I got myself an iPhone.
It's been almost a week since I've been using this,
and so far I am LOVING it.
I had to think a lot about this because of some complications.
1) My previous AT&T contract was under Nari-nuna's name. (I didn't want to pay $500 deposit when I got here 4 years ago, so I just registered an autopay with my credit card under her account.) I don't mind building up her credit scores, because she is the closest thing I have here as a family (although technically she isn't). But I think I am at the stage I need to take more care of my credit and build up credit scores even higher for the future (I am already on excellent credit rating, but because of its relative short history of usage, I have very low credit limit). As horrible as AT&T services are, they required 1 year automatic contract extension just to change the account name under my name even if the payments for 4 years were made through one credit card that's mine.
2) I have almost no cellphone signal at home. I tried and realized Verizon definitely provided stronger signal reception, but AT&T also has gotten better compare to the first time I moved here.
3) I am not a phone user. I had 4,000 rollover minutes with AT&T. That's what you get if you don't call almost anybody and the only people you get to call are on AT&T. The only minutes I've used are for calling Javier and Brandy Ho's (Chinese restaurant).
and 4) Fatwallet.com was giving 35% cashback on new AT&T account iPhone purchases.
Oh and 4-a) Apple released a new iPhone, iPhone 3GS. The same with 3G on everything except the following:
A) Faster processing (with bigger RAM);
B) 3M pixel camera with auto-focus and video recording (it was just 2M pixel with regular camera shooting); and
C) GPS chip.
So, here was my plan.
i) Terminate my current AT&T and shift to Verizon.
ii) See if Verizon really works better. If it doesn't completely satisfies my needs, then shift back to AT&T and get an iPhone 3GS.
iii) If on iPhone, use Skype to call at home when signal is weak. I made sure it's not tedious to go to call forward menus and to load Skype on the iPhone by asking Jaja some details.
The Verizon was good. I could make a call while lying on my bed. But it wasn't perfect.
The signal reception was not as good, and the phone was not good enough for me.
After several researches, I decided that enV Touch is the best fit for my needs despite its lack of WiFi because I wanted to test their phone service alone.
enV Touch had very good keyboards and very good call quality, but the battery life was too short for my mobile web browsing and it was actually heavier than iPhone 3GS.
I thought hard but I decided to shift. One thing mattered the most. I am not a real phone user, and if I am not, I might as well get a phone that gives me enough mobile web browsing and other entertainment factors. Another appeal was that I could type Korean on iPhone. It's not possible on other Windows Mobile phones that has English version on it.
Also, it didn't really cost me much since I received 35% cashback. I know some people actually lined up in the Apple and AT&T stores and also bought directly through their websites. They just don't know how American companies market themselves. There are so many ways to cut down the retail prices with a couple of Google searches in America. It's almost dumb to buy things in stores.
So far, iPhone 3GS still has some techincal glitches like not being able to run applications in its background, but the signal is good enough for me to receive text messages at home, and it's not hard to turn call-forwarding on and off. Also, I am appreciating watching videos and podcasts better on an iPod.
But yeah, the call quality is almost horrible. My 2 previous phones were SamSumg BlackJack and LG enV Touch, known to have excellent call qualities. So, it's going to suck, but then again I have only a limited number of people to talk on the phone.
I am not regretting about this purchase at all, and the account is under my name and I will have my credit scores also growing with my phone bill payments.
I just hope I won't have any more issues with AT&T because their customer service is worse than horrible.
It's been almost a week since I've been using this,
and so far I am LOVING it.
I had to think a lot about this because of some complications.
1) My previous AT&T contract was under Nari-nuna's name. (I didn't want to pay $500 deposit when I got here 4 years ago, so I just registered an autopay with my credit card under her account.) I don't mind building up her credit scores, because she is the closest thing I have here as a family (although technically she isn't). But I think I am at the stage I need to take more care of my credit and build up credit scores even higher for the future (I am already on excellent credit rating, but because of its relative short history of usage, I have very low credit limit). As horrible as AT&T services are, they required 1 year automatic contract extension just to change the account name under my name even if the payments for 4 years were made through one credit card that's mine.
2) I have almost no cellphone signal at home. I tried and realized Verizon definitely provided stronger signal reception, but AT&T also has gotten better compare to the first time I moved here.
3) I am not a phone user. I had 4,000 rollover minutes with AT&T. That's what you get if you don't call almost anybody and the only people you get to call are on AT&T. The only minutes I've used are for calling Javier and Brandy Ho's (Chinese restaurant).
and 4) Fatwallet.com was giving 35% cashback on new AT&T account iPhone purchases.
Oh and 4-a) Apple released a new iPhone, iPhone 3GS. The same with 3G on everything except the following:
A) Faster processing (with bigger RAM);
B) 3M pixel camera with auto-focus and video recording (it was just 2M pixel with regular camera shooting); and
C) GPS chip.
So, here was my plan.
i) Terminate my current AT&T and shift to Verizon.
ii) See if Verizon really works better. If it doesn't completely satisfies my needs, then shift back to AT&T and get an iPhone 3GS.
iii) If on iPhone, use Skype to call at home when signal is weak. I made sure it's not tedious to go to call forward menus and to load Skype on the iPhone by asking Jaja some details.
The Verizon was good. I could make a call while lying on my bed. But it wasn't perfect.
The signal reception was not as good, and the phone was not good enough for me.
After several researches, I decided that enV Touch is the best fit for my needs despite its lack of WiFi because I wanted to test their phone service alone.
enV Touch had very good keyboards and very good call quality, but the battery life was too short for my mobile web browsing and it was actually heavier than iPhone 3GS.
I thought hard but I decided to shift. One thing mattered the most. I am not a real phone user, and if I am not, I might as well get a phone that gives me enough mobile web browsing and other entertainment factors. Another appeal was that I could type Korean on iPhone. It's not possible on other Windows Mobile phones that has English version on it.
Also, it didn't really cost me much since I received 35% cashback. I know some people actually lined up in the Apple and AT&T stores and also bought directly through their websites. They just don't know how American companies market themselves. There are so many ways to cut down the retail prices with a couple of Google searches in America. It's almost dumb to buy things in stores.
So far, iPhone 3GS still has some techincal glitches like not being able to run applications in its background, but the signal is good enough for me to receive text messages at home, and it's not hard to turn call-forwarding on and off. Also, I am appreciating watching videos and podcasts better on an iPod.
But yeah, the call quality is almost horrible. My 2 previous phones were SamSumg BlackJack and LG enV Touch, known to have excellent call qualities. So, it's going to suck, but then again I have only a limited number of people to talk on the phone.
I am not regretting about this purchase at all, and the account is under my name and I will have my credit scores also growing with my phone bill payments.
I just hope I won't have any more issues with AT&T because their customer service is worse than horrible.
