General phone questions

[DaronMal]

I'm looking for a new phone, sick of my current one and looking for some advice since I don't know a ton of technical stuff regarding smartphones.

First, I'm on my parent's Verizon plan currently but am planning on getting my own once I get hired permanent at my semi-new job, is there any reason to stick with Verizon, or would it be better to just pick a plan that benefits my usage more?

Second, I've been looking for a new phone, and I'm not exactly sure what to buy. I know I want Android, or at least something based off Android, and I like bigger screens. How should I go about picking a good phone?

Third, should I go to a physical store to look/buy phones, or online? Are they cheaper on one vs. the other? I'd assume online is cheaper, but then I've never bought a phone online and would have no idea how that works.

 

[4745454b]

Verizon and Sprint use CDMA to identify the phones to the towers, while AT&T and Tmobile use GSM. Which you should use probably depends more on your area than anything else. If you have poor CMDA coverage where you are you probably don't want to use a CDMA phone. I personally prefer GSM.

Third, should I go to a physical store to look/buy phones, or online? Are they cheaper on one vs. the other? I'd assume online is cheaper, but then I've never bought a phone online and would have no idea how that works.

There is nothing wrong with going to a store and asking to see the phones. It might help you pick one. You can also read about phones online and see how they differ. I'm also of the personal opinion that you really can't go wrong with a flagship phone from either this or the previous generation. An S6 or S7, Pixel, V10 or V20, etc will all do you well. There will be minor differences between them all but if you had to use one over the other for your "daily driver" I doubt you'd be mad at one. My personal phone at the moment is the now much older Oneplus One. The 3T looks good, but not enough over my phone to make it a real upgrade. If I upgrade it will probably be to the S6 or S7 for the IR blaster.

 

[DaronMal]

Verizon and Sprint use CDMA to identify the phones to the towers, while AT&T and Tmobile use GSM. Which you should use probably depends more on your area than anything else. If you have poor CMDA coverage where you are you probably don't want to use a CDMA phone. I personally prefer GSM.

Third, should I go to a physical store to look/buy phones, or online? Are they cheaper on one vs. the other? I'd assume online is cheaper, but then I've never bought a phone online and would have no idea how that works.

There is nothing wrong with going to a store and asking to see the phones. It might help you pick one. You can also read about phones online and see how they differ. I'm also of the personal opinion that you really can't go wrong with a flagship phone from either this or the previous generation. An S6 or S7, Pixel, V10 or V20, etc will all do you well. There will be minor differences between them all but if you had to use one over the other for your "daily driver" I doubt you'd be mad at one. My personal phone at the moment is the now much older Oneplus One. The 3T looks good, but not enough over my phone to make it a real upgrade. If I upgrade it will probably be to the S6 or S7 for the IR blaster.

I don't know a ton about CDMA vs. GSM, but if I were to outright buy a phone and swap my SIM to the new phone it should still work I'd think? I'm really liking the look of the Pixel, I dont really heavily use my phone, mostly for shopping, Reddit, and music and light gaming.