VISIBLE REVIEW: 9 Things to Know Before You Sign Up

for risings network for half the price is that too good to be true hello and welcome my name is michael from the personal finance blog michael saves comm and in this video i'm going to tell you all about visible it's a low-cost cell phone service actually owned by Verizon but can save you a whole lot on your cell phone service I know because I've been testing visible along with about a dozen other cheap cell phone providers over the last year so let's get right to the pros and cons and what you should know before you sign up number one plan and pricing with visible there's just one plan and as of October two thousand nineteen when I signed up that's $40 a month for unlimited talk text and data so compare that to Verizon's postpaid plans those are seventy to ninety dollars a month for a single line another big difference with visible taxes and fees they're included so forty dollars is what I pay every month but the horizon postpaid plans that seventy to ninety for a single line that's just the beginning you'll pay taxes and fees on top of that another thing that distinguishes these two is that visible is a prepaid carrier so I signed up on October 1st and I paid for my whole month of October service my next bill November 1st that's unlike the big four carriers because usually they'll believe after your service prepaid service just means that you pay in advance and no credit check is required next let's talk about network coverage as I mentioned for pricing owns visible so as you'd imagine you get Verizon's network with this service but there are a few things you should know when I reached out to visible just to get some clarity on the network coverage I have a statement and I'm going to read it to you right now visible rights meanwhile visible uses Verizon's network we specifically operate on their 4G enabled towers so there may be some towers on their prepaid and postpaid network that aren't accessible to visible customers that said we do have domestic roaming available through some third-party towers which helps make our service accessible in some areas Verizon 4G isn't available so that's the bottom line for visible really you should know by now whether Verizon works in your area and if Verizon is the strongest provider where you live or if you're with Verizon right now visible may be a good option for you on visibles website there is a coverage checker so you can make sure that the coverage will work where you live number three call and text performance so once you establish that Verizon has a strong network where you live you should feel pretty confident that visibles gonna work out pretty well too and for me that has been the case long ago I was a Verizon customer the past two years I was with the Xfinity mobile which uses four reisen's towers and now with the visible really I haven't noticed much of a difference with the : text performance it's been great I've had no dropped calls no missing text messages one thing to note I have had a few more spam text messages than I had on Xfinity mobile so what I did is I downloaded the free hiya app and that seems to have stopped them also with Invisibles native app they have a function where you can block a sender so you won't get text messages from the same sender ever again now on to data speeds and there's a lot to talk about here when visible first launched they kept download data speeds to 5 megabits per second when I signed up again in October 2000 19 that restriction was lifted so what have I got in with data speeds well I've done a number of tests and now put a link below to my blog Michael saves com or you can see them all and the average was about 35 megabits per second download speed that's plenty fast to do whatever I need and really how you have just basic needs I watched YouTube videos I check my email use apps those are the main ways that I've used my cell phone in fact as I've been recording this video I just did another speed test using the speed test app and the download speed was 19 megabits per second it's still pretty good now it may be a little bit less than Verizon and you should know that with visible when the network is congested your data is going to be slowed down but a lot of carriers especially prepaid carriers seem to be doing that right now it's one of the things to consider before you switch number five mobile hotspot and you might not expect a $40 cell phone service plan to include mobile hotspot but visable does and as someone who's tested a lot of these plans that is very rare in fact the mobile hotspot use is unlimited but that data cap of 5 megabits per second that went away for regular data it does exist for mobile hotspot I tested this out and I tested it out quite a few times when I'm doing work from coffee shops and I've actually found that the mobile hotspot has been a little bit faster than 5 megabits per second the last time I tested it it was more in the 10 range so mobile hotspot unlimited mobile hotspot but it's not going to be at blazing fast speeds next onto video streaming and this is going to be a con for a lot of people with visible video typically streams in 480p so that standard resolution if you want HD you can connect to Wi-Fi but visibles network it's probably going to be 480p now it seems a lot of cell phone service providers are also implementing this restriction and you have to decide whether or not you really need to watch videos in HD especially on a tiny little phone screen for me it's really not that big of a deal it comes in pretty sharp and clear when I run a test here's what I suggest just go to youtube you can easily even use my youtube video as an example and change the resolution watch it in 480p then watch it in 720 HD if you can tell a difference and if you can maybe 480p is it really going to be a deal-breaker for you alright let's talk about the phone options and this is an area in which visible has made a lot of progress when they first launched only some iPhones could be brought to the network or purchased now they've got a whole suite of phones available