Unreal Mobile is back from the dead and now has new branding, a new website, and new plans. The brand stopped posting to its social media accounts around a year ago. But exactly when they stopped can no longer be tracked. Unreal Mobile deleted all of its old Facebook and Twitter posts. The company's YouTube page and old videos remain including a video ad they aired a year ago 267k times. Unreal Mobile's Youtube channel has just 62 subscribers.
Wave7 Research noted in one of its recently released prepaid reports the brand's social media re-emergence which happened in early June. Stetson Doggett of bestphoneplans.net observed the website update.
Unreal Mobile's New Plans
Unreal Mobile now just has two phone plans. This is down from four plans that were available as monthly, quarterly, and yearly options.
The new plans are priced as follows:
- $20/month - 10GB
- $40/month - 25GB
The plans include unlimited talk, text, and data, with data speeds throttled for the remainder of the billing cycle once the stated high-speed data allotment has been reached. Plans appear to be sold only as three-month options, so you have to prepay for service every three months. They are advertised as having "premium 5G data."
Unreal Mobile does not explicitly state which network they now use. However, for coverage, they advertise that they are "powered by the #1 most reliable widest voice quality network according to Global Wireless Solutions." GWS named AT&T the most reliable voice quality network in the USA in 2022. It should be noted that a help and support webpage supposedly updated in the last couple of weeks still makes reference to both "GSMA and GSMT" networks. GSMA represents AT&T and GSMT T-Mobile. Unreal Mobile previously used both networks for coverage.
The prepaid provider's updated website is also not clear about if taxes and fees cost extra or if mobile hotspot usage is allowed with their plans. Their terms and service page has not been updated since 2020 and states that taxes and fees cost extra. Most providers do charge extra for taxes and fees so it's probably safe to assume the same here. Unreal Mobile wouldn't show me all in pricing for plans unless I created an account with them which I was unwilling to do. Account creation just to check all-in pricing requires a name, password, mailing address, and phone number.
Other things to note about the new Unreal Mobile are that the company supports both bring your own device users but they only sell iPhones. They also offer activation through the use of eSIM.
The fact that Unreal Mobile is only selling multi-month plans indicates that they continue to be interested in Mint Mobile's user demographic. Mint Mobile has 2m subscribers and also only sells multi-month plans. They also appear to be copying Mint Mobile's early marketing tactics. A part of Unreal Mobile's website states "Is this plan for you? I'm here 'cause I have my $h!it TOGETHER, so roll out the gold carpet." This is the same type of wordplay with curse-type words and sass that Mint Mobile had been known to use. Mint Mobile has previously been known to market its services around the *word* "foxing" using phrases like "Huge Foxing Promo."
“Unreal Mobile’s new plans are generous, as 10GB for $20/month is a desirable plan. However, I wonder how Unreal Mobile will execute. In the past Unreal Mobile was sold at Best Buy and Target. However, Wave7 Research is unaware of any recent advertising or retail presence for Unreal Mobile.”
Unreal Mobile is owned by Red Pocket Mobile and it was originally launched in 2018.
My initial impressions of Unreal Mobile based on apa very brief 2018 trial:
Now Unreal re-appears with what looks like copy-cat multi-month plans and an amateurish website.
Don’t see a single reason to give this even a second trial. Am I missing something?