Mint Mobile: The Checks-All-Boxes Pre-Paid Carrier
*FYI: There are affiliate links present as we get a cut from your purchase.*
Now it’s been a while since we’ve reviewed a pre-paid service and to make up for it, we’re talking about our friends over at Mint Mobile. They’re another MVNO like US Mobile, Visible, & Google Fi which means they’re using one of the big 3 carriers for actual service. Mint Mobile uses T-Mobile’s service which isn’t too far off from the actual service I pay for: Google Fi which uses T-Mobile + US Cellular. So after 3 months of their provided unlimited service, it’s time to talk about our experience w/ it.
What Does Mint Mobile Offer?
You get your pick of up to 4 plans to choose from w/ a 4GB plan at $15 monthly, a 10GB plan at $20 monthly, a 15GB plan at $25 monthly, and an unlimited plan at $30 monthly. All of the plans come in 3, 6, or 12-month plan blocks to pay for. They also include unlimited talk/text, free International calls to Canada & Mexico, a 5GB Mobile Hotspot, and Wi-Fi calling/texting.
As far as their family plans go, you can go from 2 to 5 lines in total. You can get it for $15 per line per month for 4GB of data and go up to $30 per line per month for unlimited data. You still have the 10GB & 15GB data options in between as a choice as the 35GB data cap remains as well. However, if you or your family member need more data throughout the month, you can always buy more to add on as well.
Throughout my time using Mint Mobile, I had it powering my iPhone 13 Pro Max, and gave me zero issues for streaming or calls. I was using their top-tier Unlimited plan on an e-SIM as the data cap is 35GB per month before dealing w/ drastic speed slowdowns BTW. This would cost you around $120 pre-paid for 3 months but you can get it at only $45 for 3 months for a limited time.
As far as what kind of speeds I was getting? I getting around 150-300Mbps speeds download + over 30Mbps on the upload side of things on T-Mo’s 5G network. Streaming is defaulted to 480p but most times I’m streaming at either work or home so I’m Wi-Fi enjoying the 1080p quality. I got no slowdowns hiccups or any unexpected service interruptions over the 3 months. Save for the 1st month when I turned off the Wi-Fi and forgot to turn it back on. I easily blew past the 35GB and had to wait for next month to enjoy it.
Can I Buy Phones From Them?
Now unlike some of the other MVNOs we reviewed, Mint Mobile sells all of the phones you would want. You got the latest & greatest from Apple w/ the iPhone 12/12 mini as well as the iPhone 13 mini/13/13 Pro/13 Pro Max, Google’s Pixel 6 Pro, Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 3/Z Fold 3, and the Galaxy S22/S22+/S22 Ultra. They support just about any recent phone within the past 3 years. So you can easily bring your own phone to the carrier if you wish to.
What About International Plans?
For those of you who want o know how Mint Mobile handles outside of the US, we got you covered as well. Thanks to international roaming, you can still send SMS texts & make calls. Mint utilizes a service called UpRoam to pull this off. However, you’ll need to add money to it via your Mint Mobile acct online or the app in the amounts of $5, $10, or $20 at a time.
So the international pricing is broken down like this: each text costs $0.05 and each call is $0.25 per minute. Mint Mobile charges $0.20 per MB for international data as well. Any text messages received from outside of the US will be free of charge. Keeping nearby does warrant some savings as there are discounts for use in Canada & Mexico. To send a text is $0.02 per message, a phone call is $0.06 per minute, and the data rate for both countries is $0.06 per MB. Any unused international roaming balance will carry over each month and never expire.
While we’ve talked about other pre-paid carriers in the past, there’s a reason why Mint Mobile has been around since 2016. They have been living up to the idea to offer affordable, premium wireless direct-to-consumer to this day. So I can safely say that after 3 months, Mint Mobile is quite the powerful prepaid carrier. Powerful in speed, powerful in features, & powerful in flexibility.
Now this is probably one of the better pre-paid options out there but there is something worth noting before pulling the trigger. The only downside I see is that if you or your family are on a tight budget, you may not be able to afford to buy their service in a minimum 3 month block. Outside of that, Mint Mobile should be great for most people looking to get more from their carrier w/o paying a lot for it.
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