It’s time for another update on my awesome phone plan, Google’s Project FI. I wrote one post when I switched and another post last year with my impressions of the plan.
As a quick recap, I was on a grandfathered unlimited data plan with Verizon until late 2015 when they announced they were jacking up the costs to $110/mo. My cheapness overcame me and I couldn’t handle getting hustled for that much every month by Big Red. Fortunately right before Verizon announced that, Google announced their phone plan as an answer to my pleas.
I’m sure I didn’t have anything to do with Google starting the phone plan, but shhhh.… just let me have this one.
“So Gwen” anonymous voice over person asks, “You’ve had this plan for 2 years now. How do you like it? Still like it as much as you did last year?”
Well thanks for asking, anonymous voice over person. As a matter of fact, I think I actually like it MORE now than I did last year.
The Price is Right
And no… I don’t mean the show we all watched while home sick from school growing up.
Pictured immediately below this is a screen shot of Mint with my mobile phone costs for the last 12 months.
My average monthly cost for my phone in 2016 was a measly $32! That’s it! That’s amazing! The stat stands well on its own, but then when you compare it to $110 a month looks EVEN BETTER!!! Sorry about the shouting, I’m just really excited.
I also thought it’d be interesting to see what two years of spending looks like compared to each other. Looks like my phone usage is fairly steady unless I’m traveling abroad. Then I have a major self-control issue and can’t stop checking social media and uploading pictures. It’s a work in progress! December 2016 was the first month of Project Fi and last month of Verizon, in case you’re wondering why it’s so much more than the rest of the year.
Coverage
The coverage continues to be excellent. I seem to spend the most time on US Cellular and Sprint in the few hours per week I’m not on someone’s WiFi. Given that I’m on WiFi most of the time, I’ve only gone over the limit a few times. Again, that’s usually when I’m abroad and don’t have easy access to WiFi. Here’s a map of coverage in the US, straight from Project FI’s website. You can enter your address and it’ll show you what kind of coverage you have around there. I typed in Minneapolis, mostly because I was curious what the coverage looks like in my soon to be new town. It’s all dark green so I’ll be covered! (literally ha!)
Coverage overseas was hit or miss, depending on what country I was in at the time. So far, I’ve been to England, the Netherlands, Panama, and Ecuador with Project FI. It worked flawlessly in England and Amsterdam, and not quite as great in Panama and Ecuador. I feel like that has more to do with the countries themselves and less to do with Project Fi. I was able to use Google Maps to navigate every where I needed to, get an Uber or Lyft, and share all the amazing photos I took while not at home. It just took a bit longer depending on where I was. It’s a truly amazing feeling to land in a new country and be able get all my notifications immediately after turning airplane mode off.
Phone
I did end up needing to get a new phone this year. Last year I had the Nexus 6P which was a super great phone to have until the battery issues started getting out of control. My friend got a new 6P from Google just by calling in and complaining, so I did the same. A week later, I had a different 6P. They sent me a refurbished unit which I was ok with UNTIL I figured out the new phone had an EVEN WORSE PROBLEM than the one I sent in. I dealt with it because the phone was so great. In addition, I have a 20,000 mah battery pack that holds enough juice for 6–7 charges. It was a bit of a pain when I was taking tons of pictures in Ecuador and my phone would die 4 times a day, but I dealt with it.
Google released 3 new Project FI compatible phones this year, so I waited to replace it until I could get one of them. They released the Moto X4, Pixel 2, and Pixel 2 XL. I really wanted the Pixel, but I wasn’t willing to drop $649 on a new phone this time. I went with the Moto X4. Because I pre-ordered it, I got a $50 credit. I also got $165 for trading in my POS 6P, so that knocked $215 off the $399 price tag to end up with a very reasonable $184 upgrade price. I could’ve paid for it monthly, but preferred to buy it out right. No need to spread out the cost when I have the money now.
So far, I like the X4. It’s much smaller than the 6P which is good and bad. It’s good because I have small hands and it would start to hurt my hands/wrists if I used it too much. I do miss it occasionally like when I’m showing off pictures of my cat or travels to people. Games were also more fun to play on the big screen. However, the X4 has excellent battery life so I am no longer tethered to a power cable. It’s so freeing! The 6P had a slightly better camera which makes me a bit sad, but I’m more or less over it. The wide-angle lens came in handy when I was taking pictures of my new unit to put up on Craigslist. I am super careful with my phone around water, but if I were to somehow let it fall into water, the X4 is water-resistant. Hopefully that would mean I’d be able to rescue it before torching my only phone.
Recap
Overall, I’m really pleased with Project Fi and will continue to extol the benefits to anyone that asks both in person and online. If you’ve thought about switching, I would love it if you used my referral link to join. I’m not a huge fan of affiliate links and programs, but am happy to help out others in this instance since I use it and can 100% recommend it. If you do use my link, 3 things will happen. I’ll love you forever, you’ll get $20 off your first month, and I’ll get $20 for the recommendation.
https://g.co/fi/r/1RY1KH
Thanks for reading my review! What phone plan do you use? Do you have any questions about Project Fi I can answer?
