Another Nexus Phone?

If you’re interested in Project Fi or the Nexus 6 you might’ve seen my other video on the subject. This new Nexus 5X isn’t for me, but to get my wife off of the dreaded Verizon and onto Fi.

One thing I’d like to note for the historical record: At this time there is no “family plan” or its analogue with Project Fi. Fi is still invite-only (though Missus’ invite came through in about 2 days) and is strictly one subscriber per account.

And in case you’re interested in a cost comparison:

Cost of our Verizon plan w/2 lines: $147 / month (w/subsidized phones)

Combined cost of our Fi plans: $112 / month (includes phone payments)

Our Verizon plan had a shared 2GB/mo. cap, and each of our Fi plans is 1GB/mo. But we never used all of our Verizon data (less than half, actually) and the cost for Fi shown above does not include any refund for unused data. We should be looking at about $10/mo. refunded between us.

Of course, that doesn’t tell the full story: We had a contract with Verizon which allowed us to get subsidized phones every two years. While I’ve included the 24 months of phone financing payments into the Fi cost, the Verizon cost of $147/mo. does not include the roughly $500 spent on both of our previous phones. When you factor that in over a 24 month period the actual cost of Verizon service was $168 per month!

So here’s the complete value proposition, including an estimated unused-data-rebate and the cash portion of the Verizon phones amortized over 24 months:

Verizon: $168 / month

Project Fi: $102 / month

Of course there are probably cheaper and more efficient plans than our previous one with Verizon. In fact, Verizon has recently ditched contracts and is also offering zero percent interest loans for phone hardware just like Fi. Nonetheless, that’s how the economics worked out for me in changing providers.