Does Simple Mobile block Cricket Pictures?

cricket_androidOkay, first encounter of this so i have to know if others are experiencing the same issue.
I have been sending pictures with my cricket phone to a female friend of mine who is using Simple Mobile and she has not been responding to them. So i ask her why she doesn’t respond and she says she never got them. She is sure it is cricket messing up. So I test sending her pictures with my work phone which is on Verizon and the pictures send fine. Next I send pictures from my Cricket phone to my Verizon phone and from Verizon phone to my Cricket phone and all goes well. Yet not one picture received to the Simple Mobile network.

From what i see all sms text messages transfer fine and fast but to send a picture from Cricket to simple mobile, no go.

Now understand that I am on the version of Cricket that uses the AT&T GSM sim card, not the old Cricket with no sim card (except 4g) using CDMA network.

So if you are experiencing or not experiencing this please respond below so I get a grip on what is happening.

 

 

**Update**
I contacted Cricket and this is the tip they gave me to check my my APN settings to verify i am connected correctly. Sadly I am connected correctly. but nonetheless

Cricket Help:  I will send you the APN settings , but this will work just for Cricket devices
Cricket Helps:  Tap Settings > Mobile Networks (or Mobile Data) > Access Point Names > New APN (may have to tap Menu button to see this option).
Enter the following APN info:
Name: Internet
APN: ndo
Proxy: Not Set
Port: Not Set
Username: Not Set
Password: Not Set
Server: Not Set
MMSC: http://mmsc.aiowireless.net MMS
Proxy: proxy.aiowireless.net
MMS Port: 80
MCC: 310
MNC: 150
Authentication type: Not Set
APN type: default,mms,fota,hipri,supl
Note: on the above APN type be sure to enter it exactly as it is listed& don’t include any spaces!
Tap Save for the new APN.
Go back one screen to the APN list and tap the dot to enable this APN.
Reboot the device.
Test data and MMS.

Nope, did not work.

Cricket’s ZTE Sonata 4G One Month Review

My one month review of the Sonata 4G from ZTE from Cricket. Aka z740g

Battery – 1785 mAh
Processor – 1.4 GHz Dual-Core Qualcomm® MSM8230
RAM – 1 GB
ROM – 4 GB
Camera – 5 MP (backside only, No front camera)
Resolution – 480×800
OS – Android 4.1.2 (Jelly Bean)

Preface
So Cricket’s parent company got sold to AT&T and everyone who was on Cricket’s CDMA signal has to switch over to AT&T’s GSM phones. I was on the edge about moving from my Samsung Galaxy Admire II. I knew that we still had 5 months before we would have to make the switch, decided to just go right ahead and not wait until the last minute. I made the change.For more on the Cricket AT&T AIO Merger.
I shopped for the best processor, lowest cost, most storage fastest boot/reboot.

My budget (this is the budget tech review website so deal with it) was to spend between $80-$150. My total cost was $75.78 that covered the phone and my first month on the Cricket/AT&T GSM network.
First app I noticed was a task manager that none of my previous Android phones had, without me having to root the Sonata. Next thing I found is I can move apps to the SD to save storage space on the phone, and yes completely without having to root the phone.

Camera
Disappointing that I didn’t notice there was no front facing camera. but if you need a selfie, you can do a shelfie. Just set the timer (click the gear in camera mode you will see it) and set the camera to 3,5,10 seconds and back up and pose. When done, crop the image.This works well with my case that came with a stand. but again, it takes a whole lot of pictures before you get one decent photo. A BUNCH OF PHOTOS.
Screenshot_2014-09-24-21-51-56
There was much more to learn. So I had to dig into the camera and see what it is capable of.
First 10 photos came out very poor.
I even tried a few of my best tricks. Like hold the phone braced firmly against a tree or a wall or rested on a table. Still blurry.
I tried a few changes in the setting but everything by default was set up to the best settings.
The zoom… the zoom was like the first issue of android. A slider bar at the bottom of the screen. No pinch zoom.
The video camera shoots at very high resolution and the slider zoom feature is great. but clunkier and has a bad focus rate as compared to pinch zoom cell phone cameras.
Do not shoot video footage of concerts. The audio is horrendous. The audio/noise filters (maybe???) seem to try too hard to cancel noise and you are left with what sounds like a concert in a wind storm. Here is a comparison of the Sonata ZTE Z740G camera verses iPhone 4s camera.

Actual phone function
Sounds are clear. When people speak you hear everything they say and no one ever asks you to repeat yourself. No chop in audio at all.

Video play back
This phone has the clearest video I have seen as of yet. Loads all sorts of sites and I didn’t have to load any apps to the phone. No plugins needed. Just right out of the box loading every video on Reddit and Facebook I would stumble into. There is a download button on one of the video players . This lets you watch and download a lot of different videos.

Web Browser
Web browser on the ZTE Sonata is frustratingly jumpy. Pages keep loading and jumping all over the place. I suggest you install Opera or Opera mini. Either will be fine and solve this jumping issue. Forget all of the other cell phone web browser. Opera is the king of cell phone web browsers.

Video Games
Have not yet found a game that will make this phone stutter. Every game plays well.

Video display
The screen frustrates me. You have only one angle to view from. Move too high up and you lose visibility. Move too far right and the screen gets white and fonts are hard to read. Move left and screen gets super dark.

