3 days with Republic wireless.

So being the curious one I am about anything new and dealing with technology, I decided to check out Republic Wireless.  I am always interested in new ways to do things and new ways to save money. So with their 30 day trial, with a full refund if you aren't satisfied, I decided to give it a go and write up a review or two. 

Overview:

Republic wireless is a relatively new cell phone company that is truly trying to do things differently.  They offer 4 plans ranging from $5 a month to $40 a month.  They do this by using their own system of having your phone use WiFi instead of cell signal whenever possible.  What this means exactly is that they are trying to offload a lot of the customers usage over WiFi, instead of having to rely solely on cell towers.  This as you can imagine, can save them a lot of money and there by offer such low rates for their services.   When it does use cell service it is using Sprints towers and their roaming partners.  I was a bit skeptical about this part as I have for a long time read tons of horror stories on how bad Sprints service can be.  I have however had no issues so far here in Kentucky (more on that in a minute.)  

Plans:

Republic offers 4 different plans.  The $5 a month plan is WiFi only.  Which means this phone will only work over WiFi and will not work over cell service.  This would be good if you are constantly in range of WiFi or for a kid to use while at home or at school.  The $10 a month plan is unlimited WiFi and unlimited talk and text over Cell.  This means that you have no data while not on Wifi.  The people this is good for is obvious: anyone who doesn't use their phone outside of their own home for anything more than talk and text.  I personally am thinking this would be a great plan for my mom.  She really only needs a plan where she can talk and text on cell service.  The $25 plan is unlimited talk text and data over WiFi and 3g service over sprint.  This is the one that I am currently trying out. Finally the $40 plan is unlimited talk text and data with access to 4g Lte.  This is for those that have to have the speed.  Although I have to admit that the 3g service is really fast for checking web pages on my phone.

This is the most compelling reason to switch to Republic Wireless.  Their prices are so drastically cheaper than any of the major carriers.  For example.  I currently have AT&T Family share plan with Unlimited talk text and 3 gigs of data.  I also get a 23% corporate discount from work on my account.  My bill runs about $96 after taxes.  Now this is for two lines and I am the only one with a smart phone.  So to compare with Republic wireless I have the $25 plan and I would get the second line with the $10 plan. So after taxes that comes out to be about $44.12!  A difference of about $52! 

You can also switch plans even before each month is up.  So say you are almost 99% of the time on WiFi so you only use the $10 a month plan but this week you are going to go on vacation and may want to use Google Maps while you are driving.  Simply hop on the Republic app on your phone and change your plan to the $25 plan, then change it back when you are ready to be back on the $10 plan.  This is also a pretty useful feature as well.

Usage:

So far over WiFi calls are the exact same as if it were on cell service.  My first call I was on my phone in my apartment using WiFi and while still on the phone walked outside to let my dog outside.  While walking away from my apartment I heard a tiny click and looked at the phone and it had switched automatically to cell service without hanging up the call.  The person on the other end didn't notice a single thing while we were talking.  The phone basically uses an algorithm that determines when your WiFi is getting too weak to continue the call and switch it over to cell service to keep using the phone.  Now this is super complex I am sure and I expected this to not go so well sometimes and drop the call.  So far out of the dozen or so calls I have made I have had no issues an no dropped calls.  Something I could not say about my AT&T cell service in the same area.  Granted this is only day 3 of usage but it has started off pretty good so far.

My data while using the 3g service has been really good so far.  Haven't noticed much of a difference at all from my AT&T Note 3 using AT&T's LTE service in Lexington.  I did try and drive to a roaming area which is about 30 minutes from here and did notice a call drop when it transitioned from Sprint's towers to the Roaming Partner's tower.   I am not sure if this is normal or the fact there just may be a small gap in coverage in this area.  I say this because my AT&T phone doesn't have service at all for a mile or so in this same area. 

Phones:

Republic only offers two phones as of the writing of this post.  This may be a deal breaker for some but for me I am pleased with the Moto X that I received in the mail.  Republics choices are the Lower end Moto G and the higher end Moto X.

If you would like to see a review of the Moto G Go here.   For the Moto X Go Here

Pricing.  This may be a deal breaker for some, but Republic had put a lot of effort into offering quality phones at a low price.  Yes you do have to pay for the phones outright as they do not offer contracts.  

The Moto G costs $149 and the Moto X starts at $299( Price varies on storage size and if you decide to use Moto Maker to design your own custom phone.)

With most phones on contract costing at $199 I do not feel that this is a deal breaker at all and plus no contract so you aren't stuck for two years!

What comes in the box:

As you can see from the picture there is a current offer that gives you a free chromecast with the purchase of the standard black or white Moto X.

You get the phone charger and cleaning cloth in the box along with the simple instructions to get your phone up and running.

The Moto X is a really well built phone and has lots of great features like touchless controls and and an almost clean version of android.  With a very crystal clear 4.7 inch screen.

