Ewan around America with a $250 phone budget - part 3

Published by Steve Litchfield at 7:41 UTC, March 12th 2010

Some say his beard is made of stainless steel. Some say he relaxes by hanging upside down from the light fittings. All we know is, he's called Ewan Spence. Part 3 of a series of short videos from Ewan is embedded below, along with some of his 'diary' commentary, as part of his gaming and blogging spring trip to San Francisco (GDC) and Austin (SXSW). Rafe set him a series of challenges (also known as a real world test of the Nokia 5230 / Nokia Nuron). In part 3, Ewan goes shopping, mapping and walking.

 

nd now, the core of the challenge, sorting out the connectivity and getting on a US cellphone network.
I've been spoiled in Europe and the UK. Here we have multiple networks, in a very competitive atmosphere, all jockeying for the best deals. Picking up a SIM card, with access to flat rate date (or at least a generous daily cap is a matter of walking into any newsagent and handing over a few pounds. Not so in America.
The idea of a prepaid plan seems to be alien to the US networks – all the marketing and efforts are focussed on getting people onto an $80/month data plan, alongside your minutes and monthly charges. That's well out of reach, even if I did take the advice of one store assistant to sign up to a monthly plan and just cancel it within the thirty days. Even if I thought that was within the no outstanding liabilities rule of the challenge, it was out of reach of what budget I had left – my AAS wallet has $55 left in it.
So I'm left to source a pre-paid plan, with two conditions. 1) I just want the SIM card, nothing else; and 2) it has to have data. Although I had done some investigating on-line before leaving for the US (and of course lots of helpful comments and advice on Twitter and here – thanks to you all), I decided to give the three major networks a chance.
Verizon: Are a CDMA network, so even f they did use SIM cards (which they don't), the 5230 hardware wouldn't be compatible.
T-Mobile: Do have some nice plans, such as a $40 unlimited, but their pre-paid plans don't support data. They're out as well.
AT&T: Have their Go-phone pre-paid plan, which does offer data.
So AT&T it is – for all the talk of America being capitalistic and a buyers market, there actually is no choice for me at all. Into the store I went, and that's where the fun started. Because they couldn't give me an answer to the question of if data would work on my 5230. The data on the Go-phone plan is only for mobile phones, not “smartphones”. I can't work out the distinction either, except to put in an artificial cost barrier for Americans with more advanced phones like the iPhone or Blackberry devices.
After various google searches and asking around, the clincher that made them think it should be okay was the Opera Mini icon on my handset. The java based browser (with server side compression to keep down bandwidth usage) is something that only regular phones have, and not smartphones, explained the staff. So it will work.
Crazy
Anyway, one piece of photo ID and a “dummy” address provided by AT&T and I had my SIM card. The card cost $25, and that value is immediately applied as credit to the account. I topped up another $15, and chose the following options.
$20 for 100mb of data.
$5 for 200 texts (outside of the bundle texts are 20 cents each)
Leaving $15 for calls (at 25 cents a minute, that gives me an hour of calls).
Which is all nicely within my budget! SIM card is sorted, the running balance is $235, and I'm on-line and hooked into the mobile internet. Yaay!
Of course I still have to remember that in the US I'll be paying for incoming texts and calls as well, but now the major elements of the challenge are with me. Now the fun starts.
Challenge One: Navigation
QUOTE Insert the text of the challenge here ENDQUOTE
Nokia's strategic move to release Ovi Maps is going to have a huge impact on the market. The 5230, now updated to the latest version of the Ovi maps, and side-loaded with the data for California and Texas is in the same price range as navigation devices like the Tom Tom. Thanks to the database of places that is also side-loaded, it's a simple matter to put in the name of a restaurant, or even just “hamburger” into the search field to be given your choices.
Of course the best burger in California can be very subjective, but I think that the In-n-Out Burger in Fisherman's Wharf is going to be high up on the list. Just over two miles away from where I picked up the challenge, I started walking. After Ovi Maps got it's bearings and how fast I was walking, it provided at estimated time of arrival. Even at walking pace around the hills of San Francisco (oh I wish that walking had an “avoid steep hills” option) the ETA was within two minutes of my actual arrival time. Perfect.
While I was walking, this was a good time to remind me of the history of where I was going, so a quick search on Google via Opera Mini and around 35K of data later I had everything I needed for the final video clip... which unfortunately never made it to the final cut of the video. Whoops.
If I had some US friends with me, it would be interesting to see how much over the air data this would have used on other smartphones, but they're on unlimited so it might not have been a fair test. What I do know is that thinking about the restricted resource I have in data actually makes the experience more efficient – trading some of the beauty and pretty pictures for the raw information is something that I think I prefer, although ask me again in a week.
Ovi Maps really needs to have someone sort out the UI. I've never felt in control of all the options that are available – it's a powerful application with a lot of complexity, and unfortunately that's reflected in the UI. Nokia should consider bringing in a dedicated UI team to make it simpler. Version 3 is an improvement on the UI in V2, but I think there is still some rationalisation that could be done.
Compared to the Google maps java client, or the mapping in the iPhone Ovi maps is not simple to understand. But that side-loading of map data and places of interest is worth a lot (and not just in megabytes). Personally I'd rather more features and a complex interface, but that's not what the general market is looking for.
But can you pick up a connected mapping solution, with turn by turn navigation, worldwide coverage, traffic information and reference packages from Lonely Planet for under $250?
Yes you can/.

