TracFone Galaxy Stardust No Contract Phone - Retail Packaging - Blue

This is my first phone, and I am quite happy with it. Occasionally when you purchase a product it doesn't live up to the hype and leaves you disappointed, but not so with this phone. Below are my observations:The wifi is fast, and the 3g also works well. You can set up your phone to receive your email also, so that you have not only call and text but email at your disposal, leaving you with any method of communication that you wish to have. The options on this phone are virtually limitless. You can turn off wifi roaming, which can drain your battery quickly (or so I read in another review), and you can also turn off mobile data easily so that you do not use up your data limit when wifi is in range. The only downside that I have found (I have had the phone for several weeks) is that you are required to set up a Google account to use the android features, so basically you can't use anything but the phone and text and camera without a Google account.I read multiple times that the battery drains quickly, and also heard from a friend who owns this phone model that the battery drains quickly, but I have not found this to be true in my experience with the phone. Perhaps as the phone ages this will become true, but so far the battery works well. It definitely would not last as long as specified on TracFone's website, however (a listed standby time of 11 days). With light use the phone will have to be charged about once every two to three days, in my experience. In one experiment I conducted, I left the phone turned on in standbye mode for 14 hours with all of the apps closed- nothing was running except for the phone's android system. In 14 hours the battery drained only 6%. Please note that this was before I installed any apps- after that the phone battery did not last as long, even when no apps were running. Also, I uninstalled many of the preloaded applications, or where uninstallign wasn't an option, I disabled the apps. The phone comes with many applications that I would never use, such as Glympse, Norton Family Control, Google Play Music, Google Chrome web browser, etc. You can turn all of these features off, and some others I uninstalled completely. Just be careful not to turn off or uninstall anything essential to the phone such as the touchscreen feature or any of the Android features.The phone can be customized in any way imaginable, which though it isn't necessary, is always fun. You can set from either preloaded ringtones, or use your own. You can set a custom home screen and lock screen background with either preloaded options (which can be either deleted or turned off), or with a photo taken from the phone camera or loaded on to the phone off of the computer. A word of warning, however. The phone comes with 9gb of on board storage, which is very exceptional. However, it can be a bit tricky to get the phone to be recognized on the computer. When you plug the phone into the computer, the computer must be on and out of standby, and the phone must already be turned on, otherwise the computer won't recognize the phone's storage. You also have the option of installing a micro sd card for extra storage. If you install the micro sd card, then the storage pops right up on the computer along with the sd storage, but it still can be tricky to get the computer to recognize the phone and it's micro sd card (see above).You can set as many home screens to scroll through as you like, and they are all easily customizable. It comes with three, but you can delete one or two if you choose. You can also add more. I set mine to have two home screens.The security options for locking the phone are also numerous- you can choose no setting, swipe to unlock, PIN#, face recognition, custom pattern drawing, or a password.All in all, it is a great phone. All of the extra features work well- the microphone quality is superb, the camera is decent (and comes with simple editing effects such as B&W, sepia, etc.) and has multiple setting for the type of photo that you will be taking. A handy 'ACTICE APPS' widget lets you view all running apps and lets you close them, or clear RAM that is being used on unnecessary processes, etc. to help you maximize battery length. The only other downside is that to view your balance of minutes, texts, and mobile data, you must download the TracFone app, which doesn't even always work properly, so you must have the widget to see your balance, which is texted to you. On the upside, it does not cost text or data to receive texts from Tracfone. Also beware that it costs phone minutes to set up the voicemail, so do it quickly. I did not know this and it cost me four minutes. This phone does come with triple talk, text, and data, however, so 4 minutes is small price to pay. Also, additional data cards that can be purchased for this phone do not triple (?) and online promo codes are not valid for smartphones. Despite the downsides listed above, there are much fewer hassles and disappointments than could be expected from other phones and services, so the price is small. I would wholeheartedly recommend this phone to anyone looking for a good, reliable phone with plenty of features.You will not be disappointed with this phone.

OK. I have had the Tracfone Galaxy Stardust a total of 3 days... but I am very happy. I have been a Tracfone customer for several years now and have never had much of an issue with their services, except for the fact that they never had any kind of "smart phone" offering. I was pleasantly surprised when they first started offing Samsung "Galaxy" type phones. I immediately ordered a Samsung Galaxy Centura, and since I had never had any type of "smart phone" thought that it was great. That was until I started trying to use it as many of my friends did with their fancier and higher priced phones, and found it to be under powered and full of bugs that made it's use a huge headache.One day last week I lost the bain of my cellular existence and decided to either get a "real" cell plan (as my friends call it) or update my Tracfone phone. First off, I am not a big cell phone user, to me it is just a convenience, not my entire existence. So I did a little comparing and decided NOT to sign up for one of the plans provided by the bigger providers. I spend about $60 every few months on Tracfone, as opposed to at least $60 a month for a "real plan". Add to that it seems no other provider had any phone that was under $300. That just turned me off... yes... I am cheap.SO... I went on the Tracfone web site and looked at what phones were available in my service area and then I went to Amazon to compare. Tracfone web site priced the Galaxy Stardust at $120... on Amazon it was $90. Sounded good to me so I decided to get it the next day. THANK you Amazon! The next day I went on and found that the price had dropped to $60 overnight.... YES...(yes I am cheap).The difference between the Galaxy Centura and the Galaxy Stardust is like day and night. The difference in processor speed is amazing. The look and the feel of its apps and abilities are amazing.Finally I have a Tracfone "smart phone" that actually is smart and powerful. Still learning... but VERY happy with my choice.

I am rating the tracfone Samsung galaxy stardust no contract phone. Came in the tracfone packaging,and phone displayed tracfrone logo, so everything apparently good there. Worked with tracfone technical support to transfer current number and minutes from old phone to this new phone. Unfortunately, when it came time to program the phone for use, it failed. Tried updating the software, but phone said it was up-to-date. The technician mentioned the PRL version, and Verizon told her it was an old version; could not update it as it was grayed out. Maybe the technician didn't know the phone well enough to help solve the issue? I am no cell phone techie for sure; it seemed to me that tracfone was doing as much as they could on their end. Having spent almost 2 hours with tracfone technical support, the conclusion is that the phone is a dud and I am winding up returning it.The phone itself seems like a decent phone for an basic "entry level" smartphone--if only it could have been programmed for use! Nice weight to it (doesn't feel 'cheap'). I did try a few pictures; not great for low light as this phone has no flash option that I could find. I would rate the phone itself a 3.5, but had to give a 1 star rating based on having to send it back.