Navigation App without Data Plan?

I am trying to talk my husband into a data plan.

I have an AT&T pay as you go phone plan. I put $25.00 every three months on it and they only charge me $2.57 tax. If I do get a data plan, from your post, it looks like the AT&T is the way I will go.

Thanks so much for the information.

Glad I could help.
I'm surprised that AT&T charges tax on pre-paid refills though. I have T-Mobile pre-paid phones, and the only time I would pay any tax on them is if I buy them at a local retail store. I usually buy T-Mobile refills here: http://www.callingmart.com/products/wireless/wirelesscards.a...
and it looks like they sell $25 AT&T refills for $24.25.

I log in to my account and refill this way. I have a card on file and they take it from there.

Have you bought from the link you sent? I love the link and will buy from there the next time. Every bit saved helps....

Thanks for the link.

Yes, that's usually where I buy my T-Mobile refills. Their verification process may be a little much (evidently there's a lot of attempted fraud on pre-paid refills), but after you get past that the first time, it's as easy as buying anything else online. They email the codes to refill the account. It looks like they also a way to directly add dollars to AT&T accounts: http://www.callingmart.com/products/wireless/ProductDetail.a...

BTW, with T-Mobile prepaid, after putting $100 on an account, the minutes last a year, and any refill amount (even $10) also lasts a year, so no dollar/minutes are ever wasted as long as the account is refilled once a year.

I will look into the T-Mobile.
I have to put $25 every three months or I lose my money if I miss the 3 month deadline. I now have $111.00 on the phone. Needless to say I don't use it that much. I get data at $.01/5kb or something like that. I have never used data. I saw an article where you could bluetooth Nexus 7 to a phone and use the data. I looked at my settings and the phone has bluetooth. I might give that a try but that is probably an expensive way to get data.

What else are you going to do with your $111 credit?

It's just there............
I will try to set it up bluetooth and see if I can use it the next time we are out...

...and that is the problem/drawback to any other cellular carrier besides T-Mobile. Like you, I do not talk on a cell phone that much. I don't send too many SMS messages either (too short). I exchange emails far more often, because it provides more flexibility.

Years ago, I had a Verizon post-paid plan. Every month, lots of unused minutes went to waste. AT&T's post-paid voice plans have rollover minutes, but you still have to buy more minutes than I need, and the minutes only accumulate for a year. So for me, these T-Mobile plans are perfect: http://prepaid-phones.t-mobile.com/pay-as-you-go-plans (T-Mobile also has other pre-paid plans similar to those offered by some other carriers).

I have more than one pre-paid cell phone (which makes it convenient to leave them in vehicles), and the last time I refilled them, it cost slightly over $9 each for a whole year. And those minutes never expire, as long as I keep adding at least "$10" per year (which I buy at a discount, rather than paying taxes and fees that jack up the total price)

It sounds like what you're talking about is tethering. I'd be surprised if AT&T allows that on a pre-paid account. But maybe it can be done without AT&T knowing about it. Sometimes that is possible.

The other thing you should be able to do with a pre-paid account that has that much money on it is contact AT&T and have it transferred to your Nexus 7.

Then, assuming that your existing phone is unlocked, you could get a T-Mobile account for it. If it's not unlocked, you need to do that before making the switch. AT&T will provide you with the unlocking codes for any phone that is not still under a contract obligation.

You might even be able to do all this while still keeping your existing phone number on your existing phone, even if switching it to the T-Mobile network. To do that, the sequence would have to be:
1. Get your current phone unlocked.
2. Find out if you can convert your existing AT&T phone account with $111 on it to a pre-paid data account, which will cost at least $15/month.
3. If the answer to the above is "yes" then you need to buy a T-Mobile pre-paid activation kit, which you can buy here: http://prepaid-phones.t-mobile.com/prepaid-phone/T-Mobile-Pr... for 99 cents.
4. Then you can buy T-Mobile airtime and activate your existing phone on a T-Mobile pre-paid plan.

If you don't use many minutes, the thing to do initially is add airtime in increments of $10, $30 or $50 (because these are valid for 90 days each), added 90 days apart. This way your first $100 will get you a lot more than a year's worth of service, which is what you get if you add $100 airtime (but that does get you more airtime- 1,000 minutes - than adding smaller refill amounts incrementally).

Lastly, you can do the number porting process to transfer your existing phone number to your new T-Mobile account (if you want to, vs. having to give everyone a new phone number).

Transferring money to Nexus 7 does sound great
Going to look at it
Thanks for the information

I have the LG Motion from Metro and I keep the Data off, and just use the GPS. Data is NOT being used.

Glad to help.

Another option: transfer your existing phone number to a T-Mobile account, get a new number for your existing AT&T SIM card and then sell it on ebay or Craigslist for (maybe) 80%-85% of that $111.

But if you can get the pre-paid $15/month AT&T (session based) data at https://buyasession.att.com/sbd/Common/ShopRatePlans.action you can stop and start it if you want to.

Too bad there's not a $100 to $150 per year data plan with 2GB to 3GB of data. That way the data allocation for months with little usage is not lost, and can be used when you have higher usage (e.g.: when traveling). What would be even better would be if unused data rolled over to the next year, like T-Mobile's pre-paid voice plans.

When searching for data plans the other day I did see one that you could choose either one month or until the data ran out. Now to go back and see if I can find that again.

If I sell the sims card won't it be linked to my name and account?

Thanks.

That option would be a last resort.
You'd have to change that to the buyer's info before you send the SIM card to them. If you had your credit card info on file associated with that account, you'd want to make sure that info was irretrievably gone.

I have also been following this thread, and there is just so much very good information. Some of the persons posting are quite versed in the various hardware and software, suprised to find all these links on a GPS POI site. I like my Nuvi 1450lmt for travel guidance, tho sometimes it wants to take some strange round-a-bout ways to get places ! I am a paper map type, and use AA maps and Benchmark maps, and the trailer life campground book, (and others) .
Thanks all for the very useful info !

Well, my husband let me get the AT&T DataConnect for my Nexas 7. No contract. I just got the small plan and will see how much I use and upgrade as needed.

I put NAVFree on my unused android phones. You download the maps via wifi at home. I think the maps are between 1 and 2 GB for USA, canada, and mexico.

But...if you have a data plan for the phone, I like Waza best because it has warnings for cameras, accidents, traffic, etc..

Do you mean Waze pronounced like ways?

Yes I meant Waze.

Also, the NAVFree USA used to die and have problems while downloading maps (at home on wifi - for later use). But, newer versions have become more stable in the past few months.

Do you feel that the Waze or Navefree maps are better than the Copilot application?

I made a route and the end point was on a one way service road going the opposite direction I was going. Instead of finding a way to go on the roads Copilot took me across the grass to the service road.

Do things like this happen in Waze or Navefree?

I have never tried them.