From Ewan's diary:

"And now, the core of the challenge, sorting out the connectivity and getting on a US cellphone network.

I've been spoiled in Europe and the UK. Here we have multiple networks, in a very competitive atmosphere, all jockeying for the best deals. Picking up a SIM card, with access to flat rate date (or at least a generous daily cap) is a matter of walking into any newsagent and handing over a few pounds. Not so in America.

The idea of a prepaid plan seems to be alien to the US networks – all the marketing and efforts are focussed on getting people onto an $80/month data plan, alongside your minutes and monthly charges. That's well out of reach, even if I did take the advice of one store assistant to sign up to a monthly plan and just cancel it within the thirty days. Even if I thought that was within the no outstanding liabilities rule of the challenge, it was out of reach of what budget I had left – my AAS wallet has $55 left in it.

So I'm left to source a pre-paid plan, with two conditions. 1) I just want the SIM card, nothing else; and 2) it has to have data. Although I had done some investigating on-line before leaving for the US (and of course lots of helpful comments and advice on Twitter and here – thanks to you all), I decided to give the three major networks a chance.

  • Verizon: Are a CDMA network, so even if they did use SIM cards (which they don't), the 5230 hardware wouldn't be compatible.
  • T-Mobile: Do have some nice plans, such as a $40 unlimited, but their pre-paid plans don't support data. They're out as well.
  • AT&T: Have their Go-phone pre-paid plan, which does offer data.

So AT&T it is – for all the talk of America being capitalistic and a buyers market, there actually is no choice for me at all. Into the store I went, and that's where the fun started. Because they couldn't give me an answer to the question of if data would work on my 5230. The data on the Go-phone plan is only for "mobile phones", not “smartphones”. I can't work out the distinction either, except to put in an artificial cost barrier for Americans with more advanced phones like the iPhone or Blackberry devices.

After various Google searches and asking around, the clincher that made them think it should be okay was the Opera Mini icon on my handset. The java-based browser (with server side compression to keep down bandwidth usage) is "something that only regular phones have, and not smartphones", explained the staff. So it will work.

Crazy.

Anyway, one piece of photo ID and a “dummy” address provided by AT&T and I had my SIM card. The card cost $25, and that value is immediately applied as credit to the account. I topped up another $15, and chose the following options.

  • $20 for 100MB of data.
  • $5 for 200 texts (outside of the bundle texts are 20 cents each)

Leaving $15 for calls (at 25 cents a minute, that gives me an hour of calls). Which is all nicely within my budget! SIM card is sorted, the running balance is $235, and I'm on-line and hooked into the mobile internet. Yaay!

Of course I still have to remember that in the US I'll be paying for incoming texts and calls as well, but now the major elements of the challenge are with me. Now the fun starts.

