Using a smartphone as a hot spot for pc

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chaos
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Using a smartphone as a hot spot for pc

#1 Post by chaos » Thu Sep 14, 2017 12:52 pm

I get tv/internet through Verizon and the bill is getting ridiculous. (And I will never go back to Comcast - even if they offer their service for free!) I was going to cut the TV portion and just keep the internet, but have been thinking about using my smart phone as a hot spot for the main internet connection to my IMac. I have some general information about doing this and realize the connection will not be as fast as FIOS, regardless of whether I stream. I am hoping (if I go through with this) I can stick it out until I qualify as a "new" Verizon customer. (I get my phone service through T-Mobile.)

Has anyone used his/her smartphone as a hot spot for a personal computer?

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Re: Using a smartphone as a hot spot for pc

#2 Post by creep » Thu Sep 14, 2017 2:43 pm

I travel a lot and some hotel internet is shitty so I use my phone as a hotspot quite often. Trust me you will regret it if you try it. For one thing your "unlimited" data is not really unlimited at high speed. In no time you will reach your limit and they will throttle your internet and slow it down. Even at full speed it's unreliable to use full time as your ISP.

If you really want to cut back drop your TV, get a good HD antenna for the networks and maybe look at Sling TV to get live streaming of channels you may watch. Get a Roku or Fire Stick to access all your online subscriptions on your TV's. You can also get HBO or Showtime. You can check out their lineup here:

https://www.sling.com/

But...what you really need to do is call them up and say you can't afford it anymore and want to cancel and I guarantee they will give you a good discount to stay. Trust me...try it. Don't say it's just too expensive, make sure you say you can't currently afford it.

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Re: Using a smartphone as a hot spot for pc

#3 Post by JOEinPHX » Thu Sep 14, 2017 3:21 pm

Playstation Vue > Sling TV

It's not even close. I have both and the only reason I even keep Sling is because it has the east coast feeds for 2 channels I watch. Otherwise Vue blows it out of the water in terms of reliability, picture quality, and features (the cloud DVR being the main one)

But don't run it off a Roku though. Roku is garbage. FireTV or AppleTV is the way to go. The UI/UX for the apps is waaaaay better than how they operate on Roku.

I have a Roku 3, Fire TV, and Apple TV 4. I have tried PS Vue, Sling, and DirecTVNow on all three.

PS Vue + FireTV/AppleTV is your best chord cutting bet.

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Re: Using a smartphone as a hot spot for pc

#4 Post by creep » Thu Sep 14, 2017 3:36 pm

I have never heard of Playstation Vue. The reason I never heard about it is because of the stupid name. Hearing the name I would think it has something to do with gaming. The channel lineup looks interesting. I will do the free trial when I get home. I would want east coast feeds though. :noclue:

OH...I have a Fire stick and Roku and like roku way better.

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Re: Using a smartphone as a hot spot for pc

#5 Post by JOEinPHX » Thu Sep 14, 2017 4:36 pm

creep wrote:I have never heard of Playstation Vue. The reason I never heard about it is because of the stupid name. Hearing the name I would think it has something to do with gaming. The channel lineup looks interesting. I will do the free trial when I get home. I would want east coast feeds though. :noclue:

OH...I have a Fire stick and Roku and like roku way better.
1. Yes, the name sucks. It should just be Sony Vue.

2. It's location based. If you're on the east coast, you'd have east coast feeds. I'm just on the west coast and prefer to watch things when they are on the east coast so Twitter doesn't spoil shit for me.

3. Different strokes. But I'm warning you, don't watch Vue on the Roku. Watch it on the FireStick. Totally different GUI.

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Re: Using a smartphone as a hot spot for pc

#6 Post by chaos » Fri Sep 15, 2017 7:50 am

Since streaming services offer free trials, I will get a Fire Stick and check some out. I will look at both Sling and PS Vue. :bigrin:
creep wrote:
But...what you really need to do is call them up and say you can't afford it anymore and want to cancel and I guarantee they will give you a good discount to stay. Trust me...try it. Don't say it's just too expensive, make sure you say you can't currently afford it.
I know, but I have to be in the right frame of mind. Those reps can be frustrating. I have been avoiding making the call because I'm afraid I'll lose it.

In a week or two I will call and cancel the tv and try to get a better deal on the internet.

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Re: Using a smartphone as a hot spot for pc

#7 Post by creep » Fri Sep 15, 2017 9:26 pm

Six7Six7 wrote:
creep wrote:I have never heard of Playstation Vue. The reason I never heard about it is because of the stupid name. Hearing the name I would think it has something to do with gaming. The channel lineup looks interesting. I will do the free trial when I get home. I would want east coast feeds though. :noclue:

OH...I have a Fire stick and Roku and like roku way better.
1. Yes, the name sucks. It should just be Sony Vue.

