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It's easy to head over to Verizon, AT&T or another cellular carrier and pay a ton of money for a phone and monthly cell plan, but what if you don't want to spend so much? What if you want a second phone number for Craigslist, online dating, eBay or your business?
Tech expert Dave Taylor from https://www.AskDaveTaylor.com/ checks out the amazing TextNow service - using one of its discounted Samsung Galaxy S8 phones - and found it's quite a smart solution.
There is, however, a gotcha, as he explains in this video too.
Learn more: https://www.textnow.com/
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0:00
On a budget but want texting and phone calls? Let's check out this solution
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Dave Taylor here and I'm looking at this. This is the Samsung Galaxy S8, but I'm not really
0:16
looking at it because it's a Samsung phone. I'm looking at it because it's a TextNow phone
0:21
And TextNow is a really cool service. At its most basic, it is a Wi-Fi only phone number
0:28
and service you can use. You can certainly pay for data plans and you can get pretty darn
0:33
inexpensive ones that include a lot of good international numbers and fees. But we'll get
0:38
back to that. So, suffice to say, you sign up with TextNow, you get a phone number and that
0:43
phone number can receive texts and phone calls. To demonstrate, I'm going to go ahead and send
0:48
a text message from another phone and we'll see what happens. So, let's see. Well, should be here
0:57
any second. There it is. And now, as you would expect, it's just a text message. So, I can reply
1:03
and I can say, hello there. And it doesn't look any different to just having a regular cell service
1:10
But at its most basic, are you ready for this? I can have an assigned number that stays with me
1:16
for $9.99 a month. And that gives me unlimited US and Canadian calls and text messages and
1:23
everything, but no cellular plan. So, if I'm not on a Wi-Fi network, it's not going to work really
1:29
well. But for a lot of people, that's perfectly fine. If you only use this like at home or at work
1:34
or at school, you're probably always in a Wi-Fi network. So, it is an interesting option. Not only
1:40
that, but TextNow has computer and tablet software too. So, you can access your text messages and
1:49
your phone calls right from your computer or right from your tablet. So, you don't need a phone
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In fact, you can use this service without having a phone or use it as a second number on a phone
1:59
you already have. So, that's really pretty slick. If you're active on things like Craigslist or eBay
2:04
or something like that, having a separate phone number that you channel information into or
2:09
channel people to, that could be a really smart way to keep some privacy there. Now, let me talk
2:14
about the international calling services too because that's one of the...oops, it's telling me
2:20
I didn't complete my message. Whatever. So, one of the really nice things it has is it has a lot of
2:25
international calling options. Clearly, a service like TextNow is really great if you have friends
2:31
and family overseas. In fact, they support 230 countries. That's a lot of options and your rates
2:38
can be down to less than a penny per minute. And that includes like Mexico and China and stuff. But
2:44
I'll come back to that too. So, in fact, let's talk about cellular plans. So, I'm not talking about the
2:49
phone by the way. We'll get there. But it's just a regular stock Samsung S8. But you can get it
2:55
through TextNow at a really good price. However, let's talk about those prices. So, if you do want to
3:01
get a cellular plan, imagine this. You can drop a cellular plan and the phone number and it's assigned
3:07
to you. And for $9.99 a month, you don't get any cellular. But you jump to $29.99 a month and you
3:14
get 5 gig of data each month. Plus, anything you use on Wi-Fi is unmetered. So, that's free as much
3:21
as you want. For $39.99 a month, you actually get unlimited data which is a heck of a deal when you
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compare it to something like Verizon or AT&T. So, for $39.99 a month, you get a phone number
3:35
texting, calls, you get access via your computer, access via a tablet, all of that. Super easy
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super straightforward. And international calls can get down to $0.02 a minute for China, $0.08 a
