Experience with Walmart Straight Talk & Iphones?

[Maddie2]

We are thinking about getting iphones and using Walmart Straight Talk. Does anyone have any experience with this? $45/month sounds great, but this price makes me believe there must be drawbacks. I've read unlimited talk & text, so that sounds good. I'm planning to stop and talk to the Walmart folks next week, but hoping for some input here.

Other pros? Cons?

Thanks, in advance!

 

[chocolateavocado]

I don't have the iphone (i have a lg) but I do have straight talk from walmart and think it's great. I pay the $45.00/mo for unlimited talk, text & data and never had a problem. With the taxes, I believe it was a little over $50/mo- but if you have the monthly fee charged to your cc instead of buying a refill card ea moth, you get a few dollars off per month. I'm getting my ds9 the iphone through straightalk for Christmas this year. I've been extremely happy w/ the plan

 

[scrappydew]

We used Walmart Straight Talk for our son. Unfortunately the Walmart here uses Verizon (I don't know if that's the case everywhere), and their service in our area is not good. My son could not call or text me from school, which was the point of the phone to begin with.

We went with Cricket Wireless, 4 phones for $100 a month. It uses AT&T which has the best service here.

 

[Tanzanite]

Do you have to buy i phones first

 

[scrappydew]

Do you have to buy i phones first

If you are asking about cricket wireless, they had phones in the store that we purchased that work with their network. We bought Alcatel phones, maybe close to $180 each, and I've been very happy. They did have some iphones also.

 

[MillauFr]

Do you have to buy i phones first

I thought you always buy the phone first no matter what plan you are on. The only difference is that some make you pay for it all at once and some plans put you on a payment plan. I didn't think there are any plans that subsidize the cost of the phones any longer.

 

[Jonny_Duck]

We are thinking about getting iphones and using Walmart Straight Talk. Does anyone have any experience with this? $45/month sounds great, but this price makes me believe there must be drawbacks. I've read unlimited talk & text, so that sounds good. I'm planning to stop and talk to the Walmart folks next week, but hoping for some input here.

Other pros? Cons?

Thanks, in advance!

If you're fairly tech savvy then you'll likely not have too much of a problem. Straight Talk is run by Tracphone who is known for having absolutely terrible customer support. I had ST about 3 ish years ago and it was a bit of a pita to get setup but once it's setup then you just pay your bill online and you shouldn't have too many problems.

They also use all 4 networks so if you're going with them then make sure the network you get works well in your area. I believe the iPhones from ST run on AT&T network but on the box at Walmart it should show you a map of the network and I believe it'll be a blue map indiscating AT&T.

As far as pitfalls....I believe if you use Verizon the download speeds are throttled to 5mb down, practically no tech support so you'll have to do everything yourself, no roaming, no device financing, and I believe you only get 5gb a month highspeed and then it'll go to basically unusable throttled speeds. The 5gb I would think would be plenty for you but you never and it's something to know about.

I'm not sure if you're aware but the iPhone 7 launch is next Wed....I suggest not buying these phones right now because they will likely be discounted within the next month when the iPhone 7 comes out. So if you can keep your current carrier for a month that'd be my suggestion.

Depending on how many lines you need it may be better/cheaper to go with something like Cricket, Boost, or Total Wireless(Also owned by Tracphone but runs on Verizon) so you can get a multi line discount.
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We used Walmart Straight Talk for our son. Unfortunately the Walmart here uses Verizon (I don't know if that's the case everywhere), and their service in our area is not good. My son could not call or text me from school, which was the point of the phone to begin with.

We went with Cricket Wireless, 4 phones for $100 a month. It uses AT&T which has the best service here.

They run on all 4 networks. I'm not sure if they run on all 4 in every area or not but the network is determined by which phone you use and they sell just plain SIMs on their website to activate T-Mo/AT&T.

I'm on Cricket as well....It's a great deal and tbh you should add another line because 5 lines are $100. If you have an unlocked tablet you could use a SIM there since Cricket doesn't have a problem with that atm or if you want to maybe lower your cost you could get a friend to pay you $20 for last line or on reddit you could get a stranger to do it. Not really anything to lose since if they don't pay you can cancel them but it's a thought.

 

[Jonny_Duck]

I thought you always buy the phone first no matter what plan you are on. The only difference is that some make you pay for it all at once and some plans put you on a payment plan. I didn't think there are any plans that subsidize the cost of the phones any longer.

It's all pretty much the same anyway. I believe Sprint still has device subsidy...unless they shut it down again this week since these ppl have no idea what they're doing. But with device subsidy you pay more for your monthly bill so it basically comes out even a little more money than it would be to finance one. But yeah most "free" phones are gone.

 

[EddieValiant]

If you buy a Straight Talk phone like this IPhone it will be locked to Straight Talk. Also make sure you get the correct SIM cards for whichever carrier is best in your area. I think Straight Talk has SIM cards for Verizon, AT&T, T-Mobile & Sprint depending on your location.

I use AT&T Gophone because I can buy the refills discounted and with no sales tax. They finally starting doing multi-line discounts, but it's not a great one.

 

[Ngwira]

We have straight talk iPhones and have had no problems. We actually pay $22.50 a month for unlimited. Straight talk has run a promo for the past two years where you bogo the $45 cards. We buy a years worth to take advantage. It normally runs in December.

 

[neatokimmo]

I left straightalk to go to ring plus which is on the sprint network.

I get 4.25 gigs of data, 4250 minutes, 4250 texts and 4250 mms for $7 something a month.

I upgraded to an iPhone when I switched. Just a 5s but I like it a lot.

