Topic: 'Smart' Phone for a Dummy

[WeatherHost]

Never had one.  Don't know nuthin' about 'em.  I've always used a simple flip phone that may or may not have been able to use the web ---  never even tried.

But I fell into a deal for a reconditioned ZTE Paragon for free from my cell carrier, so I figured I'd give it a try.  Right now, I won't even activate the cell service.  I'll just use WiFi until I'm more comfortable.  I may wait to activate until I need it when my DSL goes down for some reason.

Sooooo, I need to know what to do with it.  All I want for now is a simp[le weather app for current conditions, forecasts and NWS radar.  I thought I found that from NWS, but I still ended up with ads.  They may have been from G-Play though since it wanted to do some kind of update.  In trying to delete and undo, I ended up with errors and had to do a hard reset.


I'm a cheap sumbeech, so I want simple and FREE, no ads, since I don't plan on using it much.

Recommendations?

[chief-david]

Download only the apps you need.  If you do not do games-skip them. I have done teamviewer and it works well. Banking is good. Email. Social Media. State road conditions. Stellarium.

Use puffin as the browser. It will do flash-although some public wifi will not allow it.

Cameras are very good.


Have fun. Its a tool. Not your third arm.

[ocala]

The best thing to do is go to the app on your phone called Google Play.
Google play is where you can download any app for Android, whether free or paid.
Anyways type in weather. You now have probably thousands of weather apps of which to choose.
Most TV stations have their own weather app so you can get something local.
My personal choice is something called wX. It's a free app that has ALL the weather info you will ever need and a developer who is more then willing to help out with any bugs or problems, It's free, there are no ads, and highly customizable. There is a learning curve and since you are new to smart phones it may be difficult at first to figure out, but since you are now a smart phone owner you might as well see what it can do. Here's the link to that app. https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=joshuatee.wx
It's going to take a while to figure out how your phone works so my advice is read the help file that comes with it. All of us who used one the first time went through the same thing. If you have any young people around you they can be an immense help because they know these phones inside and out.

[WeatherHost]

That one looks OK ...  maybe more in depth than I need on this contraption.  I kind of like this one too:  https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.droid27.senseflipclockweather  This one doesn't seem to have ads, though the 'V2' version of it does.

I just need to figure out how to use the device.  I stumble onto something and then can't figure out how to do it again.  I finally figured out how to move things to the Home Screens and rearrange them.  It has Chrome and another browser, but I'm not about to type URLs all the time.  I need to find a way to move some bookmarks/favorites via copy/paste.  I'm also realizing I probably didn't need to buy the extra 32GB card, but it'll be OK to use as additional backup space for other things.

[ocala]

Depending on what browser you use on your computer you can sync your bookmarks with your phone. Meaning all the bookmarks on your computer will be transferred to your phone.
Learning how to use a smart phone takes a while.
I would start with the first item in the phones help file and go from there.
When I first got mine a while back I spent a whole weekend just going through every option that phone had just to see what it did.
Also there are plenty of Android for Dummies videos on you tube that show step by step how to do things.

[ocala]

One more you should try is mobile.weather.gov It's not an app it's a website made for mobile phones.
It's a point forecast for your area from the NWS.
No adds or gimmicks either.

[WeatherHost]

I'm just screwing around with it on my home WiFi for now.  Loaded a bunch of songs and will see how it works as an MP3 player when taking walks.  Tried a couple of pictures, etc.  Next time I go to town I'll see what kind of open systems I can hit in stores and how useful it might be there. 

I may not even activate the cell service if I can do what I want/need until the DSL goes out for some reason.  One thing I don't like about TracFone is that the clock ticks out the service days even if you don't use the minutes/traffic.  And you can't 'pause' the day timer.  I got a 60 day card and may only need it a day or two at a time during outages months apart.

[bchwdlks]

...

I may not even activate the cell service if I can do what I want/need until the DSL goes out for some reason.  One thing I don't like about TracFone is that the clock ticks out the service days even if you don't use the minutes/traffic.  And you can't 'pause' the day timer.  I got a 60 day card and may only need it a day or two at a time during outages months apart.

You might want to investigate the Tracfone Web pages. Since it is a Tracfone Android you can activate cell service with a $19.99 card that is good for 90 days. The card has a 60 minute/30 day face value, but for an android phone it triples (180 minutes talk, 180 text messages & 180 megs data). The card expires at 90 days but the talk/text/data roll over each 90 days as long as you add a service card before the expiration. There "Smartphone Only" plans that are data only and the data does expire. There are also "Triple Minutes Free for life" plans that are talk/text/data and they do roll over (but they can not pause). And the fee for keeping the phone active is only about $7 a month.


If you need more minutes there are larger face value cards that also triple the minutes. Once you have the phone activated you can also add a data only card, I think it comes in multiples of 2 GB. It also does not expire until used up or your cell service is ended.

I use mine the same way - phone on rare occasion, the Android data on wifi 99% of the time. So far I have not even needed to get a data card since the few megs I need to look at the radar, check mail, etc. when the power is out has never used the small allowance I get for keeping the service active quarterly.

[WeatherHost]

I go through their pages quite often.  I have a flip phone from them that is active and has quite a bundle of minutes.  I buy a small card that gets doubled, then add the $49 annual service bonus.  That will be up in October and I may decide to switch over to this one if all goes well.

If I do, I'll set it for WiFi only and not use any data unless I need to.  Part of what I'm monitoring is the quality of 3G signal I get here in the house.  The one I got uses 4G also, but I don't seem to get that here.

I also want to see if I might want to change phones before then.  They have a couple of other 'free' ones I might want to try.


So far, this one seems OK.

[bchwdlks]

When you are ready to move, you can move your existing time to the android phone. You can transfer your "doubled" minutes to a "triple" minutes plan without giving them up.

I have found on my android phone if I do use only wifi and no the 3G data for an extended time (months) when I do try to use it it is VERY slow (dial up speeds) for a while. That might be since I only use in extended power outages and that's when the whole county gets on Facebook to tell everyone else that they have no power 

[WeatherHost]

My personal choice is something called wX. It's a free app that has ALL the weather info you will ever need and a developer who is more then willing to help out with any bugs or problems, It's free, there are no ads, and highly customizable. There is a learning curve and since you are new to smart phones it may be difficult at first to figure out, but since you are now a smart phone owner you might as well see what it can do. Here's the link to that app. https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=joshuatee.wx

I have a location set by coordinates, so why am I getting alerts for Watches no where near me?

[ocala]

From your home screen go to settings, then to notifications.
What items do you have turned on? 
Assuming you don't want national alerts just turn everything off.
The only thing I have on there is NHC  Advisories ATL.
For alerts specific to your area go to settings then to locations.
Turn on alerts and those will be specifically for your area.
I wouldn't turn on SPC products because that covers the whole country.
Experiment with it. See what you like and don't like.

[WeatherHost]

For alerts specific to your area go to settings then to locations.
Turn on alerts and those will be specifically for your area.

That doesn't give me Warnings that I can see.