Can You Still Bluetooth Contacts To New Phone When Old Phone No Longer Has Service

"The Times They Are a-Changin'." So sang Bob Dylan, the poet-laureate of rock 'n roll. They are. But the more things alter, the more they stay the same.

Take, for example, phone contracts. Upward until recently, well-nigh of us bought our phones along with phone service, and most of the cost of our expensive smartphones was buried deep within the carrier "subsidy" that came fastened with chains to our freedom. We were locked into a single carrier (at whatever unacceptable rate or lack of quality service) until the contract ended.

As of this summertime, all major carriers (with the exception of AT&T) take done away with carrier subsidies. Y'all tin can bring your own phone. Of course, that means you lot're spending $400-800+ outright on an unlocked phone, and probably paying usurious interest to Visa or Mastercard.

The alternative is that some carriers are selling the phones to you on installment plans (often with no interest), for $20-35/mo, finer loaning you the corporeality to pay off the phone. The gotcha -- you have to have a telephone plan with them, and if you lot abolish the phone plan, your remaining residuum on the phone becomes a pumpkin -- due immediately.

Into this mix is a new an interesting question. Once your contract is over, what if you simply kept your old telephone?

Earlier this week, I wrote After ii years of Android, is it time to switch back to iPhone? Afterward a caste of indecision (there are benefits to both Android and iOS), I tossed out this comment: "Heck, maybe I'll but keep my Galaxy S4 and buy another battery."

I got an unexpected caste of pushback and questions. Some of you wondered what kind of tech journalist I could possibly be if I was even because keeping a two-yr-erstwhile telephone. But others of you wondered how such a thing would piece of work, and if it was even a viable strategy. The e-mail message that defenseless my eye, though, was this "Really? I could do that?"

Yes, as information technology turns out you can. The answer breaks out into 2 approaches: getting a new phone, but not turning in the old phone -- and just keeping and using your one-time phone. Permit's take those in order.

Keeping your old phone as a spare handheld device

I wish I could tell you what happened to my old Treos. We probably dumped them during one of our moves. Simply my wife and I still have my one-time iPhone 3G, my wife's one-time iPhone 4, and my former iPhone 4S -- in addition to our not-all the same-replaced Samsung S4s.

The iPhone 3G really worked every bit a phone for a short while when nosotros needed a spare. I ran downwardly to the local AT&T store, picked up a SIM card (which I think was free at the fourth dimension). Now, the iPhone 3G acts as a Pandora music station in the gym. It's attached to a set of speakers and notwithstanding works basically as an iPod affect.

My wife's old iPhone 4 is in the puppy's play room. Nosotros have it hooked up every bit a babe monitor, and it sends video to whatsoever of our iPads or Macs.

I still utilize my old iPhone 4S every dark (even though the screen is starting to skin off the dorsum, making pressing the Dwelling button an adventure and touch a bit of an exercise in randomness). I use it as my primary Kindle reader (I read earlier I go to sleep) and every bit the way I bank check in with Facebook (which I tend not to exercise until the end of the 24-hour interval).

All three of these machines are fully functional (well, the 4S is on the edge and when its screen fully falls off, it volition need to go). The iPhone 3G is running iOS 6, and the other two are running iOS seven. Since they work fine with the older OS versions and since the few apps they run nevertheless work, I saw no reason to accept a chance on performance issues with an upgrade.

So how practice y'all connect to the Net with an old phone? If you no longer pay for a carrier, yous'll no longer have cellular or information service. Merely WiFi will however piece of work just fine. When you lot look at your phone's signal, y'all'll get zero confined for the phone service (and, sometimes, an annoying reminder that you're not connected -- I'one thousand looking at you lot, Windows phones!), but your WiFi will work just fine. I do my nightly reading and Pandora listening and puppy watching all over my in-house WiFi.

The point is, though, that you can definitely keep and brand use of your old phones -- they are fully-functional Internet machines in a handheld size. Only your imagination is the limit.

