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Edited January 10, 2021
at 12:35 AM
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Motorola Moto G 6.4" HD+ Tracfone at HSN.com [hsn.com]
This seems to be an incredible phone for the price, which includes one year of TracFone service.
1500 Min/Text/Data for 365 Days
Android 10
6.4" 2300 x 1080 IPS display (399 ppi)
2.0 GHz octa-core processor
4GB RAM
64GB internal memory
Rear cameras: 16MP main, 8MP wide-angle, 2MP depth
Front camera: 16MP
5,000 mAh battery
USB-C
Fingerprint reader
FM radio
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General navigation is relatively snappy. There's a hint of slowness - it's not lag, just the feeling that the phone is a half-step behind, likely from it's lower-tier Snapdragon 665. Keeping UI animations off in the Developer options helps.
Memory management on the 4GB of ram works well - not too aggressive, only ejects apps when many are running.
Display is good. Good viewing angles, sharp, bright enough for use in the sun.
Dual stereo speakers sound great, no noticeable distortion at full volume, definitely a step up from the single speaker of the G7 power.
Call quality is good, including on speakerphone
Wifi performance is a big improvement over the G7 power. The G has MIMO and conntects at 433 Mbps when standing in front of my Netgear X4S. I get 148 Mbps uploads via iPerf using WiFi Speed Test Pro [google.com]. The G7 doesn't have MIMO and maxes out at 150 Mbps, with effective transfer speeds randomly ranging from 25 Mbps to 65 Mbps.
Bluetooth is an improvement over the G7 power. The G7 would have audio dropouts whenever I handled the phone, such as taking it out of my pocket. Also the G7 is renown for the 2.4 Ghz WiFi slowing down considerably when Bluetooth was active (cross-talk on the antennas) - I don' see a noticeable drop in WiFi perf on the Moto G, as measured by iPerf, on either the 2.4Ghz or 5Ghz bands.
Cell reception is excellent, equivalent to an iPhone 12 I compared against, on both Verizon and T-Mobile networks
Battery life is insanely good, as expected. I'm a very heavy phone users and get nearly two full days between charges.
Moto actions are quite useful and even fun. Double-chop for flashlight is very handy, although it turns itself off after a given number of minutes to avoid battery drain in case you accidentally engage it. Wrist-turn to engage camera is useful as well.
Haven't used the cameras as much but so far they're been passable. I actually like the macro camera, even though many reviewers crap on it for having such low resolution. Offers some unique photo shooting, including shallow depth-of-field.
Rear fingerprint reader is placed perfectly and reads instantly and 100% of the time.
USB transfer performance over MTP is slow - took 28 minutes to transfer 15GB to a mounted SD card. It's much faster over ADB though - around 7 minutes for the same 15GB transfer.
General Android tips:
Use the Brave Browser [google.com]. It's a source clone of Chrome but with an ad-blocker built-in, including ad blocking for YouTube videos. The killer feature is background video playback, which works with YouTube and even if you lock the phone. Allows you to listen to YouTube videos on the go without the battery drain of running the display and without worrying about inadvertent screen taps when locking the phone.
Enable the Accessibility Menu (Settings -> Accessibility -> Accessibility Menu). Gesture to open is two finger swipe from bottom of the phone (when using Gesture navigation rather than 3-button navigation). This gives you access to volume and screen locking without having to hit the physical buttons.
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"WiFi Calling doesn't give you the ability to make free calls and texts. (Read further along to learn how to do this with Google Voice.) You are still charged the normal rate for calls and texts by Tracfone."
LOL, TF promotes wifi calling as a Free feature that incurs no other costs (other than your minutes). . .so not a free feature.
FYI wifi calling is not supported on this locked phone on Tracfone. I have this same phone with the $20 1 year service plan sold during the holidays. Fyi
Sorry, a bit off the topic. Is there a time limit to the 1-year $20 plan as to when it has to be activated. TIA
Oh look, a cyberman.
I now put my phone in airplane mode with wifi turned on whenever the wifi network is availble just to be safe and periodically turn on the cell plan to send/receive text msgs.
I've used google voice a decent amount recently as a WFH number for the occasional call and I found that there is no way to prohibit GV from using your cellular plan unless you do airplane mode and then connect to WiFi.
If you forget to turn on airplane mode and your WiFi gets spotty, it will automatically switch to your cell plan during the call.
The only settings are "WiFi and Mobile data" or "Use Carrier Only."
If WiFi isn't great from the beginning, it will not allow you to make a call and say that you need to turn off airplane mode to proceed.
Edit: not sure if this is applicable to the phone in this deal, but I just realized that on iOS at least, you can disable "WiFi assist" and also go into the settings of the google voice app to turn off cellular data for that app specifically.
That would be under iOS settings for the app, not the settings menu within the app itself. When I have time, I'm going to activate the Moto G Power I got recently and see if similar options are available on android.
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1000 texts = $5
500 minutes = $10
1 GB data = $10
If you use wifi alot and don't use too much data, it is very reasonable. Plus with the tracfone rewards, you can easily earn and redeem thousands of points on service. I have been very impressed with Tracfone reception, customer service, app and tracfone rewards program. I am using both tracfone and red pocket.
*I have a Tracfone Moto G Power and a Tracfone iPhone SE 2020.... The Moto G Power is a great phone especially for its price. The battery life is insane (3 days for avg user and 4 days for the lighter user).
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Also, I had to figure out how to put the home button on my phone. Why does Motorola seems to think swiping is easier than having a home button?