Selasa, 05 Agustus 2014

How Do Minutes Work on Tracfone Android Phones?

A Short Guide to Adding Minutes to Tracfone Android Smartphones

tracfone android minutes
Guide to Tracfone Android Minutes
Over the last year, Tracfone has begun including a variety of Android powered smartphones in their lineup of low cost cell phones.

Tracfone provides both cell service and phones at a low cost and sells cards with varying minute amounts (60, 120, 200 etc.) that users can buy and add to their phone. When the minutes are added, the phone then uses those minutes when you call or text. You also get 90 days (in most cases) of service with each card.

This system where users can buy minutes only when needed helps to make Tracfone service very inexpensive for people who don't use their phones very often.

Many Tracfone devices also come with double or triple minutes for life, meaning you get double (or triple) the minutes when you add a new card.

All of the new Android phones from Tracfone come with Triple Minutes for Life, which is a great bonus. Even smartphones like the iPhone 4 which you can use with Tracfone, and other BYOP phones get Triple Minutes for Life. Learn more about 'Bringing your own phone' to Tracfone to see what phones will work.

Let's begin by explaining exactly how minutes work on the Android smartphones from Tracfone.

How Tracfone Minutes are Added to Android Smartphones

With the Android phones, the way minutes are credited to your account is a bit different than how things worked for older phones. (see our full list of current Android smartphones from Tracfone if you're not sure which phones are smartphones)

For phones like the LG 840G, when you added a 60 minute card, you would get it tripled to 180 minutes which you could then use for talk, text and surfing the web.

For Android phones, Talk, Text and Web are split up when you add the minutes. So if you add a 60 minute card, you will get it tripled to 180 minutes, and then this is split up into 180 minutes for talking, 180 texts, and 180 MB for web.

So to make it clear:
  • Non-Android phones use one 'pool' for minutes.
  • Android phones use three separate 'pools' for talk, text and data.

For most people an Android phone is a great deal because you get the same number of minutes for talking, while also receiving texts and data. But there is an important difference that makes this not a great deal for everyone.

Related post - 6 Key Differences between Android and non-Android Tracfone Devices

The difference is that for people who text a lot, Android phones are not as good a deal. Let me explain:

For a non-Android device, each text costs .3 minutes. So with 180 minutes, you would get 600 texts.

On an Android phone, each text is 1 text (because texts are their own 'pool'). So with 180 minutes, you would get 180 texts (you would also still have 180 minutes for talking, and 180 mb of data).

If you are a heavy texter but want an Android phone, look into downloading apps that text for free. Simply visit the Google Play Store and search for 'free texting apps'.

The LG Optimus Dynamic II is one of the best Android phones currently available from Tracfone. So if you're looking for a smartphone, it is worth checking out.

For those who don't want to switch to this new minutes system, phones like the LG 840G we mentioned above, the LG 306G, Moto EX431G, and Samsung S425G still use the one pool system for minutes (and all of these phones have Triple Minutes).

If you have further questions on how minutes work, feel free to leave a comment below. Now, we want to go over one more important point:

How to Check Your Minutes Balance on Android Phones

android tracfone minutes
Tracfone airtime for Androids
This is a question many are asking, because there is no automatic location on Tracfone smartphones for accessing your current minutes balance like there is on non-Android phones.

But there is an easy way to check your balance. Simply sign into your account at Tracfone.com (or create one of you don't already have one) and go to your account page. You should see your phone listed there, and one of the options will be to check your current balance. Click this and after a few seconds you should see what your remaining balance looks like.

You can do this either on a computer, or from your phone. Additionally, there are two more options for checking your balance:

Enter the following url into your browser from your phone or computer and replace the numbers at the end with your phone number: https://www.tracfone.com/direct/CheckBalance?input_phone=1234567890

Or simply download the Tracfone App which allows you to see your service end date and balance.

That concludes this guide to how minutes work on Android phones. We hope you found this useful, and leave a comment with questions or thoughts.

Be aware that Tracfone Promo Codes don't work on Android phones, so this is also a small downside of the new smartphones.

Check out the latest and greatest sales, deals and discounts on Tracfone devices and minutes for some huge savings we've found around the internet!

Thanks for visiting!

2 komentar:

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    BalasHapus
  2. Thank you Thank you for explaining this. It was making me crazy. Now the light dawns.

    BalasHapus