- Mint Mobile just launched a free trial
where you get 250 minutes, 250 texts,
and 250 megabytes of data
all for completely free to try their service.
In this video I'm covering
how you can activate this free trial
in just a few taps on both iPhone and Android using eSIM,
and I'll also cover how to order a physical SIM card.
If your phone doesn't have eSIM, (indistinct)
during your trial,
and seven things to know
about Mint Mobile's trial and service before you sign up.
Timestamps are in the video description,
so you can jump to the specific part
of the video you are interested in and let's get into it.
First, let's cover how to activate the free trial
on eSIM on iPhone.
There are three key steps here.
Step one is to download the Mint Mobile application
on the App Store.
You can see it is surprisingly well rated
at four and a half stars.
And yes, this is the same app you use
to manage your Mint Mobile account
should you decide to sign up for the service?
Go ahead and open the application.
And here you can see we have three options,
try before you buy, activate your plan, and log in.
Tap, try before you buy.
And this is the free trial.
You get 250 minutes, 250 texts, and 250 megabytes of data.
You can either continue directly with eSIM
or you can tap, check out your SIM options.
This gives us a pop-up that explains,
we can either activate the free trial on eSIM
using an eSIM compatible phone
such as iPhones and Google Pixel phones,
or if your phone doesn't have eSIM,
you have the option to order a physical SIM kit.
For this tutorial, I'm activating the service
on eSIM or the embedded SIM card in your phone,
as this has some cool features that I'll cover in a bit.
Step two is to answer some questions.
This includes entering your zip code,
so you can get a new number.
And you can use either automatic zip recognition,
by giving Mint Mobile temporary access to your location,
or you can enter your zip code manually.
Next, enter your first name, last name, and email,
Mint uses this to create your account.
Finally, enter your card details.
What's nice, is you can tap this camera icon here
to scan your card information automatically
without having to manually type it all in.
And don't worry, this isn't one of those free trials
that auto renews an auto charges your credit card
after the trial period.
Mint will never charge your card without your consent,
and if you decide the service isn't for you,
the free trial will just cancel automatically
with no charges at all.
If you'd like, you may even consider using a service,
like privacy.com to generate a virtual burner credit card.
You can create a one-time use card,
give it a name, add a spending limit of say,
just $1 to make sure you are not charged.
You can consider signing up
for privacy.com using my referral link
in the video description.
If you use my link,
we'll each get $5 to spend anywhere online,
which is pretty cool.
Either way, once you have your card details entered,
tap continue, review your order, and then tap, order now,
Mint will process the order,
and that brings us to step three.
Step three is to download your eSIM
and activate your service.
Mint gives us some nice colorful images here
with step-by-step instructions.
All you're gonna do is tap, install eSIM,
and you'll get a pop-up to install the cellular plan,
tap continue, then tap, add cellular plan.
If you are using your iPhone in dual SIM mode,
you may also get an additional option
to designate one number as the primary number
and one phone number as the secondary number.
You can change this at any time in your phone settings,
which I'll show you in just a bit.
Finally, you may also get a pop-up indicating
you have a carrier settings update.
Update those, and that's it, you should be good to go.
You can see your new Mint Mobile number
and that your trial is now active.
You can see how many remaining minutes, texts,
and megabytes of data you have
right from your account dashboard.
And you're ready to test the network
including calling, texting, and cellular data speeds.
Okay, so the cool thing about eSIM,
is you can actually use your phone in dual SIM mode
and designate one number as your personal number
for just calls and texts,
and use just the Mint Mobile eSIM for cellular data.
Here's how you set it up.
Jump into settings, cellular,
and here you can see all of your available active lines.
I naturally have quite a few lines here,
but you will likely just have two.
You can choose which line you want enabled,
and when you go back,
you can set which line you want to use as defaults.
You can set a default line for cellular data,
which in this case, I want to be the Mint Mobile line,
and you can set a default line for voice
in case you want to make calls.
Which in this example, I would want to be Tello,
which is acting as my primary number.
This way by default, anytime I make a phone call,
it will be with my primary number.
And I always have the option to switch
in the phone dialer to use the Mint Mobile number
in case I wanna test the call quality.
Also, speaking of calling,
another feature you may want to enable is Wi-Fi Calling,
which you can find in these settings application.
That's how you activate Mint's free trial on iPhone.
Now let's cover how to activate the trial on Android
using the Pixel 5 on eSIM.
There are three main steps here.
Step one is to download the Mint Mobile application
from the Google Play Store,
opening it up and you have three options.
try before you buy, activate your plan, and log in.
Tap try before you buy.
Here, you can see an overview of the trial,
which gives you 250 minutes,
250 texts, and 250 megabytes of cellular data.
If you need a physical SIM card,
you can tap check out your SIM options at the bottom,
and this will give you the opportunity
to order a physical SIM card for the trial.
For this tutorial, I'll be activating on eSIM.
This brings us to step two,
where we answer a few simple questions.
First, you need a new number,
so enable automatic zip code recognition
or enter your zip code manually.
