Plum RAM Plus 4G Volte Rugged Flip Phone, IP68 Shock Proof T-Mobile – Black

A bit of background....verbose but ultimately helpful: The discontinuation of 3G resulted in my parents' mobile provider (AT&T postpaid ) sending them "free" Alcatel 4G VoLTE capable phones. Easy directions to activate were included ....except the phones would not activate. My parents had a grandfathered plan that was $25 a month and their phones were so old that they had mini sim cards, instead of micro or Nano. After hours on the phone with AT&T customer service personnel I went to an AT&T store to see if I could get Nano Sim cards for the new phones because obviously the mini sim cards would not fit. They told me that they could not activate the phones and they could not honor their current plans. They wanted to put each of my parents on a $75 per month unlimited data plan and they would have to get new nano SD cards for the new flip phones. I told them my parents do not use data and that is why they use flip phones and not smartphones. Very long story short, even AT&T prepaid plans were more expensive because they needed a minimum of four lines to be affordable. There are two people involved, my mother and my father. I talked them into leaving AT&T and I returned the free flip phones obtained from AT&T and canceled their service. I have been on Mint mobile with a $15 per month plan for years and it's fine for me, I have a low-end smartphone and it does everything I need. I bought ultimately several different what type of non smart phones for my parents. A few were incredibly difficult to navigate, a few like this one just did not seem to work adequately on Mint mobile. I will know focus on the Plum Ram plus 4G LTE itself. For anyone wondering I can tell you from using many different flip type non-smartphones this truly is one of the most intuitive to use * and* offers a nice grip for anyone with large hands or with dexterity issues. A long press on the red telephone button turns it on and also turns it off. A quick press of the red button and ends a call. It was easy to enter contacts (I didn't bother trying to import from my Dad's prior phone). The keypad has large buttons and there's a center menu button and around the perimeter there are printed arrows. This was very important to my parents because phones with an unlabeled "ring" around the center button that essentially acts as a four-way arrow was very hard for my parents to operate. They have no trouble with this phone. It's very comfortable in one's hand and is light but feels substantial. When I first activated it on Mint mobile, I had significant problems with the phone not completing calls, not receiving calls and dropping them. I emailed customer service but received what looked like a cookie cutter response that did not really address my question. When I sent a follow-up message I got the identical response from them that I had the first time. I should note that their website has a phone number which I never tried. It's possible their customer service is better by phone. By this point in the very long story, my dad really liked this phone. No it didn't really work LOL but he liked how it operated and he liked the feel in his hand. I ended up going with a different phone for my mother, which I reviewed separately (Easyfone A1 Prime 4G Pro, too slippery for my father's large hands ). Neither phone was working well on Mint. I finally went to a nearby T-Mobile store, hoping they could help because mint works on T-Mobile towers. Long story short they let me put in a T-Mobile sim card and it worked fine. I canceled mint and I signed my parents up each with T-Mobile prepaid $15 a month. Their phones work fine. When on Mint mobile my father's Plum phone never displayed 4G VoLTE but it did on T-Mobile. I won't say a call never drops but it's very rare and usually happens in a crowded Big Box Store where the signal fluctuates. I bought a second oem battery here on Amazon , as I liked my parents to carry a charged spare battery with them. Lastly the Cradle charger would be nice for someone with dexterity problems. I personally have not used it because I usually charge the phone for him and use the micro USB charger on the side of the phone. It is nice that there are both options however. I hope this review helps some of you I feel like I'm forgetting to mention some things but I'll edit if anyone has questions.

This phone sells itself as everything I want in a phone: Compact Waterproof Rugged Simple Reliable However, I have been bitterly disappointed. The battery life is terrible for a flip phone. Instead of the three or four days you usually get, it needs to be charged every night to make it through the next day. The screen cracked already. So much for being rugged. I did get it wet with no problems so that is a plus. My cell service is through T-Mobile and has been terrible, not sure if that's T-Mobile or the phone. I had activation trouble. Plum claims you can just pop the SIM card in the phone and you are good to go but that was not the case. Three calls to customer service later I finally got it activated. Transferring contacts by bluetooth worked well. It is fairly simple to use but texting isn't great. The dedicated flashlight button is nice but the flashlight isn't strong enough to be useful. Might as well just flip it open and use the glow of the screen.

Ordered this phone for my elderly Mom who was having trouble with the AT&T provided phone to accommodate the 4G/LTE change over. First off the Plum Plus uses a different operating system from the KaiOS used in other phones. We found the Plum operating system to be much simpler than other phone systems which made things easier to find - most of the time. But since the menu system is fundamentally flat, locating things is somewhat easier. The home page is as simple as it gets with no extraneous icons - but sufficient information about connectivity, messages, and battery life. First off - removing the SIM card from the AT&T phone (which was 4G/LTE qualified) and putting into the Plum phone worked exactly as Plum had directed...and everything was fine. Moving the SD card was just as easy. Connecting to the computer saw both the phone and SD card file systems. Moving the contact list was a little strange...a similar experience with every phone I've ever owned...had to re-enter every number; a good way to clean up the list. For this phone, I moved the VCARD file to a computer, and then did all the entries. Putting the VCARD file back on the phone and importing the file did the trick. (Apparently different types of phones use different variations of VCARD files. Hand edits on the computer may offer more capabilities than manual entries on the phone itself.) Computer connection also allows sending ringtones to the phone, and are selectable in the contact list. Ringtone for incoming messages is also nice and loud unlike the KaiOS which is hard to hear. I was able to test the BT connectivity to my car system and it worked just fine. Phone and Car were able to sync with little fuss. The phone comes with a manual, currently unavailable on the Plum-Mobile web site...had a lot of info but is tiny, although readable. There is no WiFi capability, but Browser access is via the phone account data package...can be turned off as can roaming data can be turned off. The phone cradle make charging easier than trying to plug in a micro USB connection, although both are possible. Cradle signifies when charging is competed. Overall I'm very pleased with the look and feel of this newly released phone. Good heft but not too heavy. Both screens very readable. Recommend the ORANGE version to make key locations easier to spot and understand.