Customer Service:

I put this section in as I think it is something you need to know up front.  Republic wireless doesn't have phone customer support.  Everything is done thru their webpage using the community link, help request, and soon live chat.  So if you are not comfortable using a website or forum to help get anything resolved this might be a deal breaker for you.  I sent in a help ticket on day one because my MMS (picture messaging) was not working.  To be fair this was an issue because I simply didn't wait long enough for them to get the phone completely activated with the new number I chose.  I received a response in about an hour via email and a message on my account tab of their website from their 24/7 online tech support.  I also tried using their community page to get an answer.  I got my answer with in 3 minutes of posting on this forum.

The community page is a really clever and useful idea on getting people service fast while not having a live tech you can call.  There are plenty of well organized troubleshooting guides along with previous questions that have been answered that you can look thru.  They give points to other users who answer the questions other people put on the forums correctly.  Pretty good idea.  But I feel that they need to get the live chat support on their site working ASAP in order to draw in any people who are hesitant to not have a live person they can contact for issues.

i have read online that it is very easy to get replacement phones via Fedex for defective units.  Many coming overnight.  So this again is a nice way of making the fact that they do not have local stores across the US yet.

Few Things that just aren't there yet:

So given it's complex way of working there are still a few things that do not work like a normal cell phone.

1.  Short code does not currently work (this has been addressed and should be working soon.)  Short codes are the less than 10 digit numbers you can text to enter contests or check your balance from your bank via text messages.  Most people probably barely ever use these but if you do.  Know that there is a fix coming but it is not ready yet.

2.  Using the standard texting app you can not send or receive emoji.  Again this is something they are working on fixing but it currently does not work.  I use the hangouts app to talk to most of my friends anyway so emoji still works there and so I have not noticed this issue being a problem to me at all.

3.  No live support.  Again this is something that is coming.

Final Thoughts:

Republic is a game changer that is constantly growing, very upfront about what they are working on, and are rally fair to their customers.  They are backed by their parent Company Bandwidth a leader in VOIP for businesses.  They offer quality service with two very great phones.  I hope that eventually they will increase their offerings for phones but the two that they have chosen are great phones.  With the savings that you get over other carriers it is almost a no brainer if you are looking for a smartphone but need to save money.  I so far highly recommend.  I will do two more follow up articles on this in two weeks and a month to let you know how I am liking Republic Wireless.

E3 and the game that has caught my attention the most.

So excuse my why I have a nerdgasm this week as it is E3.  That time of year when all of the gaming world gets together and says, hey look we are awesome and here are all the awesome games you are going to spend all your moneys on and all of us just shake our heads and say yes please take our money.

Anyway there are so many good games coming out that I could talk about, but one simple trailer during the Sony presentation made me really excited, and remember that it was still in the mix from last year. This game is called No man's sky.  This game is being made by a small studio out of the UK called, Hello Games.

What the game does is basically let you explore and adventure everywhere, from anywhere in a planet to anywhere in the solar systems the game has to offer.  I could go on just on what little we have seen of this game, but I will let the following trailer do all the talking.  Ps. It is coming out for PS4 so that makes me even more excited!
NO Man's Sky

Get a Verizon Moto G for only $70!

Are you in the need of a smartphone on a prepaid service that doesn't suck?  Then you should head over to Amazon and pick yourself up a Motorola G smartphone for only $70 bucks.  Now this only works on Verizon prepaid service and will not work on their post paid plans.  Still though the Motorola G is an amazingly cheap phone with some amazingly not so cheap features!  Check it out! Moto G $70!

Coming back!

Well Hey there everyone so from bouncing over to my thekpo.com website and then I just stopped blogging for...well lets face it it's been a really long time.  I have decided to come back to blogging my opinions on stuff here and posting some things that I think are super cool.  Hopefully this time around I am also going to throw in some youtube how to videos as well.  Because why not right?  Anyway I am glad to be back and well lets see how much I can get blogging on here. 

New Star Wars 1313 trailer

So it is yet another week of a con and this time around it is known as Gamescon and boy are there a lot of things coming out this week.  One which I love and am excited to see more of, even if it isn't really that much, is the following trailer for Star Wars 1313.  I simply can't wait to be able to play this game.  I have a feeling unlike most other Star Wars games it is not going to suck.

Some Blog Changes

Hey guys sorry for the lack of content lately.  There has been some changes and things happening with me lately that will alter the amount of time that I have to do the blog.  I will be changing up the format a bit to make it more of a simple view.  Also I will instead of posting multiple blog posts each day focus more on individual topics thru out the week.  SO stay tuned for the updates.  In the mean time here is the FLOG for the week.

Inside gaming daily.

Pretty good video showing 14 seconds of Halo 4 and other trailers for some newer games.

iOS 6 will officially do away with the native Youtube app.

With the latest update to the beta of iOS 6.0 Apple has pulled the last embedded Google app out of the OS.  Apple has officially removed the native Youtube app.  Google was quick to point out that they will work on their own version to be released in the app store.

This has good and bad implications.  The first being that Apple has finally removed the last of their dependence on Google out of their OS.  The second is now that Google can make their own app hopefully it will be completely updated which is very long over due.  The other thing that will help Google is the fact that they can introduce their own ads as you would see on the mobile web version.