Mint uses the zip code to assign you a phone number
with the correct area code that you use for your trial.
Next, enter your first name, last name, and email,
and then enter your card information.
Mint uses the card information to verify your free trial
and to make it easier for you to purchase a plan
should you choose to.
You will not be built without your consent,
and if you decide the service isn't for you,
Mint will just cancel the free trial automatically
without billing you.
You may also consider using a service like privacy.com
to create a virtual card with a spending limit of $1
to help ensure you are not billed unexpectedly.
Again, consider signing up for privacy.com
at the link below to get $5 to spend anywhere.
Finally, review your order and tap order now.
Mint will process your order,
and this brings us to step three,
which is to install your eSIM card.
You can do this by either scanning a QR code
or by entering the code manually.
I highly recommend scanning the QR code
because it's fun and way easier than entering it manually.
So tap on that,
and Mint will give us step-by-step instructions
on where to add the second line.
Tap, go to settings,
tap the plus button next to mobile network,
tap, download a SIM instead,
tap, yes use two SIMs,
then tap next to download your SIM.
Select use a different network under confirm your network,
and this will give us the option to scan that QR code
that Mint Mobile sent to our email.
So grab another device with your email on it,
find the email, scroll down and tap, click to scan QR code.
And all you do is scan the QR code,
and the eSIM profile will automatically load
on your Pixel device.
Your phone will ask you just to confirm,
you'd like to activate the new line of service,
and when you're ready, tap, activate.
It'll take a few moments,
and then your free trial will be active and ready to use.
Your phone may also prompt you to select a SIM card
you'd like to use for cellular data.
You can change this at any time in your phone settings
along with what phone number is the default number
for making calls and sending texts.
And that's honestly why Mint Mobile's eSIM trial is so cool.
You can still use your personal number for calls and texts
so everyone can still reach you,
and you can test up the speeds and performance
on Mint Mobile at the same time.
Speaking of which, what should you be testing
with your Mint Mobile free trial?
Well, the big thing to test
is cellular data speeds and performance.
I highly recommend you use
the Ookla speed test app for this,
as it turns out those speed tests
actually don't count against your 250 megabytes
of included high-speed data.
You can see here,
I have consumed all of my available high-speed data
with my trial plan,
but yet when I load up an Ookla speed test,
it works just fine.
And it indicates what speeds and performance
I can expect in that area.
So I recommend going to locations
you frequently visit, like your work, your home,
your friend's house, the grocery store,
or really anywhere else you use cellular data,
and running speed tests
to see what the speed and performance is like in that area.
If you're getting anywhere over like 10 megabits per second
and you're getting good signal strength,
then odds are Mint will work pretty well for you.
Mint is using the T-Mobile network for coverage,
so really what you're doing is testing out
what the T-Mobile network speeds and performance are like
in your area in the locations
that are most important for you.
Of course the T-Mobile network
won't be a good fit for everyone,
but this is a great opportunity to try it out.
Other features to consider testing are Wi-Fi Calling,
visual voicemail, and group and picture messaging.
Okay, now here are seven things to know
about the Mint Mobile free trial
and what to know before you sign up.
Number one, your card will not be charged,
this is a completely free trial.
If you decide Mint Mobile isn't for you,
the service will just cancel automatically with no charges.
If you do decide you like the service and renew for a plan,
that's the only time you'll get charged.
Number two, calling and messaging
are tracked very close to real time in the application,
which is really cool to see,
but it also means you need to be mindful
of how you're allocating your free trial usage.
Number three, you may need to quit
and reopen the app to update your remaining usage.
Number four, keep the Mint Mobile application installed.
If you uninstall it like I did,
you may not be able to access your account.
Number five, you may need to configure custom APN settings,
APN stands for access point name,
and these settings just configure
how your phone connects to the cellular network.
iPhones are automatically good to go,
but some Android users
may need to enter the custom APN settings.
I have a full step-by-step tutorial video right here
that you can watch for more information.
And thankfully it turns out in my case with the Pixel 5,
I didn't have to enter the APN settings
because they were configured automatically.
So you may not even need to do this.
Number six, speed test data doesn't count
against your 250 megabyte data limit,
this is of course using the Ookla speed test application,
and this may in fact be a bug,
so consider using it while you can
or be mindful of where you use your speed tests.
And number seven, if you are satisfied with the service,
you can choose to renew your plan with either the four gig
10 gig, 15 gig, or 35 gig unlimited plan options.
Mint will give you an intro price
for your first three months.
And if you wanna keep that price,
you can renew your plan for the 12 month option.
When you sign up for a plan,
you will also have the option
to transfer your existing number to Mint Mobile.
This will replace the new number you got
during your free trial.
And that's it.
You can find Mint Mobile's free trial
linked in the video description.
And if you're interested to learn more
about the service before you sign up,
consider checking out my Mint Mobile review video
in my video where I cover everything you need to know
about Mint Mobile's unlimited data plan.
Click the like button if you found this video helpful,
subscribe for more videos like this one,
I'm Stetson.
Thank you for watching, and I'll see you next time.