Ben’s Phone Guide (2016 edition)

Phones depreciate in value fast, their useful life is less than their lifespan.  Not because old phones don’t work anymore.  But because manufacturers stop providing security updates after about 3 years (at best!) What If I Told You a Hacker Can Take over Your Phone with One Text… And You Don’t Even Have to Open … Read more

TracFone on Verizon MVNO Review

We’ve been using Ting for Kris’s phone the last 3 years, it’s been great (see my Ting Review)–but at our new house Sprint’s signal isn’t that good–it can’t really pull in a 3G signal consistently.  In rural North Idaho the best coverage is indisputably Verizon, so I limited my search to Verizon MVNOs which have … Read more

Nexus 5X Review

The stock ROMS on Verizon/Samsung phones are awful.  The phones come shipped with Samsung Touchwiz which makes the UI ugly and a half a dozen apps that you can’t uninstall—some eating up battery, some sending telemetry data to Samsung (using up your data), some changes Samsung does introduce vulnerabilities not to mention it takes Samsung … Read more