2. It's location based. If you're on the east coast, you'd have east coast feeds. I'm just on the west coast and prefer to watch things when they are on the east coast so Twitter doesn't spoil shit for me.

3. Different strokes. But I'm warning you, don't watch Vue on the Roku. Watch it on the FireStick. Totally different GUI.
Well you were right about Vue on Roku. It sucks. I have an old firestick and it's a little slow on scrolling through the guide. Are the new firesticks faster?

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Re: Using a smartphone as a hot spot for pc

#8 Post by creep » Sat Sep 16, 2017 10:44 am

creep wrote:
Six7Six7 wrote:
creep wrote:I have never heard of Playstation Vue. The reason I never heard about it is because of the stupid name. Hearing the name I would think it has something to do with gaming. The channel lineup looks interesting. I will do the free trial when I get home. I would want east coast feeds though. :noclue:

OH...I have a Fire stick and Roku and like roku way better.
1. Yes, the name sucks. It should just be Sony Vue.

2. It's location based. If you're on the east coast, you'd have east coast feeds. I'm just on the west coast and prefer to watch things when they are on the east coast so Twitter doesn't spoil shit for me.

3. Different strokes. But I'm warning you, don't watch Vue on the Roku. Watch it on the FireStick. Totally different GUI.
Well you were right about Vue on Roku. It sucks. I have an old firestick and it's a little slow on scrolling through the guide. Are the new firesticks faster?
Nevermind. I bought a regular Fire TV and it's way better and faster than the stick.

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Re: Using a smartphone as a hot spot for pc

#9 Post by chaos » Sat Sep 16, 2017 12:17 pm

^ Where did you get it? Is it refurbished?

https://www.theverge.com/2017/9/13/1630 ... taken-down

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Re: Using a smartphone as a hot spot for pc

#10 Post by creep » Sat Sep 16, 2017 1:49 pm

chaos wrote:^ Where did you get it? Is it refurbished?


https://www.theverge.com/2017/9/13/1630 ... taken-down

They are about to come out with a new one so I found it in a store. I got mine at staples. Best buy and target also sell them and you can look online at all three stores to see if your local store has them in stock. If you decide to make the switch I would definitely get one over the stick.

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Re: Using a smartphone as a hot spot for pc

#11 Post by JOEinPHX » Mon Sep 18, 2017 7:06 pm

creep wrote:
creep wrote:
Six7Six7 wrote:
creep wrote:I have never heard of Playstation Vue. The reason I never heard about it is because of the stupid name. Hearing the name I would think it has something to do with gaming. The channel lineup looks interesting. I will do the free trial when I get home. I would want east coast feeds though. :noclue:

OH...I have a Fire stick and Roku and like roku way better.
1. Yes, the name sucks. It should just be Sony Vue.

2. It's location based. If you're on the east coast, you'd have east coast feeds. I'm just on the west coast and prefer to watch things when they are on the east coast so Twitter doesn't spoil shit for me.

3. Different strokes. But I'm warning you, don't watch Vue on the Roku. Watch it on the FireStick. Totally different GUI.
Well you were right about Vue on Roku. It sucks. I have an old firestick and it's a little slow on scrolling through the guide. Are the new firesticks faster?
Nevermind. I bought a regular Fire TV and it's way better and faster than the stick.
Yep. I run it either on my FireTV (not stick) or Apple TV 4.

Runs great. Rarely has any lag or freeze. I'm thinking Sony figuring out their video game servers years ago and that's why the TV runs so smooth on it.

Either way, I tried Vue, DirecTVNow, and Sling.

I dumped DTV because:

1. Too many crashes
2. Too many shows would just be blacked out. Not even sports, just random shows or movies were like "sorry, we can't show you this"

I gave it a 3 month trial and was underwhelmed. It might be better now, but I am not willing to pay to try again. I give it a 0/10

Sling is way better. I give that about a 6 out of 10. Sometimes channels fuck up or freeze. But nothing that annoys me TOO much. Like I said before, I use it for the east coast feeds for 2 channels and literally nothing else. The on-demand feature is ok, but nothing great. An 8 season show might have 2 random seasons available. And their Cloud DVR is something you have to pay extra for, which annoys me and I wont do.