for sale whether that's an iPhone a samsung phone or a pixel device like the one that I have I purchased the Google pixel 3a for about $400 you can also bring your phone and including some Samsung devices but make sure to go to the website and check compatibility first I'll have a link below all the information you need about that the only thing I've noticed about visibles phones that are available for sale is that sometimes they go out of stock pretty quickly but you can usually just wait a few days and the latest and greatest phones will be available again I have noticed that most of the devices for sale are high-end ones not so many of the budget phones but in that case you may be able to purchase one elsewhere if you want a budget phone and then bring it to visible one exception to that is that visible has its own phone that is only $19 and free if you traded an Android device it's called the visible r2 time to talk about customer service and this is where visible is a whole lot different from Verizon and really most other cell phone providers visible keeps costs down because it has no stores and there is no 800 phone number to call for support if you want help you can do a few things you can talk through live chat you can contact them on facebook Messenger or ask on Twitter now if you're used to walking to a store and having a representative do everything for you this could be really overwhelming and a reason why you may not want to switch to visible for me I'm pretty tech savvy but not super tech savvy yet I felt pretty comfortable doing this on my own and what I noticed is that visible will really walk you through things every step of the way for example I ordered my phone on Friday and then I've had these emails from visible telling me about the next steps on Monday I was home waiting for FedEx because I had to sign for the delivery of the device that I purchased and once I inserted the SIM card again this will have instructions for all of this it took about 15 minutes to transfer the data from my old phone to my new phone and get up and running with the service one word of caution though transferring a number you can transfer a number with visible and that's what I did the process did not take very long but visible says on its website that it takes an average of about five days to port a number so what does that mean for you well when you're switching carriers don't wait until the end of your billing cycle to do so give yourself at least 7 to 10 business days that way you can make a seamless switch and there's no risk of you losing your number or having losing access to your phone service so for customer service really I haven't had a need to contact visible payment is all done through the app very simple I'm on auto pay but I did reach out to them to test it out for this review and I found that facebook Messenger was the best way they're pretty responsive and will responded usually a couple of hours to your inquiries about all of the things you may need help with in my case I just ask general questions and actually more background information to provide a better review for you here on YouTube number 9 and finally deals and discounts with prepaid carriers there aren't those amazing phone deals usually like you get with the beta for providers because you're getting a lower price on your cell phone service with visible $40 a month however I was still able to get $200 off my $400 Google pixel 3 a device it comes in the form of a gift card in electronic gift card and you have to be a member for 6 weeks to get it I'm not saying this discounts gonna be around forever there's probably gonna be new discounts but you should just know that visible does offer discounts they're pretty aggressive with them and they may be 100 or 200 dollars back when you purchased a device or transfer your number to the service before I go let's review some of the pros and cons of physical first the pros one simple plan $40 a month as of October 2009 teen if you're watching this a 2020 or beyond I can't guarantee that price will stay the same but it's still about half the price of Verizon unlimited talk text and data another big pro Verizon's top-rated network for a lot of people that's gonna be the biggest factor here unlimited mobile hotspot another big Pro and frequent deals and discounts that can help you save a little bit of money as you're starting out with visible now for the cons first no physical stores or even an 800 number to call up when you have problems so customer service you know when things are going great you don't need customer service and it doesn't really matter much to you but when you have a problem you really do want to reach out to somebody and you're gonna have to really think carefully about that one data speeds they can be slower at times then there's the five megabits per second speed restriction on mobile hotspot and also something I did not mention earlier Wi-Fi calling not available on all devices it is available on some and you can ask about that during the signup process finally limited Robo call protections and that's something I would say is a con for a lot of cell phone service providers but you can always download the Hyatt app as well I've got more on my website and I'll link to it in the description below Michael safecom has my full review if you switch to visible I'm gonna know about what you think leave me your review and the pros and cons write down in the comments below thanks so much for watching Michael Timmerman hear from Michael saves com

Channel: Michael Saves

Views: 89,017

Keywords: visible review, verizon visible review, visible phone service review, visible discounts, visible speed test, visible data speeds, visible mobile hotspot, visible customer service review, visible pricing, visible billing, verizon visible worth it, visible pros and cons, visible wireless, visible wireless review, visible, visible unlimited mobile hotspot, visible hotspot speed, visible party pay, yahoo mobile, xfinity mobile, yahoo mobile review

Id: 6ubkXCesKjM

Length: 11min 22sec (682 seconds)

Published: Sun Oct 27 2019