[Samsung Galaxy Nexus] noneone:
Hi!

Follow up to my earlier post, seeing some folks having trouble signing up ...

There are so many different combinations of phones, sim cards, plans, and Tmo csrs, it appears it can be confusing. :-)

As mentioned earlier, I signed up with an activation card from BestBuy, and signed up on line. I had NOTHING to do with Walmart. I like walmart, best buy was closer. :-)

I did NOT need to buy a $30 refill card, I in fact started my account with a $50 prepaid card. I DID need to sign up on Tmo, but, as long as I was starting a new $30 a month plan, they didn't care I filled up the first time with $50.

I did have one issue, that may help folks out.

I signed up online, went all the way to the end. I didn't want to use my credit card, and I couldn't get the web site to take my prepaid card .......

/facepalm

SO, there are some T-Mobile prepaid cards, that mostly just say T-Mobile, THAT ARE NOT COMPATIBLE with the sign up webiste. I'm not sure if they're a new vendor (lots of vendors sell refill cards for many of the pay per month services).

SO, I simply called tmo, they explained it to me, took the number from the back of the card, my account got credited, and I was all set.

GL!

---------- Post added at 09:31 AM ---------- Previous post was at 08:56 AM ----------

Update on impressions:

I've now had the plan a few weeks. Just in those few weeks, I've been in Chicago, Boston, Newark, southern NJ, and a number of places in IL. I have an HTC sensation (those can only use the 21 mpbs I think) that I picked up very cheap on craigslist. For reference, I also have a VERIZON (ya, I know, boo :) ) Galaxy nexus. Not used much, but available, I also have an ATT iphone 3gs.

1) voice service - at least everywhere I've been, T-Mobile and verizon have the "most" coverage, sometimes ATT was hard to get. Sometimes Tmo had 4g where verizon didn't, sometimes verizon had when Tmo didn't. All 3 where pretty close where I went.

2) verizon data is way faster, regularly get 25 MBS on verizon, MOST often I'm at 2.5 mbs data on tmo when it says 4g. Highest on tmo has been 6mbs at 4am in O'hare airport and Monomouth Mall in NJ. (I speedtest.net often :) . My home DSL is 6mbs, so, verizon a LOT faster, tmobile about half my home DSL, tmo is plenty fast enough for WOW and Diablo 3 hotspoted on my notebook. (I travel a LOT, gota have games on the road :) )

3) 100 minutes .... is REALLY NOT a lot. I'm single, so no family to call every night on the road, and I pretty regularly use 250 minutes + - a month of voice, checking voicemails, calling mom once a week (30+ minutes right there ... you KNOW you need to call your mom more often ..... ) YES, I have the verizon + att phones so if needed could fall back to them, but, I'm trying to make Tmo 100 minutes work .....

4) I have used talkatone + google voice to help get over the minutes hump. For me, it works perfectly fine, I get no complaints from mom or others when I'm on a dedicated wifi connection (hotel wifi seems to work fine). Talkatone does not have as good a voice quality over the TMO 4g data connection (about 2.5 mbs on average, but, in evenings very often about 1.5 mbs), and sometimes 2 second or so lag. Interestingly, talkatone is fine on the verizon lte 4g services hotspot service on my tmo phone, so, I'm guessing this is a speed issue, not sure if another VOIP besides talkatone would work better on a 1.5 mbs connection.

5) SIDE NOTE on hotels .... /shrug, I often find hotel internet works fine with talkatone + tmo phone, but, does NOT work fine (terrible lag) for my games (wow, D3). Given the games need less overall bandwidth, I'm just guessing the hotels are running some type of QoS thing that prioritizes games (and youtube HD it seems) low.

6) 100 minutes IS PERFECTLY FINE, for me, ymmv, for calls "on the run", and then I use the non tmo wifi connections + talkatone when I know I need to make longer calls, e.g. mom, etc..

7) I HAVE been paying for the $15 pay as you go hotspot. I recently found out that apparently you need it for most phones, but NOT the HTC sensation. HTC sensation had "free" hotspot until the ICS upgrade. /shrug, who knew? :) As mentioned the hotspot works fine for most that I do, but tmo data DOES significantly bog down during high use times.

8) Is 5gb high speed data enough? Well, mostly for me :-). I game. 5gb is PLENTY for a few hours of wow or D3 EVERY NIGHT, and a couple more hours of web surfing forums, news, etc.. 5gb doesn't get you very many HD 1080P movie downloads though. Diablo 3 came out this last month ... 7GB download all at one time .......... SO, for MOST stuff I do, normal usage, 5gb is fine. I either wait till I'm at my home DSL connection, or, somewhere with a "free wifi" to download one time "big" stuff. E.g., I set up the D3 to download overnight on the hotel free wifi service, downloaded a Walking Dead TV HD episode at a restaurant ...

SO overall, I'm very pleased with this deal, I spend $45 a month, get internet on my laptop, and the tmo gives me normal usage regular access to everything I want.

I DO need to augment this plan with wifi for "big" downloads, and for "longer" voice calls, I use non tmo wifi + talkatone + google voice for these longer calls, as the Tmo 4g data + talkatone sounds "tinny" but, does work in a pinch.

This really is a great deal, hope you all enjoy it!