Right on, Gwen! Nice to see that after 2 years it’s still working for you. I’ve had my Google Project FI since June and I’m happy with it. It’s not quite as cheap as my partner’s Republic Wireless plan but for the sake of experimentation, I thought it would be fun to check out another low cost carrier. After having an employer pay for a cell phone and plan for 15 years, it’s been a little bit of a tough pill to swallow, but I’m averaging around $24/month. I have a Nexus 5S and my battery life (so far) has been excellent, but I don’t use my phone all that much.
Great feedback on the Project Fi plan. I thought about changing plans but our current plan seems to make sense with 4 users on it. The AT&T plan includes 15GB of data that rolls over if not all used. This month we have 43GB available. The monthly cost is $195.46 and that includes one phone payment of $21.67. So all in, it comes to $48.87 per person. We get 1/4th payment from one son and the other is about 10 months from paying his 1/4th. I think we will stay put for know but if we loose one from the plan, it will be time to shop.
Still with Big Red, here, despite wishes to move off for an international travel-friendly carrier. Thing is, based on our needs and usage (3 lines, 8 GB data, unlimited minutes/texts) + a desire to be on iOS, I haven’t found a low-cost service provider that can touch our $114/month plan (including corp discount, before taxes/fees).
Is Project Fi strictly pay as you go? Or do you pay for an allowance? What does your monthly data/text/minutes usage look like?
Project Fi charges you $20 a month for the first line ($15/line group after that), and $10 per GB used in data. You only get charged for what you use. Most months I don’t use all 2 GB so I get $4–7 back on my bill for unused data. That means I use about 1.3−1.6 GB per month. I have no idea on phone calls/texts, but I know I text basically all the time so it’s probably pretty high. It’s included though so I don’t have to worry.
We’ve been on cricket for 3 years now and love it. They just upped the data to 5 GB for $35. The coverage is great as it’s on AT&t s network. And you can have your choice of phone. The one thing I am interested in on project fi is the international. But until the Mrs dumps her iPhone. We’re stuck on that one. I would get a pixel, but I’m too cheap.
Good luck with getting the Mrs to part with her Apple ecosystem! I wish you luck! hahaha (btw I’m buying a MacBook Pro.….)
Great rundown on Google FI. I’ve been considering it but have stayed with Virgin Mobile at $35 a month. I’m mostly pleased with it but Sprint’s coverage outside of large metro areas gets spotty. There are so many discount options out there now it’s easy to suffer from analysis-paralysis.
Right?? We could spend all day thinking about different phone plans. The Big 3, Page Plus, Mint SIM, Project FI, Republic Wireless.….. the list goes on!
$32 is pretty good, but $15 is even better!
If you have good T‑Mobile coverage where you are, you can get 2GB LTE / month (and unlimited talk+text) for $15.52 / month (including tax) with MintSIM by paying for a year up front (mine was $186.22). When traveling abroad I just buy a prepaid SIM and use that.
Nice! I’ve found T‑Mobile to be somewhat lacking around my area and I really enjoy not having to worry about prepaid SIMS when I travel. Just turn airplane mode off and boom! Working cell.
That’s awesome, Gwen! I’ve been wanting to get on Project Fi since it came out. I just need the extra space on my phone and need an SD card, otherwise, I’d love a Pixel 2 phone.
Right now, I’m rockin’ an old Samsung Galaxy S5, but I’ll probably get the S8 once the price drops (probably when the S9 comes out).
We were on Verizon, but switched to Total Wireless about 6 months ago. Our bill is about $60/mo. for the two of us with 15GB of data. It’s pretty cool because it’s they lease lines on the Verizon network so really nothing changed for us as far as coverage goes.
– Jim
I forgot to mention that! The X4 has a memory card slot! So useful. I doubled my memory and could double it again. Now I can take all the photos 🙂
Dammit, Gwen — now I have to start looking into that phone as well! 😉
– Jim
I’ve been using the service for about six months now and it’s been great. I was concerned about the constant switching between cell providers, but it’s been incredible seamless. I’ve also been able to call my cousin and brother who both live abroad and it only cost $0.01/min. Definitely happy I switched!
If Gwen’s referral code is used up and anyone needs another, use the link/code below for $20 off!
URL: https://g.co/fi/r/EHC6VC
Code: EHC6VC
I’ve been thinking of trying Project Fi for quite awhile, but have been waiting for my iphone 5c to die. Well it’s finally causing me enough problems that I decided to make the switch. Just bought the Pixel 2 and used your referral code to sign up! It will be an interesting experiment for me because I’m currently paying a flat $55 to be on my parents Tmobile plan, but I don’t have a great gauge of how much data I’m using. I’m primarily connected to wifi, but I’m a little nervous about data that I might be using on my commute! The good news is that I can always jump back on the Tmobile plan if I end up spending significantly more with Project Fi.
Thanks Kait! I hope you like it!