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Hello thread. I'm on the cusp of pulling the trigger on a 5x and getting in on this. Some probably stupid questions: I'm on T-Mobile, and growing increasingly annoyed by their poor coverage here, and refusal to even let me BUY roaming access without ditching my grandfathered plan. My primary concern is usable data access in as many places as possible as I do on-site work in a variety of really rural & remote areas. Speed and total usage is a secondary concern. I saw this question on page 1 but it's also a year old - if I'm on Fi, do I have zero-bullshit access to Sprint/USCell/Tmo AND anyone they have a roaming agreement with, or just their respective main native networks? It's looking like jumping on this and financing a 5x will run me about $5/month Does it shove all voice calls through voip like Freedompop does? That's a dumpster fire of a user experience I wish to not repeat. Are there any "lol google" quirks that will bite me in the rear end once it's too late to go back? I already found out I have to not get the plan on the account I have Google Voice on or I lose all the cool GV stuff, which is annoying but can be avoided.
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Oct 9, 2016 06:37
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photomikey posted:There was a discussion of this a few days ago, but I and some others are using ~2x the amount of data on Fi we were using on our previous carriers. Has anyone reported that coming from not-Sprint? I'm on t-mobile. And if it's just "this network actually isn't poo poo so I used it more, oops", I'm good with that.
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Oct 10, 2016 01:18
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My 5x worked fine on wifi and my t-mobile sim for a couple weeks before I activated service.
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Nov 16, 2016 21:39
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You can use dialer codes to force it onto a specific network with or without fi switch/signal spy/etc. Supposedly if you let it alone for a while it will "learn" which one is best there and stop jumping around.
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Nov 23, 2016 07:31
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Just as I was thinking Fi was solid and paying for another month at t-mobile as backup had been a waste, they cancel my account on Thanksgiving and it won't reactivate and no two techs can come up with the same explanation as to why.
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Nov 27, 2016 02:54
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Settings -> notifications (I assume this works, I haven't tried it, DND means everybody gently caress off imo)
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Dec 12, 2016 20:43
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Uncle Ivan posted:If it's your Google Voice number, it is possible. That's what I did. But you lose all the Google Voice stuff. It's stupid.
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Dec 13, 2016 03:37
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~1.4 gigs with 500 megs being android os chewing up data while on wifi for no reason, and Fi support claiming is literally not possible.
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Dec 21, 2016 01:07
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"escalated the issue" means "got you to go away" half the time. Good luck.
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Jan 6, 2017 06:27
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At this point, the first line support is so worthless than I just hit up the guy on reddit who escalates poo poo if the chat tech can't handle it right away.
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Jan 13, 2017 02:08
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Glass of Milk posted:my wife can get an iphone and stop bitching about her 5x selfie camera. What's wrong with it? Mine occasionally acts fuckity too, curious if it's a common issue.
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Mar 14, 2017 14:40
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I'm gonna see what they say for people who have one of these phones that hasn't (yet) poo poo itself. I would like there to be options other than "here's another identical phone that's gonna do the same thing, see you in a year". There are enough stories of the Fi monkeys charging people their insurance deductible for a replacement after a bootloop that it's a concern. It's to the point where there really needs to be a straight up recall and free replacement with an equal or better phone that doesn't have that issue, so it's worth people getting in on it to get it the pressure on whatever company is replacing them.
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Apr 14, 2017 00:05
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I haven't had issues with texts. However, my phone just doesn't loving ring. Straight to "missed call" every time. Support is useless, of course. Everything gets "escalated to a specialist". I'm guessing there's a trash can with "specialist" sharpied on it at google HQ with how far that ever goes.
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May 2, 2017 00:34
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I do wish they'd give you more control over the network switching. Some apps don't like it and crash when it switches, so if it decides to jump to another network while you're doing something, not only do you lose connection for a minute, but the app shits itself and dies so you have to get back into it. Something like "no switching while the phone is unplugged and in use" or not ditching a 3.75 bar signal for a 4 bar signal if the current signal is entirely usable, etc. Or just a better way to lock it to one network than the two hours you get from using a dialer code.