PS Vue is the best of the 3. I give it a 9 out of 10. The cloud DVR is amazing. I have probably 30 shows I added to my favorites and if I miss it, the recording is just there when I get home. I think it stays stored for 90 days. The ability to pick your favorite channels and see them on the grid first is also amazing. I have my top 30 channels (I have the ultra package, so there are over 100 if I had to scroll the whole thing looking for something) lined up and can immediately find 8 things i would want to watch.

As I said before, streaming is smooth. Rarely any hiccups. And when I do have one, it's usually just because I haven't restarted my router in awhile and it's experiencing some slowdown.

I don't like the billing, how you have to set up your card to add funds to a sony wallet, which then get withdrawn to pay for the service. But it's hardly as retarded as trying to add new/different channels to sling. I fucked up several times trying to figure that out.

I hope you're liking PS Vue. It's truly the best option if you want to chord cut but still retain a lot of the convenience of cable TV. And you're not locked into a contract. You can cancel anytime with no penalty and no hardware to ship back. That was great for me last summer when I took a 3 month road trip. I shut it off during that period, then turned it right back on the minute I got home.

One downside is that it's locked to your IP though. You can use PSVue to log into channel apps to watch their shows, but you can't really watch any live TV outside of your home on another device. But, that's a whole different discussion.

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Re: Using a smartphone as a hot spot for pc

#12 Post by creep » Mon Sep 18, 2017 7:34 pm

I like Vu so far.

I do wish that you could customize the guide and hide/delete channels I never watch. I do need to favorite all my favorites to get them at the beginning of the guide.

I am able to watch everything on my laptop while traveling which is nice. It doesn't work on firefox though. I have to use IE but that's OK I guess.

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Re: Using a smartphone as a hot spot for pc

#13 Post by chaos » Sun Sep 24, 2017 2:22 pm

The Fire TV is sold out everywhere in my area and was told it will take at least 2 weeks if I order it (Target, Best Buy, Staples). Errr

My husband is an Apple geek. I prefer Android. We are both old and late to the whole streaming TV thing. :lol: We finally made a decision about the Fire TV, but my husband thinks we are going to have a hard time getting our hands on one.

I have an older Sony Bravia (Model KDL-32S5100) and do not plan on getting another TV anytime soon. Will the regular Apple TV (not the 4K) work well with this TV? Is it a mistake to go this route?

We have have an antenna for local channels, so we may end up forgoing a box and just stream HBO, Showtime, and Netflix from one of the computers.

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Re: Using a smartphone as a hot spot for pc

#14 Post by JOEinPHX » Mon Sep 25, 2017 8:29 am

chaos wrote:
I have an older Sony Bravia (Model KDL-32S5100) and do not plan on getting another TV anytime soon. Will the regular Apple TV (not the 4K) work well with this TV?
As long as it has an HDMI port to plug the Apple TV into, yes.
Is it a mistake to go this route?
Not in my opinion.
We have have an antenna for local channels, so we may end up forgoing a box and just stream HBO, Showtime, and Netflix from one of the computers.
Just get the box. It's more convenient.

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Re: Using a smartphone as a hot spot for pc

#15 Post by creep » Mon Sep 25, 2017 12:43 pm

If you get a Fire TV from Best Buy and just wait you get a 14 day trial to PS VU instead of the 5 day. Two weeks should give you a good idea if you really need it.

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Re: Using a smartphone as a hot spot for pc

#16 Post by chaos » Tue Sep 26, 2017 10:53 am

I ordered a Fire TV box from Staples. I should have it on Thursday. I tried Best Buy, but the moved the date (again) to the end of October.

Thanks for all of the input. :tiphat:

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Re: Using a smartphone as a hot spot for pc

#17 Post by creep » Wed Sep 27, 2017 3:14 pm

They did announce the new Fire TV

It's a little cheaper and the processor seems to be about the same as the old one. It doesn't have an Ethernet hookup included which I use. It's $15 extra. I will probably get one for a second TV.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01N32NCPM/re ... 454C8&th=1

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Re: Using a smartphone as a hot spot for pc

#18 Post by JOEinPHX » Wed Sep 27, 2017 5:42 pm

creep wrote:They did announce the new Fire TV

It's a little cheaper and the processor seems to be about the same as the old one. It doesn't have an Ethernet hookup included which I use. It's $15 extra. I will probably get one for a second TV.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01N32NCPM/re ... 454C8&th=1
That thing is weird looking.

Is it strange that I wouldn't buy it just because I wouldn't want that dangling off the back of my TV?

I know it makes no difference in how it operates, but I WOULD KNOW IT'S JUST DANGLING BACK THERE. :lol:

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