The MVNO UNREAL Mobile recently revamped the structure of its plans. Here’s a screenshot of the carrier’s new offerings:
Copying Mint
If you follow the wireless industry closely, this may look familiar. UNREAL Mobile has duplicated Mint Mobile’s plans and pricing.1 The structure isn’t just similar between the companies. It’s exactly the same. Mint even offers the same special deal for new customers that purchase 3 months of service.
UNREAL runs over AT&T’s network. In many respects, AT&T has a better network than T-Mobile, Mint’s host operator. Still, I’m not ready to say UNREAL is a better option than Mint. I had a lousy experience with UNREAL’s current parent company, Red Pocket. Joe Paonessa of BestMVNO had a lackluster experience with UNREAL itself.2 That said, the new prices are excellent for service over AT&T’s network. Despite my reservations, I’m still tempted to trial UNREAL’s service.
Bogus “Unlimited” Plans
UNREAL offers extra data at vastly reduced speeds for customers that use up all of their allotted, regular data.3
In Unlimited Plans At 2G Speeds Are Bogus, I argued that it’s ridiculous to describe plans with this policy as “unlimited plans.” Mint has enough integrity not to advertise its basically identical plans as “unlimited.”
Footnotes
- An archived copy of Mint’s plans and pricing from the time the post was written can be found here.
- Paonessa trialed UNREAL while it was connected with FreedomPop rather than Red Pocket. FreedomPop also had a lousy reputation.
- The screenshot came from UNREAL’s website on 3/19/2020.
Unreal also offers month to month plans with premium voice hidden at: https://shop.unrealmobile.com/products
3 GB $20/month
5 GB $30/month
10 GB $40/month
To order, scroll the banner to select 3, 5 or 10 GB then click the “GET FREE SIM NOW!” button, then click an identical button on the next page. The SIM is free but there’s a 99¢ activation fee.
Unreal and FreedomPop have the absolute worst websites of any mobile operator. Negative patterns everywhere designed to collect personal data and guide you to the least cost effective options.
Thanks for the comment & additional info Dennis!
UNREAL’s website is awfully hard to navigate. I had kind of assumed the plans listed on the homepage also included premium (native) voice. Do you happen to know if that’s right? If those plans use VoIP, that could be a serious negative.
Just got a needed second line. I went with Good2Go which piggybacks ATT. Free calls and texts and 6gb of data which will go down to 3gb in three months for $20 a month including taxes and fees. Now the problem is that it runs at 3g speed…very slow. I had my other line with Mint, for over 2 years, which piggybacks TMobile and under same terms listed above service has been excellent. Cost for 3gb is about $19 with taxes and fees, which were recently added.
“Let The buyer beware”. We learned that in the 4th grade! FreeUp is no bonus either.
Umm I pay 300 for a year of unlimited (35gb) mint mobile I donno ware you guys get your pricing from
Hey Harry,
This post came out before Mint launched the unlimited/35GB plan. At that time Unreal and Mint had ~identical offerings.