Buying a new smart phone for dummies

I'm fairly tech savvy, but for whatever reason I have absolutely no idea what the savvy way of buying a new smart phone is. I'm on a verizon plan with my partner, with an employer discount, so I want to stick with that. And I'm an android guy, so no Apple suggestions please. I just broke a Pixel 3a (no insurance, past warranty etc) and I liked that phone so something like that would be fine.

I don't want to spend 20 minutes in a small verizon store with other people (I'm not vacc'ed yet).

What's my next move... If I order one online is it easy to transfer it over? Is Costco a good option? TIA

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Originally Posted by bcm119

I'm fairly tech savvy, but for whatever reason I have absolutely no idea what the savvy way of buying a new smart phone is. I'm on a verizon plan with my partner, with an employer discount, so I want to stick with that. And I'm an android guy, so no Apple suggestions please. I just broke a Pixel 3a (no insurance, past warranty etc) and I liked that phone so something like that would be fine.

I don't want to spend 20 minutes in a small verizon store with other people (I'm not vacc'ed yet).

What's my next move... If I order one online is it easy to transfer it over? Is Costco a good option? TIA

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Xfinity and yes it is duck soup to switch over. They send you a chip. Install the chip and done. F.Y.I. XFINITY is Verizon, you get full advantage of all their cell towers. I made the move last year and never looked back.

I'd get the Pixel 4a 5G, direct from Verizon. In fact that's my plan, a few months down the road.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by bcm119

I'm fairly tech savvy, but for whatever reason I have absolutely no idea what the savvy way of buying a new smart phone is. I'm on a verizon plan with my partner, with an employer discount, so I want to stick with that. And I'm an android guy, so no Apple suggestions please. I just broke a Pixel 3a (no insurance, past warranty etc) and I liked that phone so something like that would be fine.

I don't want to spend 20 minutes in a small verizon store with other people (I'm not vacc'ed yet).

What's my next move... If I order one online is it easy to transfer it over? Is Costco a good option? TIA

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if you don't want to change providers you should just be able to buy a phone, move your sim card over, and notify your provider of the new device. if you buy direct from verizon it's likely even easier.

I would just go with another pixel in a form factor you can deal with and not sweat the details. if you aren't a power user all "naked" android phones are going to be about the same.

I have Verizon and a couple years ago when the dual-line iPhones came out, I took the opportunity to put my personal and my work line (which have different billing accounts) onto the same phone, and with a five minute call to tech support, it couldn’t have been easier.

Is any phone better than another for navigation?

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Originally Posted by ides1056

Is any phone better than another for navigation?

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It is more about the apps than the phones. There are apps much more interesting and powerful for hiking / off road cycling but as much as I hate giving them my data google maps is still the king for general non-specialized navigation on urban/roads. I generally abide to the speed limits and don't want to be that guy zipping past your kids in your neighborhood street to be 5minutes earlier but some people use waze for driving because it warns about speed limit radars and give alternate routes. I haven't checked but I think that google added the features into maps. Google own waze so you basically give your data to the same company anyway.

I am thinking for bicycle only. Still in the analog world in this regard.

Well some hook up better/faster than others due to shielding/form factor but the market is launching up new models so frequently that I can't recommend one to you. You may look for one that at least don't support only gps but glonass and/or galileo and beidou as well. These are respectively the russian, european and chinese gps counterparts. A phone that keep track of more than one system is more likely to grab satellites quickly at the expense of more battery consumption (you should be able to choose the one you activate though) and some says the other 3 have better accuracy. They are newer generations but I am not sure it makes a huge difference in term of network accuracy on your actual app, it may make the gps recording more precise though if you are into that.

Regarding apps, I have yet to find an app that navigate well. Drawing your route at home and following it, or following a ride someone shared, yes they can do it well. But choosing your cycling route, hell no. They are terrible at that. They will make your ride through terrible roads or make you take additionnal longer or weird loops with the idea to find a safer route.

I use Samsung. I'm about to upgrade to the latest model but have bee hesitant to visit a local ATT store during Covid. The phone works well. I'm a bit of a ludite despite working in a tech firm. The advantage is they can copy all my aps and files for me. If theres one thing I don't like about Samsung it is the bloatware and the hoops they make you jump though to turn off bixby which I still have not found anyone that likes it. -Mike G

Aren't all the phones really easy to upgrade to now? Meaning going from Samsung to newer Samsung, Pixel to Pixel, Apple to Apple, etc? My last upgrade was pretty much turn the phone on, sign in and wait for everything to migrate over.