DLB404

Been with AT&T for years. New job and cell is only phone so need unlimited voice and text. Ten Gig data more then enough. With free texting on Gogo and a good bit of international travel personal and business it's the way to go.

Problem is the phones. Since TMO is contract less there is no advantage to buying phone. They have $15 lease plans on iPhones, jump plans, no interest pay plans, full retail price plans and BYOP Unlocked GSM.

I was talkng to the reseller of phones in Costco who said that if the phone was not from TMO some features like WIFI calling won't work. I just spoke to real TMO CS and they said they did not think that was true.

What does the team of FT experts recommend?

Thanks,

paperwastage

If you want WiFi Calling or VoLTE, you have to get a T-mobile-branded phone, or a unlocked nexus 6, any unlocked iPhone 6/6+ or certain windows phones (with WiFi calling built in)

what's your budget?

for a flagship, iPhone 6/6+ or any of the t-mobile branded flagships would work (LG G4, Samsung S6, Nexus 6 etc)... just choose the features you want

nkedel

Unlocked Nexus 6 is probably still the best deal on the market if someone likes phablet-sized phones.

https://store.google.com/product/nex...mpaign=nexus-6

For something smaller, the Moto G or Moto X are very hard to beat.

pseudoswede

Sadly, neither of those phones will have wifi calling capabilities.

SpammersAreScum

I'll second the Moto G suggestion -- I've been happily using it on T-Mo. It's apparently true that wi-fi calling won't work, but frankly I've never missed it; cell coverage has never been an issue in my area or when traveling domestically, except in remote areas with no wi-fi anyway.

jspira

I keep losing you when I reread the highlighted sentence. If you don't buy a phone, what would you do?

I've been a T-Mobile customer since Omnipoint (autocorrect changes this to Omnipotent, by the way) and have been very happy (ecstatically so, actually) with their customer service. They stand behind the service and their devices.

nkedel

I assume the missing words are "through T-mobile."

And my own experience with their "standing behind their devices" has been negative (but no worse than any of the current carriers -- although a decade ago when Sprint still ran their own equipment protection program rather than outsourcing it to Asurion, I had a much better experience with them.)

Apple stands behind their devices better than any of the other manufacturers; Google stands behind their branded devices a close second. Beyond that, you're kind of on your own, and doubly so when you have both a manufacturer and carrier involved.

There's always Google Voice aka Hangouts Dialer if you don't have signal but do have wifi, although it doesn't use the carrier number.

Letitride3c

A "CPO" iPhone 5S is only $349 and is factory unlocked, has all the major/popular LTE bands and with an easy upgrade to iOS 8.4 now, free WiFi calling (once enabled) on latest Carrier V20.0 (for T-Mobile) when cellular reception is poor. http://www.t-mobile.com/cell-phones/...wned.html#Gold Can also use Hangouts to do WiFi calling.

The 3-n-1 nano Sim card is now on sale for 99 cents, normally $15 & free ground shipping (typically 2 or 3 business days) with the free adapter for micro & full-sized sim slots. http://prepaid-phones.t-mobile.com/p...IM-Starter-Kit.

The downside is the "smallish" 4.0 screen but otherwise, it should meet the daily needs of most users. No contract, no ETF, and decent resale value for the devices. My primary line is also on T-Mobile with the tweaked Nexus 5 - and, if you port our main cellular # for a small one-time fee over to Google Voice, you can setup things to do calls on different devices with your "main" # even when abroad. Have an upcoming trip to TPE and ICN in about 4 weeks and going to play out some of these options.

Join the rest of the world & not get trapped with contract phone plans - maybe, you are planning to wait for the release of the next iPhone - Sept. 9th is the date, accordingly ...

CatJo

Try to get a phone with Band 12 LTE (700MHz) which is where T-Mobile is doing a lot of their coverage expansion, especially helping with indoor reception. The iPhone 6 does not have this, it is strongly expected the 6S (or whatever it will be called) will - if you're going with an iPhone, the new one is the way to go. Even better, sign up for the current Jump on Demand promotion which credits you $12/month on the 18-month payments; you buy the phone at the end of that period for an effective $216 savings on the retail price. This applies to the new iPhone 6S/7 as well, provided you're on the Jump on Demand with an iPhone 6 prior to September 8.

vletnguyen

I agree with CatJo, I had numerous phones without band 12 LTE and it does make a difference in signal strength and indoor signal penetration. You can get phones that will do tmo wifi calling as long as it's the same model number.

My current phone is nexus 6 purchased from google play store and I flash the tmo ROM on it so I can have wifi calling/texting. Being able to text the wife that i'm about to land so she can head out while i'm still in the air for free is amazing.
Have you looked into googleFi? (assuming you are looking at nexus 6)

pseudoswede

Fair warning: some phones may have Band 12 but may not work on T-Mobile if the phone does not have VoLTE functionality. Moto E and Moto G, while the specs confirm Band 12, have been disabled.

CatJo

Yup, looks like for full VoLTE/Wifi-calling functionality, your best bet is the Nexus 6 (with TMO ROM) or the iPhone 6S (assuming they have Band 12 LTE).

robroy90

Ironically enough, isn't it the Sprint model of the 6/6+ that offers band 12 (plus a lot of others) which would be of interest to the global travel crowd here? Even if you were going to use it with T-Mo?

paperwastage

no 6/6+ models offer band 12

wait until September 9, when the new models come out

(the sprint/apple-unlocked models offer more LTE band support than the GSM versions... it's wise to get the apple-unlocked model. don't get the sprint hoping to unlock it - it's a huge hassle)

Jeannietx

I made the switch from ATT (after 20 years with them (and all of the companies past lives).

I switched to TMobile because we do quite a lot of extended international travel and I was tired of the bills that came with the travel.

Yes you do have to buy a TMobile ready phone if you want the international wireless calling. I bought an iPhone6 for cash at TMobile. Now I could have gone to Apple and bought the TMobile ready iPhone6, but it's the same price so couldn't see the point in making two stops or ordering online.

You don't have to pay cash, they do have a payment plan.