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minute for India. Countries like the UK or Mexico or Brazil, they're free. Australia is $0.02 a minute
3:57
So, you know, you can really, really drop down the price. And again, if you're on Wi-Fi, all of it is
4:02
totally free. So, it's super good deal. Now, you can also earn credits. And this is something I think
4:08
is sort of the wave of the future. Instead of having an expensive phone and paying so much every
4:14
month, what if you could watch some ads or you could complete some offers and that would give
4:19
you credit against your monthly bill? I know a lot of people, particularly like high school kids
4:24
where they would be perfectly fine watching like a little video ad or two every single day
4:29
to cut their cell phone bill down. That's exactly what TextNow offers. So, they have what they call
4:34
their earn credit program. And you can actually earn credits against your bill by watching ads
4:40
or completing offers. Super simple. Now, the way this price is out is you can just go onto the TextNow
4:46
site and you can sign up and you can just jump in. It'll assign you a phone number and you can
4:51
just start rocking from there. Or you can actually buy a phone through TextNow. And that's what I did
4:57
here. You can see they package their own phones. So, this is the Samsung Galaxy S8. This is one of
5:02
the most expensive phones. So, let's start at the entry level, right? So, an LG Tribute HD. It's a
5:09
nice entry-level phone. $59.99 with TextNow set up and ready to go. Or you want something a little
5:16
nicer. Maybe the Motorola Moto E4. Again, $59.99. Or if you want to jump up, they have the iPhone 6
5:25
You're not getting the iPhone XS. Sorry, that's not, you know, that's not their customer base
5:29
But you want to get an iPhone 6, it's $189.99. Or if you're willing to have a gently used one
5:36
you can actually get one for $139. $139 for an iPhone 6. All ready to go and all looking good
5:43
So, that's a pretty nice alternative to what is it like $700 at the Apple Store. Yikes. Or finally
5:50
if you really want to go for the Samsung Galaxy S8, which is a very nice phone. I really like
5:56
the S8. You know, this is one of the best Android and best Samsung phones out there
6:01
It is $419.99, which again is a pretty darn good price. And of course, like anything else
6:07
you buy the phone and it comes in the box with everything that you need in terms of
6:12
chargers and headphones. Whoops. And all that. There's a lot of stuff in the box, suffice to say
6:18
But as I said, this isn't about the phone, this is about the service. So, Tech Now, really cool
6:25
alternative. Now, let me ask if you can go ahead and click on that subscribe button. Because I
6:29
want to tell you one more thing about the service. But before I do, I want to ask if you can subscribe
6:34
to my channel. Really appreciate that. Now, here's the thing that I experienced. I do want to warn
6:39
you that you got to keep up on your payments. You got to hit that every month. Because when I
6:45
actually had one of my credit cards didn't work and it suddenly couldn't process that monthly
6:50
payment, it let my phone number go. And someone else got it. How did I know? Because I went from
6:55
another phone and I texted my old number and said, hey, what's going on? And I figured, well, you know
7:01
message is going to pop up on the phone. It didn't. Someone else answered. And I'm like, what
7:05
And they're like, who are you? And so we finally figured out that's what happened. So then I paid
7:11
my bill and now I have a new number. So the easy way to solve that is to just make sure you have
7:16
recurring billing set up and it'll never be an issue. But if you're just going to wait till the
7:20
last possible minute and then pay your bill, there is a risk involved with that, that your phone
7:25
number might change on the way. That's just the way these work. I have to say that all in all
7:30
though, if you're looking for a really inexpensive way to plug in and to be able to communicate with
7:35
people and no one will ever know what kind of plan you have, $9.99 a month is pretty no-brainer
7:41
It's really nice. And you don't need to get a phone from Tex now. They have some nice phones
7:46
at good prices, but you can just use the computer interface if you want. And again, no one would
7:51
ever know that's what you're doing. And that's a pretty inexpensive price. So I say, check it out
7:56
I'm going to go back to texting myself because someone has to text me, right? And I will catch
8:01
you in my next video
#Consumer Electronics
#Text & Instant Messaging
#Mobile Phones
#Phone Service Providers