I recently signed up forMint Mobile. After reviewing the service, I decide to switch my main number to Mint.
I ordered the SIM Kit with Unlimited Talk, Text, and 3GB of High Speed data for $45. Normally with prepaid service, you prepaid for one month or 30 days in advance but with Mint you pay for either three, six, or 12 months in advance. So, for my first three months of service, I’m paying $15 per month. Note that after 3 months, I’ll need to pay for the twelve month option to keep the $15 per month price.
Sign Up
I signed up for Mint Mobile online. The SIM kit was derived by FedEx two days later. Inside the package were two different kits. One was the SIM Kit for my service. The other was a “Share the Love” kit, that you can give to someone else for a free seven day trial.
My kit included a colorful brochure with slick marketing and extremely clear intstructions, a three in one SIM card, with a SIM that can be used in any phone that uses a Mini, Micro, or nano-SIM, and a small SIM ejection tool to remove the SIM tray from your phone. I am going to use the service with my iPhone X, so I punched out the nano SIM from the SIM card.
Interested in signing up for Mint Mobile? Click here
Activation
To activate my service, I followed the instructions on the card. The first step is to insert the SIM in the phone. Next visit mintmobile.com and follow the activation instructions. I did this using the Safari browser on my iPhone. I was connected to my Home internet broadband using Wi-Fi.
You’ll need to walk through several steps.
First, I entered the activation code on the back of the SIM card
Next, Decide whether you want a new number or to keep your existing number. I wanted to transfer my main number from Verizon Prepaid to Mint Mobile. I entered my phone number, my account number, my account pin, and my zip code. The account number and account pin were for the Verizon prepaid account I was transferring my number from. If you don’t know your account number and PIN ask your carrier. Sometimes you can find the account number and set the PIN from your carrier’s app or website. Note, the PIN, is not the code you use to unlock your phone.
Next, once you have entered your account information, you can view and accept the Mint Mobile return policy.
Next, Enter your billing information as well as sign up to auto-renew your plan. This is optional. I chose to skip this step and do it later.
Next, enter your name, email, and choose a password to setup yourMint Mobile account.
At this point, my activation was complete.
Setup
Once I completed activation on mintmobile.com, I restarted my iPhone. The instruction did not require this, but I always do this as a practice when signing and setting up a wireless service.
After the phone restarts, I try out the basic features: Talk, Text, and Data
I was able to make a receive a phone call without issues.
I also turned off my Wi-Fi connection and browsed the Internet using Safari. Initially it was slow. I noticed my phone only had a “4G” connection instead of LTE. For some reason, sometimes it takes several minutes for your phone to get a full LTE connection when signing up for a service. I’ve noticed this with other carriers too. Within five minutes or so, I had an LTE connection and data was faster.
I also checked to make sure I was able to send and receive text messages and picture messages. If you are using an iPhone, you want to make sure you can send and receive text and picture messages with both other iPhone users and android users. When you send messages to people with Samsung or other android phones your messages are sent using SMS and MMS. These are the “green bubble: messages you see in Messages. When you send messages to other iPhone or Apple product users, you usually see a “blue bubble”. Apple’s Messages uses iMessage. iMessages used your phone’s data or internet connection. That is either Wi-Fi or cellular data depending on how you are connected.
Other Features
I decided to wait for later to try out Wi-Fi calling, Visual Voice Mail, and Mobile Hotspot. All these features worked during my previous review so I do not expect a problem.
Interested in signing up for Mint Mobile? Click here
Check out my video on YouTube