Challenge One: Navigation

Nokia's strategic move to release Ovi Maps is going to have a huge impact on the market. The 5230, now updated to the latest version of the Ovi Maps, and side-loaded with the data for California and Texas is in the same price range as navigation devices like the Tom Tom. Thanks to the database of places that is also side-loaded, it's a simple matter to put in the name of a restaurant, or even just “hamburger” into the search field to be given your choices.

Of course "the best burger in California" can be very subjective, but I think that the In-n-Out Burger in Fisherman's Wharf is going to be high up on the list. Just over two miles away from where I picked up the challenge, I started walking. After Ovi Maps got its bearings and how fast I was walking, it provided an estimated time of arrival. Even at walking pace around the hills of San Francisco (oh I wish that walking had an “avoid steep hills” option) the ETA was within two minutes of my actual arrival time. Perfect.

While I was walking, this was a good time to remind me of the history of where I was going, so a quick search on Google via Opera Mini and around 35K of data later I had everything I needed for the final video clip... which unfortunately never made it to the final cut of the video. Whoops.

If I had some US friends with me, it would be interesting to see how much over the air data this would have used on other smartphones, but they're on unlimited tariffs so it might not have been a fair test. What I do know is that thinking about the restricted resource I have in data actually makes the experience more efficient – trading some of the beauty and pretty pictures for the raw information is something that I think I prefer, although ask me again in a week.

Ovi Maps really needs to have someone sort out its UI though. I've never felt in control of all the options that are available – it's a powerful application with a lot of complexity, and unfortunately that's reflected in the UI. Nokia should consider bringing in a dedicated UI team to make it simpler. Version 3 is an improvement on the UI in V2, but I think there is still some rationalisation that could be done.
Compared to the Google Maps java client, or the mapping in the iPhone, Ovi maps is not simple to understand. But that side-loading of map data and places of interest is worth a lot (and not just in Megabytes). Personally, I'd rather have more features and a complex interface, but that's not what the general market is looking for.

But can you pick up a connected mapping solution, with turn by turn navigation, worldwide coverage, traffic information and reference packages from Lonely Planet for under $250?

Yes you can."


 

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News Discussion

DevilsRejection
I was in the states for 45 days during the start of this year, and I was on T-Mobile, prepaid, and yes I did have data. Now granted, my bill was close to $70/month, but I had the plan with the least amount of minutes, and unlimited SMS and data.

Small warning: a text message is not a text message, by that I mean an SMS to an international number is charged as an international SMS, usually between 20 and 25 cents per text, to send AND receive.
RushArt
So, an Opera Mini on phone makes it a 'regular' phone and not smartphone. Interesting theory there.. Do staff ever learn anything?:D:
Unregistered
I find it amazing that it is necessary to pay to receive texts. Do you have any choice? I mean can you choose to reject the text and not read it to avoid paying for it? If not then you could be vulnerable to some shocking pranks that cost a lot of money. Not to mention all the advertising texts and MMS that I receive everyday.
Rafe
Interesting comment on Ovi Maps UI. I actually think version 3.3 (with the new start screen) is very good. In Navigation mode there may be room for improvement, but that's a bit more subjective.

I think people's experience is probably shaped by their usage of previous sat nav.

I had the same SIM card issue when I was in the US, but they saw I was using a Nokia and just assumed it was not a smartphone...
Unregistered
If you want to know how many of your 200 inclusive texts/SMS are left, you might want to use FreeMinMon http://bit.ly/8SIkB9
Besides call minutes counting, it features an texts counter, too.
International SMS won't be counted when you set the country code of the mobile phone network in the FreeMinMon settings.
kedoin
I know many people in San Franscisco that complain of reception problems with the at&t service. How was the quality of service compared to the service you're accustomed to in the UK?

Also, I think you got very lucky that at&t let you go with a GoPhone plan for your phone. at&t sells the Nokia 6790 as the "Surge" which the classify as a smartphone. I think if you had your E75 or some other QWERTY-keyboard phone they would have classified your phone as a smartphone. (Yes, the classification seems arbitrary to me too!)

