I'm on a Tracphone and mostly satisfied. Best feature is the cost. I pay about $100 per year and the minutes roll over. I did the extra cash up front for "lifetime" double minutes... that is life of the phone. First phone I had was not very good... second was more expensive and more powerful. At the moment I have over 2000 minutes because I don't use them all... may have wasted my money on the double thingy. Downsides! They will kick you off the air if it is busy. Not dropped... they just won't let you call or it will say "emergency only". Most of the time it works just fine but not at all during lunchtime when everyone is calling someone. Texting is poor because of the cheap phone but it does allow it. Texting is popular around here because we have weak signal and text will go when voice won't. I think they ding me 1/2 minute per text. I don't use it much but it is a nice option... helps to have a friend that will let you send a couple practice texts while learning how. I really like the voice mail! My home voice mail was often a pita... machine broke or ran out of room. Almost worth the phone just to have the mail. Tracphone has some really cheap phones. About $15 should get you the lowest which comes with a few starter minutes. If it works for you they have better phones available on the website. If you buy minutes for the cheap phone then get a better one they will transfer but that deactivates the old phone. I will probably watch this thread as I'd like something a bit better. Just waited 90 minutes to make an important call because the airwaves were "congested". Suppose the call got made... and emergency service was available if that had been the situation. : ) lyra

I find that phones with antennas that actually extend beyond the phone usually give better reception than those that have the antenna completely inside the phone where you can't see it. You might ask the people at the Cingular store which phones they offer that tend to get the best reception. Often the people know which ones are best in weak signal areas. With Sprint, the phones do vary significantly in terms of signal quality. I know you can install an amplifier and an external antenna for a cell phone. I've seen these for use in cars. They boost the power and have a better antenna that you could also put higher up. Kind of defeats the purpose of a "mobile phone" though if you have to hook it to an amplifier to use it in your house. If it were me I'd just call SBC and get a regular phone. To me, cell phones still aren't reliable enough to replace wired phones, even though I know a lot of people do use them that way.

I think you answered your own question with " it's because I have moved to a weak signal area or move from outside where I have LTE or 3G coverage to inside where I have WiFi connectivity" The phone does nothing more than play what the website sends it . If you lose a connection and then reconnect, you're starting again as a brand new connection and/or the site hasn't kept track of what you were listening to. Both are normal.

I had to switch last year due to a medical device I use was not supported by the Samsung I really wanted at the time. I got an iPhone XR. It is fairly easy to use in some ways, but also there are lots of tricks that are not intuitive when you come from an android. It takes a little time to get used to. I came from a Samsung so I would say camera and other features are comparable between an iphone and a Samsung. The good part about either although iphone might be more is that there are plenty of youtube videos showing how to use the various features and to learn how to use the different swipes etc. I ended up with the iphone over another android device partly due to compatibility with my medical device, but also because I could get it and an apple watch which is compatible with my medical device for less than the phone I originally wanted as well. The watch for me is really worth it and is very useful and I used it when traveling to call for a ride when we went somewhere where phones were not allowed (taping of a TV show) and it displays the info I need from my medical app so I don't have to pull the phone out, shows and allows me to respond to texts and other messaging apps etc. The things that I still wish my iphone/watch did is allow me to set a quiet time over night so that my apple watch doesn't provide notifications. My samsung had this. The other thing is I wish the widgets would show on the lock screen like my Samsung did. These are minor and I can deal without them. We are a mixed household and have no issues sharing things, but I do have to say if all of us had iphones sharing would be much simplified and made super easy compared to when we were an all android household. The iphone and the cloud is also a feature that I like a lot better than the google account cloud. It works much better overall and especially once when my phone reset itself while we were at a waterpark. I needed it with me at all times for my medical device. It restored itself with no issues and like I'd never had it reset itself when it came back. Definitely never had that same perfect experience with my Samsung phones. Also to note iPhone 12 is the first iPhone with 5G support. The other mentioned above iphone 6 were for 4G support. 5G networks are currently being rolled out so no need for older phones to even having had to support that. It is one feature I would make sure is supported in a newer phone though. Oh one more plus with my iPhone - it's battery life is so much better than my Samsung and my husband's current S10.