Battery life
Ehh nothing special. battery drains just as fast as all of my other phones. You get around 8 hours of battery life if you don’t touch your Sonata. Play any games or browse Reddit or Facebook, you’ll be on the charger in under an hour, completely drained in 2 hours.

Resources
Not understanding this. The ZTE Sonata seems to not handle resources very well. I don’t see anything lagging or stuttering, but looking at the task manager, the Sonata seems to always be using more than half of it’s R.A.M., even if I go through the task manager tabs to disable applications.

Reception

The phone picks up a great signal and nearly never is without a signal. but this is AT&T so we are looking at dropped calls seemingly for no reason what-so-ever.

Function
Along with dropped calls, there is a constant need to reboot. Called Cricket and they told me to just pull the sim card out and replace it. Me being a person who has been on AT&T (who owns Cricket now) a few times, I know better than to do this. You will wear out that sim card pretty quick. The main trick is to get you to do a full shut down and take the battery out for a few seconds (go ahead and leave it out for about a minute) and replace the battery then reboot. This does it for you nearly every single time. No logic in taking the sim card out at all.

Final overall
IMHO this is a decent phone. Looks and feels like a strange knock off of the Samsung Galaxy Admire II.
ZTE_Sonata
The back button is in an unusual (sort of stupid) spot, unless you are left handed. In fact a few things about this phone would be beneficial to lefties. Like the power connector. If you are right handed and use the phone for wide screen while on the charger, the cable points straight up. So you are battling the power chord.
App shortcuts keep disappearing. Constantly. but they might just be the apps that have been moved to the sd card. and this could be during updates.

Review score of ZTE Sonata:
Cost: 10/10
Camera: 3/10
Display: 3/10
Video Playback: 10/10
Battery life: 7/10
Resource life: 5/10

Total Score of the ZTE Sonata: 6/10

 

 

**update**

Programs are crashing left and right. This thing loses wifi constantly. I get notifications of apps closing like every 20 minutes. I just turn the thing off when I am at work so I am not looking at phone every 3 minutes. There was an update about the same time the Starbucks app updated and everything crashed so I think it is an overall issue with the phone and whatever default programs are on it, one of them updated and is causing complications with other apps. because it isn’t just the Starbucks app crashing.

The camera is a bit better than I expected, there are tons of settings in the menu area, from iso to saturation to contrast setting. This camera is great really.
Dark settings ISO 1600
Bright settings ISO 60
Turn everything in the “image” section down to 1/3 or a tad bit less. Adjust accordingly with location and lighting.
sonata_camera_settings
Default image save file type is .png

ZXing Barcode Scanner for Android

The Zxing barcode Scanner for Android system telephones

The data they have on their website about the ap.

ZXing (pronounced “zebra crossing”) is an open-source, multi-format 1D/2D barcode image processing library implemented in Java. Our focus is on using the built-in camera on mobile phones to photograph and decode barcodes on the device, without communicating with a server. We currently have production-quality support for:

This library is divided into several components; some are actively supported:

  1. core: The core image decoding library, and test code
  2. javase: J2SE-specific client code
  3. android: Android client, called Barcode Scanner
  4. androidtest: Android test app
  5. android-integration: Supports integration with our Barcode Scanner app via Intent
  6. zxingorg: The source behind zxing.org/w
  7. zxing.appspot.com: The source behind our web-based barcode generator

Some modules are contributed and/or intermittently maintained:

  1. javame: JavaME client
  2. csharp: Partial C# port
  3. cpp: Partial C++ port
  4. rim: RIM/Blackberry-specific client build
  5. iphone: iPhone client + port to Objective C / C++ (QR code only)
  6. bug: Client for BugLabs’s BUG

Works great if you are scanning stuff to find where to get that item online or what the best online price is, but beyond that, meh.. nothing special..

Does not tell you where to get it cheaper locally.

It still is great reassurance when you use it and find that online is about the same price. if you consider shipping and handling and the amount of time shipping takes and all that junk. Shop Savvy seems to do the same thing but it shows local. You get similar results with the two of online deals. but I still keep both because there some times seems to be differences.

I suggest you do the same, use both, you can’t really go wrong.

***Update***

There have been plenty of really good updates to zxing barcode scanner.

Dang thing is really cool. You just kind of have to drop the understanding you have of the other  bacode scanners.

Zxing is now one of my “must have” aps

Tmobile and Sprint Merger Bad Karma?

Rumor hitting the net now about Tmobile and sprint merging.

From this Uk News Article

Hopefully this means teh end of sprints crappy CDMA signal and growth of Tmobiles more dominant gsm signal.

One of the greatest features of gsm is the ability to just yank your sim card out and plug it into another phone you have and make it work, until you can replace your broken phone. So if this happens, cross your fingers and hope for gsm. Some people like to travel, and many people like Tmobile.

Oh yeah, and a good signal.

WooHoo, My G1 Arrived

Logged into my ups account and checked tracking. They left the dang thing on the front porch. A $400 phone left on the porch. Really?

Oh well had family at home to bring it in for me. So I called.

Good thing, after the scare I had last night with my Blackberry 8100 (lol just look at last night’s post.) I have two phones in my pocket. Only one has the sim card, the other is ready and waiting for just in case the BB8100  craps out on me.

I have no idea what to expect of the phone.