Now, here's something else to confuse the non-American readers. In the US, normally you have to purchase a phone when you buy pre-paid service. (For example, see Wal-Mart) Even with two GSM carriers here, purchasing a SIM isn't advertised anywhere!
slitchfield
Yep. Re all of the above, best to just ignore the USA completely, really - they're just so CONFUSED. 8-)

[FX: ducks]
clonmult
Quote:
Originally Posted by Unregistered View Post
If you want to know how many of your 200 inclusive texts/SMS are left, you might want to use FreeMinMon http://bit.ly/8SIkB9
Besides call minutes counting, it features an texts counter, too.
International SMS won't be counted when you set the country code of the mobile phone network in the FreeMinMon settings.
That looks like a useful application, but if its anything like the built in usage meter on the Symbian device, the software that came with my old 3 dongle, or even on the iPhone, it'll no doubt totally disagree with what the *network* say you've used.

Look up Leo Laportes experiences whilst roaming - he was using the usage meter on the iPhone, after all the device itself has a data meter, knows how much its using, right? Turns out the networks have a totally different idea, and its *very* easy to go over your limit.
Unregistered
T-Mobile has the "even more plus" plan, which has no contract.

$30 <- 500min/month
$40 <- 500min/month + unlimited texts
$60 <- 500min/month + unlimited texts + unlimited data

Add in taxes and whatever and it would be about $65-$70 per month.
Unregistered
oops, as the "nuron" is not considered a smartphone, you can get the unlimited data plan for $10, not $20.

Thus the total cost for 500min/month + unlimited texts + unlimited data would be
$50 + taxes/fees.
Unregistered
"europe and the uk"...when did the Uk come out of Europe?
Rafe
Quote:
Originally Posted by Unregistered View Post
"europe and the uk"...when did the Uk come out of Europe?
Depends on weather, which day of the week it is and what side of bed you get out of.

On a more serious note:

Interesting to see there are some options for unlimited data etc, but quite suprsing how expensive they are (comparitively speaking). And I guess not that well advertised.
Ewan
Yes lots of people saying T-Mobile, but I'll point out two things against that option (okay three).

1). It puts me over the $250 budget.

2). THe website has no indication that data is available as Pay as you Go.

3) When I went into the store they were clear that data was only available on a contract, and not on Pay as you Go / Prepaid. Go figure.

-- Ewan
Unregistered
Truphone are now an MVNO and their SIM offers a "local anywhere" service, so you par 8 euros for a month and get a local number in any country.
Rafe
Sadly Truphone Data works out at about £2 a MB - or more depending on country... I would be very interested if they offered a data package at a reasonable rate. That's what adds up for me (personally) rather than calls.

They also annoyed by by failing to deliver by SIM for Barcelona (despite ordering it on launch day - insult added by seeing it available in airplace gift magazine) - can't really hold that against them though :)
Unregistered
GiffGaff, who were heralded on AAS, do 8p per minute voice, 4p text (like Asda) and data is currently free. They are asking for suggestions of how much to charge for data, their voiuce/text pricing is the same as Asda (Walmart UK) MVNO pricing, but ASDA charge 20p/MB for data. I think GiffGaff will be 20p per day for data.
Jimmy1
Ewan, Rafe & Steve---I've linked to a story/post on the official blog of The New York Times, in their 'Bits' section which covers tech and gadgets.

It briefly covers Nokia, Symbian^3 and their aspirations for success in the U.S. Figured it would be relevant considering the "Ewan around America..." topic. Anyway, here you go:

http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/0...america-still/
Unregistered
Quote:
Originally Posted by Jimmy1 View Post
Ewan, Rafe & Steve---I've linked to a story/post on the official blog of The New York Times, in their 'Bits' section which covers tech and gadgets.

It briefly covers Nokia, Symbian^3 and their aspirations for success in the U.S. Figured it would be relevant considering the "Ewan around America..." topic. Anyway, here you go:

http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/0...america-still/
Brilliant, a journalist that is both knowledgeable and balanced, so rare! Thanks for this article.

I particularly like the fact that the journalist looks beyond the USA and gives Nokia/Symbian credit where they deserve it...

"In addition, Nokia has spent years on the localization grunt work needed to tune phones for various regions. Mr. Rivas contended, for example, that Nokia was producing phones that cater to various Indian regional dialects while other phone makers are just beginning to understand what it takes to sell phones in India."

