1 phone or 2?

[SinesPointToYes]

I just started a new job, and I got my own company smart phone (Samsung S4). This is the first time I've received a company phone, and now I'm trying to decide whether or not to keep my personal phone.

I have a iPhone 4s as my personal phone, and my contract is up. I use it mostly as a phone, web surfing, SOSH, directions, and clash of clans. The company phone can do all those things [except I prolly shouldn't be playing games on my company phone ] so is there any real reason to keep my personal phone?

The only benefits for keeping it would be to keep my personal phone #, and for playing CoC. And I'm sure I should be able to save enough on my monthly bill to make it worth it (family plan with AT+T, with my wife as the only other line) Plus, it's annoying to carry around two phones in my pockets.

I figured I would as the collective minds here at SOSH what you do. Do you keep 2 phones? Or do you just have the one?

 

[McDrew]

Keep both.  Do only company business on the company phone, and only personal business on the personal phone.  It just uncomplicates things greatly. 

 

[RG33]

Two phones. Slam dunk. The inevitable watching of porn gets very complicated on the work phone.

 

[weeba]

Two phones. Allows you to shut off from work in the evenings and weekends if you want

 

[SumnerH]

Among other things:
* Work is allowed to monitor your phone without your knowledge
* they may swap it out for another (with different number) on a whim if they find a good deal
* depending on your employment contract they may have the IP rights to anything you work on on the work phone
* if you lose your job you'll immediately want to have a phone for job hunting purposes
* Keeping things separate is just cleaner and avoids arguments
* It's easier to shut off work at night if the phones are separate

On the other side:
* You save $50/month
* Carrying 2 phones is a hassle. You can minimize it (keep the home phone in a desk drawer during work hours, leave the work phone in the glove box when not on call) but it's still a minor pain.

You could also use call forwarding, but then you're back to intermingling work and home stuff.

 

[Fred not Lynn]

I think that's something Blackberry is/was working on...

 

[singaporesoxfan]

You can get dual-SIM phones like the Galaxy S4 overseas, but I've not seen them in the U.S. Here's a list of (mostly Android) dual-SIM phones. http://mobile.pcadvisor.co.uk/test-centre/mobile-phone/3511526/best-dual-sim-smartphones-2014/

On the original question, two phones are definitely better for all the reasons listed above. Another advantage is having double the battery life - always nice when my personal phone goes dead to have a backup data source. I also split the carriers so my personal phone is AT&T and work phone is Verizon - allows me to surf regardless of which carrier happens to have better reception.

 

[SoxFanInCali]

I ported my personal number to Google Voice and hooked it to my work phone.  Personal texts and voicemails go to the GV (or now Hangouts) app, work texts and voicemails go through the apps on the phone. When I call out I'm prompted whether to make calls through Google Voice or not, so my personal number will show on the caller ID if I say yes, and the work number will if I say no.
 
I only have 2 issues with this setup, and neither is major for me.
- Can't receive MMS messages to my GV number.
- Can't tell which number someone dialed when they called me.
 
I work for a very small company and my boss said he doesn't care how we use our phones as long as we answer when he calls. This setup allows me to more-or-less keep work and personal stuff separate while saving $70/month and only having to carry one phone. It may not work well for everyone, but it works for me.

 

[Fred not Lynn]

What I would like is to have two phone/devices, but both attached to the same number/account. Wouldn't that just be a matter of getting a duplicate SIM card?

 

[Fred not Lynn]

So depending on your plan for the day, you could choose a different device. For instance if you might grab a phablet for a trip to Starbucks where you might do some reading, or a smaller form factor device to go for a walk or a jog or something.

 

[derekson]

So depending on your plan for the day, you could choose a different device. For instance if you might grab a phablet for a trip to Starbucks where you might do some reading, or a smaller form factor device to go for a walk or a jog or something.

Can't you just do that by moving your one SIM card between two devices?

 

[SumnerH]

Can't you just do that by moving your one SIM card between two devices?

Really? That seems absolutely horrible as far as day to day usage goes, to me.

 

[glennhoffmania]

I used to add my work email/calendar to my personal phone and ignore my work phone.  My currently employer blocks that.  Carrying around two phones is a pain in the ass but I would never give up my personal phone for all of the reasons Sumner listed. 
 