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May 27, 2017 05:08
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Kinda, but zero other carriers do the switching that causes the issue, so the one special snowflake carrier should be the one to make it not break things, rather than expecting every app developer everywhere to patch around it. (Because they won't)
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May 28, 2017 00:40
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Uthor posted:I only wanna use Pixel or Nexus phones, but not having the option to use anything else, especially in an emergency, is worrying to me. Fwiw, you can chuck the sim in any t-mobile compatible phone and have service, minus the network switching features. You just can't *activate* your service on any device not on their list. It works as a stopgap if your nexus dies and you're waiting on them to ship the replacement, if you have a spare device.
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May 29, 2017 07:34
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The 5x failures wouldn't even be the deterrent they are if they actually officially acknowledged the issue and either recalled the things or made a policy to overnight ship the replacements instead of throwing them in a flat rate box and telling people to go buy a burner phone at wal-mart to use for the week it will spend with the postal service. (Which is actually a thing that has happened, more than once) Right now you have to deal with first line support, whose script doesn't include the 5x issues, so they'll claim it's out of warranty and refuse to help you. You have to bug the signal spy dev on reddit (lol) to escalate it to someone who can read and understand the English language, at which point you have to have $250 available for the hold they want to place on your card to take a week shipping you a refurbished device that will also die in a year.
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May 29, 2017 19:25
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If you want to take one more whack at it, this post has instructions for contacting a third party app dev who somehow has access to get poo poo escalated: https://www.reddit.com/r/ProjectFi/comments/5l22du/meta_introducing_reddit_request_a_better_way_to/
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Jun 6, 2017 20:12
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Yeah, the dude gets poo poo done. The fact that this mechanism exists, and "contact a third party on loving Reddit" is a legitimate step in the troubleshooting process instead of the support people actually doing their job, is not a ringing endorsement of this company.
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Jun 7, 2017 04:57
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My 5x hasn't poo poo itself YET but it does occasionally lock up and reboot for no discernible reason, I'm tempted to try and get it replaced while they're going nuts with them.
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Sep 12, 2017 20:53
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Mine is starting to slow down and freeze more than it used to and I haven't even gotten 8.0 yet. (And probably won't)
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Sep 14, 2017 06:04
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Welp Guess there's a lot of trade-ins jumping on that.
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Sep 21, 2017 04:48
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Chat sessions tend to end in "A specialist will have to email you" which then never happens.
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Sep 21, 2017 20:06
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Lutha Mahtin posted:imo you should try Fi support again and give them hell about it, try and escalate and just refuse to take no for an answer. This. Their first line support are barely competent and will claim they can't do something even when they absolutely can. 100% of all problems that aren't basic "how do i computar" stuff end in "we need to have a specialist call you" which literally never happens; I've started just going "no, fix it before I leave here" and poo poo actually gets done once they realize helping is faster than filibustering.. You just have to block off some time to do this.
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Oct 7, 2017 05:25
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I had the runaway data issue on my 5x, it turned out to be a google background service making GBS threads itself, I disabled it and the problem went away. I went from around a gig a month on t-mobile to ~1.5-2 on Fi, but t-mobile sucks out loud here and Fi is decent so I'm entirely willing to believe I'm just using it more. The real problem is when they randomly give you a "delayed usage charge" with no way to verify it's legitimate.
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Oct 8, 2017 20:19
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I have not heard of anyone having that issue and I've read a LOT of "my 5x took a poo poo and google put my replacement on a slow boat from china" threads where people are putting their sim in whatever crap phone they have lying around.
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Oct 8, 2017 21:46
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I got a data sim and threw it in my old phone so I'm theoretically ready to go if my 5x dies.
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Oct 8, 2017 22:24
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I'll repeat my advice: what a tech says the system can't do means nothing. Often if you dig in and won't budge, suddenly they miraculously figure out how to do what you need them to do. Not always but their script is meant to get you to go away, not to help you.
