Ask Paul: September 10 (Premium)

Happy Friday! With the hottest summer in the history of summers finally winding down, here’s another great set of reader questions to kick off the weekend.
Mint vs. connectivity
harmjr asks:

Paul when using your Google Pixel 4a 5G (purchased from TMobile) with Mint Service. Have you ever noticed that the data will just drop. And If you shut off/on the data a couple of times it will eventually work? I have got my device back in spring and have noticed this several times. I am on Android 11 on my device.

Not that I’ve noticed, but I’ve certainly had some weird connectivity issues over the past several months, some of which I’ve observed with the Pixel 4a with 5G and, more recently, the Pixel 5a. My biggest issues are actually Bluetooth-related, but since that’s not what you’re asking about, and they could in fact be caused by my wife’s car, I’ll move on from that.

The one thing I did experience that may/may not be related to this happened when we flew home from Mexico City in August. I had been using a different phone via Google Fi while we were away (for the international connectivity, which Mint lacks), and I just checked the Pixel from time to time to make sure I hadn’t missed any calls or texts. But when we flew home, I used the Pixel in airplane mode to listen to music and an audiobook, and as we descended into Newark, I disabled Airplane Mode so that I could receive any emails or whatever I had missed during the flight.

As we landed and afterward, I waited and waited for the connectivity to resume while all around me, everyone else was busily accessing data, and making phone calls and texts. But my Pixel would not connect. I disabled/reenabled the data repeatedly. I even rebooted it, twice. And then I finally gave up and it didn’t connect until we were in the car driving home from the airport. I have no idea why, but I literally said to my wife, F this, I’m killing this account as soon as we get home because that is completely unacceptable.

And then I never did that, in part because it’s been perfect, connection-wise, since that moment. And when the Pixel 5a arrived, I popped in the SIM, made absolutely zero configuration changes---you’re really supposed to go through some rigamarole related to APN settings in Networking---and it’s always worked perfectly. So I’m not sure what to say.

Aside from that, I’ve had what I would call normal T-Mobile-related connectivity problems from time to time. There is a known dead spot between my house and the gym where streaming music or phone calls will cut out briefly, for example, and that’s been pretty consistent. And when we’ve driven to/from Charlotte for my daughter’s school stuff, there are of course areas where T-Mobile just doesn’t work well or at all. It seems to work well in and around this area, but obviously, your mileage will vary depending on your location.
OS minimalism
erichk asks:

Paul, one definition of a good operatin...