ViewSonic VB730 User Manual download pdf (Page 15)

   JANUARY 

COVER STORY smart phones

by more than $20 a month. At Verizon, for

one, the price of 1GB of data a month, the

minimum required by most smart-phone

customers, has shot up to $50. Previously,

Verizon charged $30 for 2GB and before

that $30 for an unlimited 3G data plan.

You might still see so-called unlimited

plans advertised, but of the four major

carriers, only Sprint offers truly unlimited

data plans. AT&T, T-Mobile, and Verizon

all reduce the download speed under cer-

tain circumstances on grandfathered and

new “unlimited” plans—when you reach

a data cap, for instance, or when the net-

work is busy—a practice known as throt-

tling. It’s usually allowed by the fine print

in your service contract.

Data becomes shareable. Because

they’ve all but ended truly unlimited data

service, AT&T and Verizon now let custom-

ers share “buckets” of metered data among

multiple family members and devices.

ey’ve also moved more toward making

voice and messaging unlimited, and

seemingly free, in those shared data

plans. In reality, though, you pay for both

through a per-device access fee of $40 (Ve-

rizon) or $30 to $45 (AT&T) per smart phone

per month. You can add devices other

than phones to the plans, at access fees of

$20 per laptop and $10 per tablet.

Overage alerts are now in place. When

users exceed their data, voice, or texting

limits, carriers impose overage charges

that can result in shockingly high cellular

bills. is year, after prodding by the Fed-

eral Communications Commission and

Consumers Union, the advocacy arm of

Consumer Reports, CTIA-e Wireless As-

sociation agreed that its member carriers

will warn customers via e-mail and text

before and after they hit their limits.

But you should still be mindful of your

limits and react by reducing usage or

switching to a higher monthly bucket of

voice minutes, data, or messages. ir-

teen percent of our readers surveyed last

September who switched from unlimited

to limited data plans said they were hit

with overage fees at least once. Our 2010

survey found that more than half of those

who went over their voice, text, or data

limits incurred penalties of at least $50.

1 How to save

e plan you pick and the cell-phone re-

tailer you choose are likely to affect your

cost of owning a particular phone far more

than the price of the phone itself.

Haggle for the phone. Most shoppers

don’t think to negotiate for a lower cell-

phone price, but 17 percent of our cell-

phone-buying survey respondents took a

shot. Of that group, more than one in four

succeeded. e median discount won was

$54, but a handful of hagglers knocked

$100 or more off the price.

Consider a prepaid phone plan. A no-

contract plan is now worth serious consid-

eration. Phones are better, reader

satisfaction with prepaid service is rela-

tively high, and service costs are lower.

You can pay $250 more to buy the same

phone from a no-contract carrier vs. a

major provider, because the no-contract

carrier can’t be assured of recovering

some of the phone’s subsidized discount

price through a two-year contract term.

You can now get

hot new phones

even from some

prepaid carriers.

Protect the data on your phone

In a recent survey, half of C

R readers who own a cell phone told us

they use their phones in ways that put their

passwords, account numbers, and other

sensitive information at risk. Yet one out of

three of them didn’t take any steps to protect

themselves. If they were to lose their phone,

strangers could pore through

their data, send malicious

texts or email that seem to

be from them, and order

merchandise from accounts

they’ve set up. Here’s how to

minimize your risk:

Lock your phone

1 Consider using a personal

identification number or

password on your phone so

that others won’t be able

to browse your life history

or embark on an online

spending spree. That tactic requires you to

balance security and convenience, because

you’ll have to enter a code every time your

phone screen locks. To minimize the hassle, you

could set a fairly long interval before your phone

times out, say,  minutes.

1 Install an app that can locate a phone and

remotely lock it or even erase its data.

Options include Find My iPhone free on

iTunes and Lookout for Androidbased

phones free at Google Play. The Lookout app

can back up your data. Other free backup

services are the iCloud for iPhones and, for

Android phones, Google Cloud Storage,

Verizon’s Backup Assistant,

and AT&T’s Mobile Backup.

For Windows Phone devices,

use SkyDrive.

Keep apps in check

Many consumers realize

there are at least some

inherent risks in

downloading apps to a

phone but don’t understand

the extent to which they

compromise privacy,

according to a nationally

representative survey

conducted recently by the Consumer Reports

National Research Center.

Eightyone percent of respondents

recognized that appseven from reputable,

wellknown companiescan access

personal information stored on a phone

and share it with others. But almost

 percent of those surveyed believed

sharing data was illegal unless the phone’s

owner explicitly agreed to that. And

 percent thought it was illegal for an app

maker with a privacy policy to share the

user’s personal information with other

companies. In fact, there are no legal

protections against sharing this information.

But threequarters of survey respondents did

realize that app markets, including Apple’s

App Store and Google Play, don’t prevent app

developers from sharing their information.

With smartphone apps from any source:

1 See what permissions you’ve granted

installed apps under Settings/Apps for

Android phones and Settings/Privacy

for iPhones. Uninstall any that are too nosy.

1 Before downloading an app, scrutinize the

permissions it requests. Reject any that want

to do something suspicious, such as tracking

your location if that seems unnecessary.

Don’t get personal

When going online, be careful about

disclosing personal information. Before

selling or discarding a phone, wipe out your

data by resetting the phone to the factory

default. And remove SIM cards and memory

cards, if applicable.

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