[dpham00]

Mint Sim review

Pros
-Great pricing if you are willing to commit to 3 months or more.
-Phone calls and texts work great

Cons
-There are times when data performance just randomly lags.
-The introductory pricing is only good for first time customers. When you renew, you will have to do so at current pricing.

Introduction
You might be wondering what is Mint Sim? Well, Mint is a sub-brand of Ultra, which is a T-Mobile MVNO. What is an MVNO you might ask? Quite simply, it means that the carrier has no physical network, and rides on another carrier’s network, in this case, T-Mobile. Keep in mind that by going with Mint Sim or other MVNO, that you are not getting all the perks of being a T-Mobile customer like their international data, roaming capabilities, T-Mobile Tuesdays, and what not. BUT…the price…Oh yes the price. The beauty of Mint compared to many other pre-paid plans is that you will get a discount the longer you agree to commit to service, either 3 months, 6 months, or a year. If you are one to change carriers more frequently than 3 months, then Mint won’t be for you. To help get you started, Mint has an introductory pricing at 3 months of unlimited talk and text and 2gb high speed data for $35 or $11.67/mo (regular price is $69 or $23/mo). But if you are willing to commit to one year then the regular pricing is $16.58/mo. Also, keep in mind that tax isn’t included in the price.

I had used MetroPCS (which is owned by T-Mobile) about six months ago, and the performance was somewhat lacking compared to Verizon at my desk at work. I should also say that I work in a high rise amongst multiple high rises so the load on the towers in my area can be very high at peak times. I saw Mint come out, and figured, what the heck…$35 for 3 months service. Not much to lose. I already have Verizon on the legacy unlimited data plan, and can’t get it back if I dropped the plan, so I decided to use it on my Pixel XL (unlocked Google version), and leave the Verizon sim in my other phone.





Setup
Setup was straight forward. The provided pamphlet guides you through the activation process, porting your phone number (optional), inserting your sim (the provided sim has perforations, and can be punched out for a mini, micro, or nano sim), and setting up the APN. After doing the activation process, I didn’t have to do any setup at all, I just popped in the sim and everything worked fine. Although, depending on the phone, you may have to set up the APN settings (instructions are in the pamphlet provided with the sim for both Android and Apple devices)



Performance
Call and texts including picture messages worked great. Never a dropped call or an unsent message. But on to what people really care about – DATA!!! Overall, I was very impressed with the speed tests – they were for the most part better than Verizon, which was unexpected. I suspect that the introduction of the new Verizon unlimited data is causing data speeds to go down as I was getting significantly faster speeds on Verizon just a few months ago. My current legacy plan also isn’t network optimized, so that isn’t it, just pure load. Back to Mint, performance seemed to be a little inconsistent – even immediately after getting a good speed test, I would sometimes struggle to open a web page. This could be an issue with the Mint sim being de-prioritized over T-Mobile customers, or something with the connection itself as sometimes, simply turning airplane mode on, and off again, will get things going. Keep in mind that most of the time, things like browsing, YouTube and Netflix went smoothly, but occasionally, there were some hiccups. Keep in mind that I am on the Mint 2GB plan, so I used video only sparingly. On a side note, you can type in #932 # into the dialer to see how much data you have remaining. Once your allotted data is up, then you will go to 2g speeds which is very very slow. Also, you don’t have to worry about speed tests eating up your data allowance on Mint as they don’t count.

Verizon


Mint


Conclusion
So the question you are having now is – is it worth it? I would say for the price, absolutely. It is aggressively priced if you are willing to make a commitment from 3 months and up, especially at the one year mark. Sure it has a few hiccups here and there, but if you are looking at Mint sim, then you are looking for a bargain basement pricing, and as such, you will have to deal with the occasional problem here and there. If you are using it a lot and demand the best performance, then you would probably be better off with one of the big 3. However, I think this is great for someone who uses the internet somewhat sparingly and can accept some hiccups. And even if you aren’t sure, switch for 3 months – for $35 total. Not much to lose here. You can also use the code, "ACMINTSIM20" to get 20% off 6 month or 1 year plans, should you decide to commit to longer.

[Matt Manahan]

Makes sure you have good T-Mobile coverage in your area before committing to 3+ months of service. There's no way to get back your money for the months you've paid. It's not right that the only way to find out if the coverage works is by activating the SIM, but once it's activated, they'll give you no type of refund--even a partial one. The coverage map shows I have coverage, but I would lose it in my house. Perhaps my phone doesn't support all of T-Mobile's bands, but I couldn't go three months without reliable service. Luckily, the introductory rate was good, so I was only out $57. The Customer Service was terrible, also. When I called, I was told to leave a message. When I contacted them through live chat, I was told to leave a message. Eventually I made contact, but only after a few attempts.

[SparklyPickle]

Can we use them exclusively in Canada?