Feature Comparison
3G
Watchdog |
Mobile
Counter |
PhoneUsage
|
My Data
Manager |
|
|---|---|---|---|---|
Accurate
(for b-mobile) |
O
|
O
|
△
|
△
|
120 day quota
(for FAIR SIM) |
O
|
X
|
X
|
O
|
Export Data
|
O
|
X
|
X
|
X
|
Widget
|
O
|
O
|
X
|
O
|
Daily usage in Widget
|
X
|
O
|
X
|
X
|
Per app reporting
|
X
|
X
|
O
|
O
|
Unfortunately, none of the free apps has every feature I am looking for. Mobile Counter and 3G Watchdog are very accurate and both are spot on with my the usage displayed by the bcharge app and the mybmobile webpage. However, the free versions don't give a breakdown by application. PhoneUsage and My Data Manager do this, but they are less accurate. (MyDM has a persistent notification feature that is supposed to increase accuracy but it lags my phone and crashes the notification bar - even the latest version. Not to mention I don't like persistent notifications.)
By far I use Mobile Counter the most because the widget shows me accurate, real time data usage for the current day. It now sits prominently on my main home screen where I used to keep the Tepco electricity supply widget during the summer. I use 3GW for exporting data to a csv file. I use PhoneUsage to identify any app using too much data because it will break it down by the current day. MyDM is the least useful for me, but I keep it around because it allows a 120 day quota period.
Of course I could just buy 3GW pro and uninstall the rest of these, but I haven't because using all four doesn't take up much space and doesn't effect battery life.
Data by the Byte
I can now confirm that B-Mobile counts data charges by the byte, and doesn't do any fuzzy billing math. B-mobile displays your current remaining charge rounded to the nearest Megabyte. Over the past 36 days since I installed the traffic monitoring apps, B-Mobile indicates that I have used 149 MB (which is actually somewhere between 148.50 and 149.50 MB). 3GW reports I have used 150.27, which is very accurate.
Above is my daily usage exported as a csv file from 3GW (red stepped line) plotted on top of what B-Mobile says I used (blue dots with +/- 0.5 MB error bars). They are virtually indistinguishable. Not bad at all.
Monthly Usage Comparison
Here is how each of these four apps report my monthly usage as of this morning. The correct answer is 127 +/- 0.5 MB according to B-Mobile. (And yes, I realize that this is actually a very small amount of data to have used, but when you've got wifi for most of the day, I don't need to use a lot of data. So, I am saving it up for when I really need it.)
Current Monthly Usage
|
|
|---|---|
bcharge
|
127
|
3G Watchdog
|
127.82
|
Mobile Counter
|
127.18
|
PhoneUsage
|
116.4
|
My Data Manager
|
117.9
|
Tried Call Meter 3G? Can't say anything about bmobile compatibility, but I use it on docomo and the author's other applications (WebSMS/SMSdroid) are great. There's a pay-app (400 yen IIRC) that will universally remove ads across all the author's products.
ReplyDeletehttps://market.android.com/details?id=de.ub0r.android.callmeter&feature=search_result&hl=en
Don't think I tried that one. Of the features that I mentioned in the table (which are the ones I see as being most important for using bmobile - ok, maybe export data isn't necessary) which does it have?
ReplyDeleteNo per-app and export, but it seems to have everything else.
ReplyDelete