, Fi, and Stadia Pro come to mind, among many others. There's never been a central hub where you could find Google's subscription offers, but that's now a thing of the past: You can see all of the company's paid services in one place on the Google Store.
New Messages for Web features are rolling out to Google Fi users
Make calls, send texts, and listen to voicemails on the web, even if your phone is switched off
With Hangouts on its way out, Google Fi users might have been wondering how they would access their messages on the web. We learned from a teardown back in May that Messages for Web would be getting Google Fi-specific features, and it looks like this new experience is now rolling out.
Get a Pixel 4a for as little as $216 with Google Fi's new subscription program
An actually crazy price for one of the year's best phones
Google Fi has just launched a phone subscription plan that is actually a pretty sweet deal. For $15 a month over two years, you can get a Pixel 4a plus a device protection insurance plan. That works out to just $10 more than the current unlocked retail price, plus theft and accidental damage protection. In two years, your phone is paid off and yours to keep, but you can also keep paying that monthly fee to upgrade to a new device. But there's also an even better deal available. If you don't care about insurance, the subscription is $9 a month — that's just $216 over the two years requried and way less than $350 up-front and unlocked price.
Read update
Recently, some SMS/text messages sent by Google Fi subscribers were arriving as strange Chinese gibberish — with the occasional emoji thrown in for good measure. Tests confirmed that the problem seemed to be caused by an encoding issue, likely exclusive to Fi messages sent to Verizon subscribers. Google tells us it has since rolled out a fix for the problem.
Read update
If you are on Google Fi and you're unable to place a call right now, you aren't alone. Widespread reports indicate that Fi subscribers are unable to place or receive calls via their cellular connection, though SMS, data, and Wi-Fi calling services appear to be unaffected. We can independently confirm that calls placed over Fi are failing.
Google Fi's customer service problems are numerous and well-documented. The carrier has been accused of billing customers for using Wi-Fi, blacklisting IMEIs, locking customers out of their Google accounts, and charging them the full price after promotions (causing plenty of overdraft fees in the process). At this point, Fi is more associated with bottom-barrel customer service than the aggressive, on-demand pricing it was once known for. Today we have another horror story involving a two-month-long runaround and $70 in upgrade fees for a phone the company admits was never delivered.Detailed at Android developer Jason Atwood's blog, today's episode of Fi-related woe starts with an attempted upgrade to a Pixel 3 via interest-free monthly payments. The phone never arrived, with FedEx's own tracking and Google Fi customer support representatives confirming it was last listed as on a truck for delivery. Over a week and three separate attempts to contact customer support yielded no results regarding the investigation into the missing package, while Atwood received his first monthly bill for the phone. Repeated attempts to contact customer representatives and escalate the problem over the following month failed.Finally, one month to the day after the phone was out for delivery, a representative at Fi sends Atwood a new device, telling him it's too late to cancel the replacement order, even though he would rather be refunded. Over the next two weeks, the phone is refused at the time of delivery, sent back to Google in the hopes it might secure a refund, and the second monthly bill for the device lands. Finally, almost two months after ordering the phone, Atwood is informed that the two bills he's paid for the Pixel 3 — $70 in total toward a device he never had — can't be refunded, as he's past the "remittance period" which would allow for a return. Ultimately, Atwood considered it a $70 learning experience, eventually moving over to T-Mobile and an Amazon-purchased Pixel 3a.Product Expert and known Google Fi customer support escalation specialist dmziggy over on Reddit says that Google Fi is "aware of the case and looking into it." And while we wish this particular episode of customer service failure existed in isolation, there are piles of other recent horror stories out there:
Project Fi's been around for three-and-a-half years now, meaning it's not really a "project" anymore. It looks like Google may be agreeing with that sentiment, given that one redditor reportedly received this pamphlet with an unannounced "Google Fi" name and a new logo inside his/her Pixel 3 box alongside one with the current branding.
A sad bit news hit Project Fi users' emails today. Google's MVNO service is shutting down text forwarding on September 12. While I'm sure not everyone on the carrier uses this feature, I personally have relied on it since joining Fi.
The Android One Moto X4 is a good mid-range device, but the price was too high when it launched. It's only officially available from Project Fi in the United States, and the carrier has run multiple promotions in the past that brought down the price. Most recently, the phone dropped to $249 ($150 off).
Project Fi was a great deal when it was first introduced, minus the fact that the only compatible phone was the Nexus 6. Now that carriers are re-introducing 'unlimited' plans, Project Fi's $10/GB pricing tier isn't quite as appealing as it once was. Fi has now introduced its own version of an unlimited plan, called 'Bill Protection.'
The Moto X4 is the first non-Google phone to arrive on Project Fi, but the $399 price tag was asking too much. David referred to it as, "a $400 G5 Plus with NFC in a metal and glass sandwich," which I think is fairly accurate. Project Fi has now made the price more tolerable, by including $100 of service credit when you buy an X4.
Project Fi is a pretty good carrier if you don't use much cellular data, as it only charges $20/month for the base service and $10 per GB used. But only Google's own devices can be activated on the network, and now that the age of Nexus is over, the only choice is a $650+ phone. To fill the network's mid-range gap, Project Fi announced yesterday that a new device "from a partner" would arrive later this year.
Last month, an APK teardown revealed that Project Fi, Google's wireless network, was preparing to offer group plans. Now group plans are official, and admittedly, the pricing isn't spectacular.
Google Fi is one of the best carriers, especially in the United States, when it comes to international roaming. International data costs the same as domestic rates, cellular calls are $0.20 per minute, and there's even free texting. Google Fi also gives you alerts when you're reaching your data cap. Well, except for international data usage.
We're also happy to confirm that both the Nexus 5X and 6P will work with all major carriers in the US across GSM, CDMA, and LTE, just like the Nexus 6 did. Here are the wireless bands from both phones, per the specs page on the Google Store:
If you head over to Amazon's Facebook page right now and press "Like," you'll find the first product in Amazon's ongoing A-Z Sweepstakes, a Motorola XOOM, is up for grabs. Eight of them - to be precise. All you have to do is give Amazon your name, email address, and phone number to enter. This is a US residents-only contest, though (unlike our super-awesome Motorola XOOM Wi-Fi Giveaway.)
Great news for those of you holding out for that WiFi-only XOOM of your dreams: Costco has moved up its availability date for the LTE-less version of the tablet from April 1 to this coming Sunday, March 27. So if you walk into your local Costco this weekend, presumably the WiFi XOOM will be there to greet you for the reasonable price of $599.99.