Experience with Consumer Cellular

[captpat]

It’s time to get a new iPhone as my iPhone 7 has reached the point where Apple no longer issues updates for it. Seems like a good time to revisit my provider, which has been Verizon for many years. Consumer Cellular offers a similar plan for ~$40 less per month, it’s highly rated by Consumer Reports and others, and my interactions with their customer support have been relatively prompt and pleasant. So I’m interested in folks who have real world experience before making the jump. The only downside at this point is that I’d need to get a new phone for the wife, which will likely need updating soon anyway.

 

[cosmicfolklore]

I carried a Nokia for so long that the buttons all deteriorated, and I had to dial with a toothpick. I hate that these companies force us out of our "paid for" products, making even more money off of us. I am looking forward to when I never have to carry a phone, and I can just go back to avoiding the home answering machine.

 

[agnosticpipe]

I've had Consumer Cellular for about a year and a half, and have no complaints. Both my stepdaughter and her boyfriend use it too, and they seem to be very happy with the service. My old phone had a battery that was going bad, so I started out with one of their phones, a ZTE Z-Max10 that cost $99. It did the job ok, but was nothing great, and the camera really sucked. I recently bought a reconditioned iPhone 12 and it is so much better, and switching phones was really easy with their assistance. Not much help I know, but for what it's worth, I'm much happier than I was with AT&T.

 

[captpat]

I carried a Nokia for so long that the buttons all deteriorated, and I had to dial with a toothpick. I hate that these companies force us out of our "paid for" products, making even more money off of us. I am looking forward to when I never have to carry a phone, and I can just go back to avoiding the home answering machine.

Yup the phone is fine — today. Eventually apps will stop working as developers move on to newer versions of IOS. I figure 8 plus years is a good run for a tech product.

 

[David D. Davidson]

I miss my old phone. My job is in corporate telecoms, and so I have to be decked out with the latest iPhone and Apple Watch when I visit clients to align with our branding. Before this I had an old Samsung that was tough as nails and I loved it. It boggles the mind how many people line up to drop 2k on a phone that’s 5% better (on paper that is - it’s functionally almost identical). I’ve got companies that threw a shit fit this September because they’d have to wait just a month after the iPhone 15 launch to replace their iPhone 14s. CCing VPs and CEOs trying to expedite the process by a week or two. Totally out to lunch. Love my job but some people might as well be another species.

Just a recommendation, I would avoid the 15 series. There seems to be some QC issues going on - overheating (likely to be resolved with a software patch), easily cracked camera housings, poor tolerances on seams, and screens popping off their bezels.

 

[captpat]

The company I used to work at before retiring, never moved to new tech (including software updates) as soon as it was available. They insisted on testing everything to make sure it would work with corporate software and security features before allowing it to be used on the network. Even then hardware was on a strict time-based replacement scheme, so you didn't get a new phone unless you had the current phone for 4 years or more.

There have been enough issues with the iPhone 15 to cause me to look seriously at an iPhone 14 and save a few dollars.