Explains some of why Nokia/Symbian's market share is so large.
Jimmy1
You're welcome.

Free plug for The New York Times (one of my favorite papers): their technology podcast, 'Tech Talk' featuring a trio of NYT journalists (one of them is the author of the linked piece), is super as well.
Rafe
Quote:
Originally Posted by Jimmy1 View Post
Ewan, Rafe & Steve---I've linked to a story/post on the official blog of The New York Times, in their 'Bits' section which covers tech and gadgets.

It briefly covers Nokia, Symbian^3 and their aspirations for success in the U.S. Figured it would be relevant considering the "Ewan around America..." topic. Anyway, here you go:

http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/0...america-still/
Very interesting piece - second main para ade me smile - familiarity. Whoever set that one up in the comms department deserves a pat on the back.

All credit to the writer too of course, especially when you consider what the state of things is in the US. I think it is a fair assessment (the only point to make clear being that Symbian and MeeGo should be seen as complimentary rather than either or).

I had a chance to speak to David Rivas at MWC - clearly I was already aware of the messaging, but what shone through was his positive view on S^3 and S^4, but also the way the SF was working. Should have the video of that up next week.
juwlz
I do hope there's enough in the budget for Ewan to vote on the UK entry for Eurovision tonight ;-) ...always assuming he has access to a Slingbox or some other means of actually watching the show of course!

Julie
limestone
I have to congratulate Ewan on choosing a really good value on the ATT Pay as you Go Plan.
i guess being Scottish he must have a natural eye for these thing. (?) - ok bad joke , sorry Ewan.
But seriously, very well done. I was highly skeptical that you would find a data plan that was going to work with the phone, but you have proved me wrong.
So far this is turning out to be an interesting and well thought out challenge.
It is providing me with good info that I can use in 'Vegas next month.
Thanks Ewan.
Unregistered
The mobile situation in this country is fragmented. Back in the analog days, the FCC issued licenses to two carriers in every market (literally known as the A and B carriers, respectively). Digital opened things up a bit, but then the carriers couldn't agree on technology, with half going the CDMA route and the other half going the GSM/UMTS route. We also have crowded airwaves and fragmented spectrum. All these converge in a perfect storm to reinforce the ties that bind many consumers to a single carrier and reduce competition.

That said, T-Mobile's lack of data options on their prepaid plans is disappointing, and another symptom of DT's mismanagement. They advertise as a budget carrier, and do have the cheapest voice plans and are cheaper than AT&T and Verizon for data. However, they see prepaid (which is gaining subscribers even as their monthly plans lose subscribers) as a voice-only service. I think they hope that restricting data will stop the hemorrhaging of monthly customers to prepaid plans, but I think it is very shortsighted.

If technology weren't an issue, Sprint's by far the cheapest for data. Alas, they are CDMA, and are sticking with WiMax for 4G even as Verizon is going the LTE route.

Thus, that leaves AT&T, which scores the lowest in consumer surveys here, and has the iPhone and RIM to protect. That explains their arbitrary "smartphone" distinction (which I have heard is based on whether a phone has a keyboard - except for the iPhone), and why the GoPhone data plan is only for feature phones.

There is one ray of hope, however. One of the conditions of the auction of the 700MHz space vacated by analog TV was that successful carriers had to ensure interoperability. AT&T and Verizon were the successful bidders in that space, so we may yet see more direct competition between those two carriers in the future.
Unregistered
It's correct that it's really hard to find a way to buy a SIM without phone, but it's not so much of an issue. I am using the same Gophone plan with Nokia E51; finding it hard to buy the SIM alone I simply got it with the cheapest possible phone (some extremely basic refurb Nokia, which cost about $10), then transfered the SIM to the E51. Of course I don't know if such conveniently disposable phones are available in a store as opposed to online ordering. but it has worked well for me as a way to have a nice smartphone on a prepaid "plan", with running costs of maybe $10/month. I mainly restrict data use to wifi, but the $20/100MB seems reasonable enough should I need it for travelling.
hisyamhalim
Great diary Ewan!

Exactly how did you get the tape loading error on the camera? :) Maybe its time for u to upgrade to memory based camcorder.

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