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Oct 24, 2017 02:00
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It's definitely an art. In general and with Fi in particular it helps to be firm without being a dick. "Look, Rajneesh, the last three dudes on here have promised a supervisor would call me and it's been over a week. I can't wait around any more, I gotta get this resolved today." has produced positive results for me on more than one occasion. "JUST PUSH THE BUTTON YOU INCOMPETENT human being" does not. Lutha Mahtin posted:if a rep doesn't know how to work a computer system in order to solve problems that should be solved, they are bad at their job, end of story. there is no need to try and put some kind of industry-insider fig leaf over this fact The bulk of first line customer support are barely capable. I don't necessarily fault them for it, their job is to be cheap script robots, not technicians. I just get pissed when three of them consecutively produce three answers to the same issue and all of them are incorrect.
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Oct 24, 2017 05:57
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Except in this case digging in actually gets poo poo done that they claim they can't do. I dunno what's going on in the background, either their script has them straight up lying about what they have the power to do, or they're clearing it with their super, or they have to ask someone how to do it, or whatever, but it works pretty often. I don't blame the tech for being a barely trained script monkey, I blame Google for intentionally building a front line of support out of barely trained script monkeys, but the net effect to the user is the same: their objective is to shove you off the phone as fast as possible regardless of fixing your problem or not, so you've gotta advocate for yourself to get poo poo fixed. Saying "I have to escalate this to a specialist, they will contact you" followed by doing exactly nothing (hint: this is how 90% of Fi support calls go) is probably faster than going through the steps to address whatever it is you need, but it only works if you let it. Don't.
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Oct 26, 2017 14:46
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Yeah I cannot stress enough that it's not the lowly support tech's fault, it's the company's fault for hamstringing them and making them say "can't be done" before checking to see if it can, and the whole "get rid of them ASAP" mentality that's forced on them. But if your poo poo you pay for isn't working, fault is irrelevant, you gotta get it fixed.
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Oct 26, 2017 21:30
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No-root firewall is awesome for straight up denying apps data access until they're manually approved, once you're past the pain in the rear end initial mass-whitelisting of everything you actually use. A lot of lovely freemium games are made positively bearable with no ability to load ads to show you...
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Nov 28, 2017 08:15
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The carrier switching is pretty moronic, usually. It'll jump from a perfectly usable and fast 3.5 bars of Sprint to 3.6 bars of t-mobile for no goddamn reason and interrupt whatever you're doing while it does so, or jump onto a carrier with no service where you are for no clear reason. It needs more user control, like "ask before switching if the phone is in use" and "always be on $carrier when at $location"
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Jan 18, 2018 00:48
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Good news for me. I've been dreading bootloop day since I got my 5x in 2016.
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Jan 22, 2018 07:06
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There are knockoff cords that can cause issues. Somebody posted a spreadsheet of known good ones somewhere, I think.
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Feb 12, 2018 20:35
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Fi support.jpg RIP yet another 5x, 10/2016-4/2018
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Apr 12, 2018 17:49
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LG is fixing the 5x for free now, but I went ahead and upgraded to an x4 and will have the 5x as a backup whenever they get it back to me.
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Apr 12, 2018 18:28
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If it's location specific my first thought would be the tower you're on in Barcelona.
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Apr 18, 2018 01:04
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Aaaand staying the gently caress away from that update, then. Thanks for the warning.
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Apr 24, 2018 18:03
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| # ¿ May 5, 2024 16:33 |
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Get on support chat/phone/whatever and don't budge until they actually do something. I've had my best results with them just going in, laying out the problem and what needs to happen, and not taking anything less for an answer. Alternately, there's a dude on reddit that has some sort of undisclosed in with Fi that can sometimes help: https://www.reddit.com/r/ProjectFi/comments/72dcgh/reddit_request_20_a_better_way_to_escalate_issues/
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Apr 30, 2018 20:29
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