I like Fred's idea though.  Being able to pick two devices would be helpful since no one device will ever have exactly what you need for every situation, and having a backup if you can't charge one or if one breaks would be swell.

 

[Montana Fan]

The company I work for is also issuing a company phone and we have the option to use it as our business/personal phone. Reading this thread solved the issue for me. I'm going with a second phone which will be my personal phone and will be a basic phone instead of "smart". As a field based employee this will allow me to separate my life from the company. The work phone will be shut off at 4:30 each day and fired up at 6:00 AM. No emails and no calls after 4:30. Works out well for me actually because I am currently taking calls and checking emails every evening. And truly, that's not necessary. Any after hours stuff can be dealt with the next day.

SoSH for lifeplanning advice. Who'dathunkit?

 

[Marceline]

So depending on your plan for the day, you could choose a different device. For instance if you might grab a phablet for a trip to Starbucks where you might do some reading, or a smaller form factor device to go for a walk or a jog or something.

 
If you use a GSM provider you can easily swap the SIM between multiple phones. My wife has Straight Talk and when she was having issues with her Lumia we swapped the SIM into an older blackberry and didn't have any issues moving back and forth between phones.

 

[Fred not Lynn]

It's still a pain to do it...I just want the convenience of grabbing my weapon of choice and attacking the day...

 

[singaporesoxfan]

What I would like is to have two phone/devices, but both attached to the same number/account. Wouldn't that just be a matter of getting a duplicate SIM card?

 
Can you still get duplicate SIMs? I'm not sure any carrier allows that any more.
 
One klugey solution is to have two phones/devices and use a Google Voice number as the common number. The second phone can be a FreedomPop phone (not great, but totally passable for occasional use) if you don't want to pay a monthly bill for that phone.

 

[SumnerH]

Here's the problem I would have with that scenario and I understand it may not apply to all people. 
 
I hate seeing little numbers in red circles on my phone. Can't stand it. Those little guys are there to alert me to a new communication, be it phone, text or email. When I see someone else's phone and they have 147 emails unread, 32 texts and 15 voicemails, I lose all faith in being able to communicate with them on a reliable basis, not to mention I assume they are lazy. (I also think other things about them, but I will digress.) 
 
So if I have two phones with duplicate sim cards, I'm either having to constantly keep both updated or when I grab the one I use less, I have to go in and manually enter each communication so that those little red numbers disappear. Otherwise, not only will I go mad, but how will I know I have a new email or text that might be important or time sensitive? I don't even have a job that requires really anything urgent or any kind of emails, but most days I still get 25-30 emails, at least as many if not more texts and a few of phone calls. 
 

 
My phone's email alerts are level-triggered, not edge-triggered--if I have an email alert, it goes away if I read that email on my desktop computer or something.  The same would happen if I read it on another phone or tablet or whatever.
 
 
I'd want a carrier who implemented "one number two phones" to do the same with other alerts.

 

[singaporesoxfan]

Here's the problem I would have with that scenario and I understand it may not apply to all people. 
 
I hate seeing little numbers in red circles on my phone. Can't stand it. Those little guys are there to alert me to a new communication, be it phone, text or email. When I see someone else's phone and they have 147 emails unread, 32 texts and 15 voicemails, I lose all faith in being able to communicate with them on a reliable basis, not to mention I assume they are lazy. (I also think other things about them, but I will digress.) 
 
So if I have two phones with duplicate sim cards, I'm either having to constantly keep both updated or when I grab the one I use less, I have to go in and manually enter each communication so that those little red numbers disappear. Otherwise, not only will I go mad, but how will I know I have a new email or text that might be important or time sensitive? I don't even have a job that requires really anything urgent or any kind of emails, but most days I still get 25-30 emails, at least as many if not more texts and a few of phone calls. 
 
Taking literally less than sixty seconds to swap a sim card seems far less of a pain than grabbing my phablet for the trip down to starbucks for a latte and having to sort through all that crap. I realize YMMV, but the convenience would be outweighed significantly for me by the need to avoid therapy for keeping them up to date. 

 
I guess it's a moot point because I don't think you can get duplicate SIMs, but I totally agree with you that little numbers in red circles drive me mad. However, with unread e-mails, Facebook and Twitter notifications, and anything that syncs, the red circles on both phones should disappear when the mails are read. That's what happens for me with my two phones (with different numbers).