Keeping your old phone as your primary phone

Now, this is a scrap more interesting. Getting a new telephone is downright expensive -- as much or more than buying a new PC, given about of today's prices. And then do y'all need to march along with the drumbeat of the every-ii-twelvemonth upgrade? Or can y'all save your Benjamins for another day?

Let's start with the possible. Sure, yous tin continue your phone. Right at present, our 2 Samsung S4s are past the end of their contract and still on Verizon. Sadly, nosotros're besides all the same paying Verizon's very loftier rates. I'm merely waiting to see the full spectrum of this flavor's phone announcements (and I'grand very interested in the Nexus 6 and Projection Fi), so we'll probably expect another month or so.

Only you could too switch carriers. The outcome has to do with whether the phone you have is compatible. At that place are some problems with what network you're on, whether CDMA, GSM, LTE or some other variation -- it gets to be alphabet soup after a while. It's best to go into i of the phone stores with your old phone and ask them to expect information technology upwards and run into if it tin can be used.

To switch, even so, you'll need to unlock your phone. Your quondam carrier should be able (and willing) to unlock your phone after your contract period is up. If not, there are a tremendous number of unlock sources on the Net. Just sentry out, and brand sure to avert scams.

Once y'all unlock your telephone, you tin switch carriers. Based on our current Verizon plan, my wife and I could easily save l pct or more my switching to T-Mobile or Sprint (both of which support WiFi calling, fifty-fifty on the old phone). While neither has the coverage of Verizon, that'southward a compelling option.

Then, keeping your own phone is applied and possible, from a switching carriers point of view. Simply is information technology practical from a daily-driver point of view?

Here's where the practice begins to break downwards. And it very much depends on your phone. If your one-time phone was one time very pop, you have a chance of nonetheless getting updates -- particularly security updates. If your sometime phone was a sell-it-and-forget-it telephone, you may be stuck on an old version of Android (this applies generally to Android phones) that will never be upgraded.

An un-upgraded Android phone is dangerous for daily apply. Period. There are far too many security flaws in Android and the potential of losing your data or having your phone otherwise p0wned is too high. If your phone tin can't be upgraded, I wouldn't recommend using it as a daily-apply phone.

In that location's a problem with upgrades, though, as well. You're adding a lot of layers of upgrades -- and more and more software -- onto your phone. Afterwards a while, your phone starts to experience like the tax lawmaking. Rather than a clean, straightforward surround, it'south patched to an inch of its life, and patches in ane expanse brainstorm to fight with patches in another.

Granted it'due south not like the tax lawmaking in that it volition still piece of work and non rip the states all off, merely eventually, the phone will begin to show signs of slowing down -- possibly a lot. Another reason for the slowdown is upgrades oftentimes wait the faster processors of more modern phones, and a 2-year wait in technology may be reflected in a considerably slowdown.

The other problem is apps. Some apps will work on older versions of the phone'southward operating system, only some won't. My old iPhone 3G, for instance, won't upgrade by iOS 6 -- and that means nosotros can't run the Gmail app. It's not really an issue because I use that machine for Pandora, but if I relied on it for daily utilise, Gmail would be out (and yes, I know at that place are other mail apps, but you see where I'm going hither).

Equally your phone ages, you volition find that more and more apps volition either not be compatible, or non supported on older versions of the operating system.

Bottom line

What's the bottom line? You can certainly keep your old phones and put them to apply. When I upgrade my phones, I'll probably supplant my crumbling iPhone 4S as my nightly reader with my comparably new Samsung S4.

You can also keep and re-carrier your old phones. However, equally time passes, upgrades volition be harder to get, they will slow downwardly your phone'due south performance, be field of study to more security flaws, and finish running some favorite apps.

My advice is this: go along your old telephone for fun and games. Even go on your old phone for a few months (as I am, waiting to meet the full spectrum of new offerings). Only don't expect much more than a six months or and so after your contract ends to become a new phone.

Update: Updated to remove specific CDMA and GSM references and to add suggestion to check with a carrier before switching.

By the way, I'm doing more updates on Twitter and Facebook than always before. Be sure to follow me on Twitter at @DavidGewirtz and on Facebook at Facebook.com/DavidGewirtz.