Dauntless said:
Still trying to understand the Mintsim. I know my first Motorola Droid phone could have the card changed, it would come apart. But that last one and this current one do not. How would I use this prepaid card? Is it possible to use it in this pad with Android my mother gave me? What happened to her is that she had the flip phone type and suddenly they were giving her this pad and saying it was free but they LIED! She had extra on her bill for it. I'm wondering if this thing would go online and even work as a phone with that. If I was to use an iPad Pro to run my RED camera I might also want to get it online. (Or maybe not, haven't decided.)
Mintsim is a virtual carrier just like MetroPCS. They are both selling you cellphone service through a real carrier, in this case it's Tmobile. In other words, your service would actually be on the Tmobile network if you go with either Mintsim or MetroPCS, but at lower priority and less roaming options (hence the lower pricing). Tmobile uses removable sim card phones, so you'd have to get a new phone either way.
Now back to my talk previously regarding Google Voice and Google Hangouts.
Google Voice is a VOIP (voice over IP) service which allows you to make phone calls over a data connection. It's actually free. You can create a Google account, sign up for Google Voice, and get assigned a free phone number that you can use on your phone/tablet/PC through an data/wifi/internet connection to make/receive phone calls, texts, and voicemail.
Google Hangouts is an add-on app for Google Voice that you can install on your phone/tablet/PC that is like a VOIP dialer/texting app.
I used to have my service directly through Tmobile. I wanted to save money, and so I found out about Mintsim. Then I found out about porting my phone number to Google Voice so that I could use my phone number on multiple devices.
Google Voice gives you a free phone number, but you also have the option of porting your current phone number for a one-time fee of $20. I bought the Mintsim starter kit for ~$5 which came with 2 sims. I inserted the 1st sim and activated it for testing. It assigned a random number which I used for a few days to confirm the service worked in my area. I then used the 2nd sim that came with the starter kit to sign up for a 3 month plan. When those 3 months were about to expire, I found out that I could just keep creating new accounts to keep the introductory pricing. The main problem with that is having to get a new phone number every 3 months lol.
That's where Google Voice came in. I ported my current number there so I will always own my number regardless of who my carrier is in the future. Google Voice has call forwarding so when people call my original/real number, it forwards the calls/texts to wherever I want. I have it linked to whatever my current/"temporary" Mintsim number is. I don't give out or use the Mintsim assigned number at all after that. I installed Google Voice and Google Hangouts on my phone, tablet, and PC. When a call/text comes it, it rings to my phone or whatever device I have those apps open on.