This will be interesting to see how this plays out and exactly when and how Google replaces this app in the app store.

Gaming on the Go: Agent Dash

This game is a secret agent take on the game Temple Run with a few twists.  You play as an agent trying to do a mission without dieing or failing at your mission.  You can get boosters, guns, and all kinds of other fun little additions to help you get to the finish line of your current goal.  It is a free to play game and available on both iOS and Android.  So go check it out.

Ubisoft tells us how Assassin's Creed 3 is made.

Here we have a video where Ubisoft tells us about their new type of gaming engine and tells us why it is awesome.  As cool as the animation of Conner is in this demo, I have to also admit that the background people just have some really unhuman animations to them.  I would think that at this point in time they could make them a lot better but then again I am no game programmer so yeah there is that.  Anyway check out the video below.

If I was your Droidfriend.

If you like Star Wars then well yeah just watch this is.  It is awesome yet bad (depending on your view of Justin Beiber.)

The Old Republic to go free to play.

We all knew it was only a matter of time but it looks like it has finally happened.  It was announced today that Star Wars the Old Republic will go free to play this fall.  It will be a free to play hybrid technically.  You will have the option of being a subscription member or a free to play member.  The free to play members will have game content up till level 50 with the possibility to get newer content and premium content, which i presume would be raids, for a purchase with in game currency.  With this announcement we learned today that the Old Republic is down to under a million subscribers which is well under the mark that they wanted to maintain.

No Dawnguard for Skyrim on PS3?

One of the big wigs over at Bethesda has just been quoted as saying that they have not promised any DLC dates or promises of any for the PS3 or PC versions of Dawnguard.  As you may have remembered 30 days ago the Xbox got the first DLC for Skyrim called Dawnguard.  This is suppose to be only a 30 day exclusivity and everyone had assumed that the PS3 version and PC version would have been released today or at least very soon.  Apparently by this comment made we can assume that for those versions of the game we can assume it will be a waiting game.  Is it because these versions aren't ready?  or are they just not doing them at all?  It would be really bad I think for Bethesda if they didn't.

The MMO Report.

Here is the MMO report from G 4 this week.  Why?  because Guild Wars 2 and zombies are awesome!  So check it out below for yourself.

OSX Mountain Lion Review

So just like that out of no where with only a 24 hour notice Apple has released OSX Mountain Lion to the masses.  That is if your Mac can actually run it of course.  Older Intel macs such as my iMac will not run this version so it looks like that I am left with OSX Lion.  Now granted this computer is 6 years old now which is amazing in itself that A.  it has lasted this long, and B.  that it has been supported by Apple for this long with all the features of the operating system.  Anyway back to the point here.  OSX Mountian Lion brings with it a lot of features and some bugs as well.  Check out the review below of the features brought to you by TecnhnoBuffalo.

My Guild Wars 2 beta experience.

I was fortunate enough to get to participate in the final Guild Wars 2 beta this past weekend and I can say that so far I really like what I see in this game.

I really like the art style in this game.  It is very different from your typical MMO or most other games for that matter.  I also liked how that the choices you choose within the character creation affect how your characters story will develop.  A pretty neat feature for sure.  I had a chance to play a Human ranger, a Sylvari elementalist, and an Asuran Engineer.  My favorite story line so far is a toss up between the Human street rat story line and the Sylvari story line.  My favorite area I would have to say is the Sylvari starting area.  It is huge and just looks amazing.

The game play style of this game is not your typical MMO style as it is more action based with you having to move and dodge your enemies instead of just standing there and nuking them like WOW.  This took me some getting use to but I like it after I adjusted.  Another neat feature is that your abilities change depending on the type of weapon that you are currently using.  Even though some of the abilities seemed very similar they still had their own flair to them.

Another thing I noticed was that a lot of the intro starting areas seemed a similar mechanic.  Now granted the stories were different they all almost always involved seeing what a map looks like, a plea to help other people, and a giant thing at the end to kill with other people in the area.

I like how that the game isn't too linear but it was also hard to tell sometimes when you have stepped into an area where you will get your butt handed to you very quickly.  Especially when you walk into the middle of a dynamic area event without knowing it.

What I will say about the game is that it will be great for those who like an MMO but do not want to have to pay a monthly subscription fee and for those of you who do not normally play MMO's and like the diablo type of gameplay.

I will leave you with the opening video of the Sylvari area to get an idea of the art-style used for the cut-scenes and a tiny bit of the gameplay.  This game will be releasing on August 28th and I feel it will definitely be worth it.

Wreck It Ralph Trailer.

Thanks to my buddy Ryan for pointing out this cool trailer for Wreck it Ralph.  I can say that until yesterday I never heard of this movie.  I can say though that after watching this trailer I am pretty pumped about it.  Brings back a lot of gaming memories from growing up.

The Flog

Here is your weekly FLOG.

Assassin's Creed III Multiplayer gameplay.

Darksiders 2 Behind the Mask