Wednesday, April 07, 2021

Got a new phone last week…

Ok, so last Wednesday night, I was perusing the Sprint website (yes I know the web link is to the T-Mobile website, because of mergers and all….), and my line was eligible for an upgrade (one of the things I did with my economic stimulus was to pay off my Galaxy Note 9). And I was looking around I was intrigued by the Motorola RAZR 5G. I remember when the original one came out in 2005 (in fact in 2008, I had a used MotoRIZR Z3, but it wasn't the flip phone). I finally decided that I wanted a flip phone, so I went for it. Arrived the next day, and activation was surprisingly painless (I remember the issues I had awhile back when I got my HTC 10). This there was something different. Sprint/T-Mobile have been wanting me to switch the SIM cards of our phones since the merger, and my new phone had a Sprint SIM card in it, but it came with a T-Mobile SIM card, with instructions to key in the T-Mobile card number during the activation process. And after activation, I switched out the SIM card.

So after activation, my phone now says it’s on the T-Mobile network. I still use the My Sprint app to pay my bill (and to order upgrades). But the phone has a mix of T-Mobile and Sprint apps on it.

Now on the to phone. It appears to mainly have a stock Google interface (for example, for email it uses the Gmail app instead of it’s own email app. And there are no buttons on the phone. It is all done with gestures. There have been a lot of comments online critical of the camera, but with this camera, I was able to wirelessly deposit my roommate’s rent check, when I was never able to do it via the Galaxy Note 9.

While it is possible to unlock the bootloader and root the phone, I’m not going to yet. If it isn’t broke then don’t try to fix it. And something tells me to keep the phone under warranty from the get go (when you unlock the pone, you void the warranty, irregardless of what broke it).

So far, I like the new phone. I think it’s a keeper…

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