Straightalk had excellent service for me, all up and down the east coast. Better coverage than sprint. But I couldn't pass up the $7 deal.

 

[friend2Figment]

My daughter bought an unlocked iphone se from apple. She loves it as she was able to get 64 GB of memory. I really like straight talk over the net10. I know they are both owed by tracfone, we have had better luck with straighttalk.

 

[gumbypee]

my question for StraightTalk users - i have an iphone already - HOW do i transfer my data from my sim card to the new ST sim card????

That is holding me back from switching from ATT to ST

 

[simonsayz]

I've been using StraightTalk with iPhone 5s and now 6. I've been using them for over 2 years now. The iPhone I got is from Walmart and I got the AT&T tower one so I am happy with my service.

 

[GaryDis]

my question for StraightTalk users - i have an iphone already - HOW do i transfer my data from my sim card to the new ST sim card????

That is holding me back from switching from ATT to ST

What data do you think is on your sim? Usually iPhone data is backed up to iCloud or a desktop.

 

[gumbypee]

What data do you think is on your sim? Usually iPhone data is backed up to iCloud or a desktop.

I'm not sure! I thought it was all on my SIM. I don't pay extra for icloud storage and I have a lot on my phone. I guess mainly my notes apps that I have tons of lists on and phone numbers. most of my photos are backup to shutterfly.

Am I confused? LOL

 

[moopdog]

We have straight talk iPhones and have had no problems. We actually pay $22.50 a month for unlimited. Straight talk has run a promo for the past two years where you bogo the $45 cards. We buy a years worth to take advantage. It normally runs in December.

Please explain.... the $45 cards are what you load onto your card each month?? I am not a customer yet, but we are tired of paying $329 per month for 4 phones with AT&T and I am going to be the guinea pig and plan to try ST this month on my own to see how it works in our area. So the way you pay $22.50 per month because you get the cards a year at a time, right? So do you need one card per person, per month? I'm a little lost. LOL

 

[Jonny_Duck]

I'm not sure! I thought it was all on my SIM. I don't pay extra for icloud storage and I have a lot on my phone. I guess mainly my notes apps that I have tons of lists on and phone numbers. most of my photos are backup to shutterfly.

Am I confused? LOL

The SIM can hold contacts but tbh you should use Google services. Put your contacts into gmail, use drive for files, keep for notes, and photos on Google photos. Google photos gives unlimited photo storage. You'll be able to access it from the web or whenever you get a new phone with the app. I'm sure there are other services that do the same thing but I've always used Google and AFAIK their photos is the only that gives unlimited photo storage.

Since you aren't changing phones though nothing should really change from what you have. Just pop in the new SIM and you should be good to go. I would suggest backing up those things in the cloud though since they seem important to you.

Please explain.... the $45 cards are what you load onto your card each month?? I am not a customer yet, but we are tired of paying $329 per month for 4 phones with AT&T and I am going to be the guinea pig and plan to try ST this month on my own to see how it works in our area. So the way you pay $22.50 per month because you get the cards a year at a time, right? So do you need one card per person, per month? I'm a little lost. LOL

The $45 refill cards go on sale for buy one get one. Not too sure if they have the deal every year but they had it last year. He/she just buys a years worth of refill cards and puts them into the account to renew. You would need one card per person since they don't have family plan stuff at ST.

Since you have 4/5 lines you should be doing Cricket....it's straight up owned by AT&T and it's 5 lines for $100 or $20 a line. Cheaper than even ST on special. I believe they have free activation in store now or you can buy a SIM card from Best buy or Amazon for $5-$10 and just activate online if you want. Since you have AT&T phones you just pop in Cricket SIM and it's all done....you may need to change APN settings if you have a phone that doesn't update them automatically.

 

[GaryDis]

The SIM can hold contacts but tbh you should use Google services. Put your contacts into gmail, use drive for files, keep for notes, and photos on Google photos. Google photos gives unlimited photo storage. You'll be able to access it from the web or whenever you get a new phone with the app. I'm sure there are other services that do the same thing but I've always used Google and AFAIK their photos is the only that gives unlimited photo storage.

This sounds like an Android approach, which is good for Android users. For iPhone, the analogous approach is iCloud. It's pretty much automatic unless you say no to the iCloud questions when first configuring the phone.

I believe Instagram has unlimited storage but they compress images, which may not be acceptable to many people. Flickr's free limit is a terabyte, I think. Apple's free iCloud storage is much smaller (with resulting complaints), but it's plenty of space for contacts, notes, etc. It's not enough for mail, but most people use their mail server for that. And it's not nearly enough for photos, especially if, like me, you do a lot of exposure bracketing and use a standalone camera. But that's why I mostly back up my iPhone and iPad to my Mac.

 

[Jonny_Duck]

This sounds like an Android approach, which is good for Android users. For iPhone, the analogous approach is iCloud. It's pretty much automatic unless you say no to the iCloud questions when first configuring the phone.

I believe Instagram has unlimited storage but they compress images, which may not be acceptable to many people. Flickr's free limit is a terabyte, I think. Apple's free iCloud storage is much smaller (with resulting complaints), but it's plenty of space for contacts, notes, etc. It's not enough for mail, but most people use their mail server for that. And it's not nearly enough for photos, especially if, like me, you do a lot of exposure bracketing and use a standalone camera. But that's why I mostly back up my iPhone and iPad to my Mac.

It's an Android approach but Google is cross platform so there isn't much reason it can't be both. iCloud you have to pay for while Google services are free. When I got my iPhone I simply logged into Google and it asked if I wanted to sync contacts and there are apps straight from Google on ios that rival even their Android counterpart. Either way if he/she is that concerned with losing them then they should find a way to back that up somehow.