Like most websites, we offer a FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions) page. Ours is very complete and truly answers the questions that our readers ask most often. You can find it at this page.
We know that sometimes our readers come up with brand new questions that have never before been asked. We welcome you to leave those questions as a comment at the bottom of any story here at FreeGovernmentCellPhone.net. We answer every question to the best of our ability and our readers often join in with additional information and opinions.
However, due to the nature of the Lifeline free government cell phone program and the Affordable Connectivity Program, we know that readers are sometimes hesitant to leave a comment or ask a question on a public forum about their personal financial problems. Or about embarrassing health problems that impact their financial situation. Or about their delicate mental health problems. And many female readers have told us that they are hesitant to publicly reveal too much about their personal situation due to family violence issues.
As of 12/14/2022, we’ve added the ability to ask a question in our comments. If you have a question, please ask below.
Jessica carey says
How to fix my tablet or get a replacement one
Free Government Cell Phones says
We can’t tell you how to get it fixed, but contact your service provider to find out its policy on replacement.
Martha Streitenberger says
I would like information for obtaining a free mobile phone for a homeless person who is living in his car. Derrick lives in Columbus, ohio and isn’t a senior citizen. He isn’t signed up for any government benefits.
Free Government Cell Phones says
It’s far more difficult if someone is homeless, Martha, because one of the requirements of the program is that the applicant provide a home address. He can use the address of a homeless shelter if he can get into one. Here’s an article that tells you what it takes to be eligible:
https://www.freegovernmentcellphones.net/basics/qualify
Tia says
I am not very technologically savvy nor educated. I am seriously looking for a gold nugget. A solid concept of specs, facts, honest advice and personal information about the free phones and tablets. Just because its free doesn’t mean you have to make due with crap( more eloquently defined in the awesome tidbit that you shared.) I am absolute Hell on my devices, my two kindergarten supervillians help sometimes. But I am truly the ” Naturally worlds best, most thorough and reliable Product Tester from Hell”.
Ideally my question is which phone is the most damned rugged ,durable and offer the best in battery life and can be packed full of storage with reasonable speeds? I already read it here somewhere hidden in pandemonium but I can’t find it anywhere in the consistent bs all these crayon gobbling, knob-lickin’, scratching senslessly at misplaced cranium crust when you are giving up the absolute best answers, to the most damned ridiculous homosapiens. You are
wonderful unknown superheroes, amidst the world of dumbasses and dipshits. I hope God bless you and yours, often and greatly. Thanks,
MadamBlaze
Free Government Cell Phones says
We’re still trying to figure out where we fall on the dumbass/dips it scale. Unfortunately, we cannot answer your question, Tia. We are experts in the Lifeline free government cell phone program, but your question is about the qualify of phones. It doesn’t really matter unless you want to participate in one of the service provider’s Bring Your Own Phone (BYOP) programs, because you don’t get your choice of phones when you enroll. You get whatever phone the service provider decides to send you.
But tell you what we’ll do: We’ll open this up to our readers and let them tell you which phones they prefer. Go for it, readers. Give Tia your opinions.
Henry says
If you want a premium phone with huge storage, fast processors, great cameras, durability most people will go with the most current model from Samsung and Apple. That is the Samsung Galaxy 23 Ultra and the Apple iPhone Pro Max models. They offer up to 1 terabyte (TB) storage and sells for around $1000 each. One of the more popular durable phone is made by Kyocera (Duro Force Ultra) model that can be run over by a 650 lb motorcycle and still run fine. No low end Lifeline company are going to give away premium model phones. You will have to pay up to get them. They offer “crap phones” because the Lifeline program has NEVER provided cell phones, tablets, computers, routers, for free. Note that when 6G comes out, all of the current phones will be obsolete and you will be back to square one looking for a replacement.
The Government sponsored program was made available to allow economically deprived individuals access to mobile and internet services. The program only specifies minimum standards of service that each provider must meet. As long as they have met the minimum standard, that is all they are obliged to. If you don’t like the program, remember that beggars cannot be choosers.
John Sinclair says
I found a phone that is 4G LTE 5G compatible with some nice features for $389.99
108 MP Main Camera
6.58 FHD Screen with 120Hz refresh & 240Hz sampling rates
256GB on board storage expandable to 1TB with TF Card which means you could have a phone with 13GB RAM and 1.28TB Storage for around $425.00 total.
5380mAh battery which is just a bit larger than most mid range and some high end phones
The kicker is a 66 Watt fast charger that can fully charge the phone in less than a hour.
Helio G99 processor from MediaTek is a average Octa Core processor.
Fingerprint Id, Facial recognition and NFC (Google Pay) Compatible
Here is the full spec list:
XXXXXXXXX
All in all not a bad rugged phone at a price point that wont break the bank.
Good Luck to you!
Free Government Cell Phones says
Sorry, John, but we can’t allow outside links.
Henry says
You appear to be referring to this phone model.
Ulefone Armor 17 Pro
NETWORK Technology
GSM / HSPA / LTE
LAUNCH Announced 2022, October 31
Status Available. Released 2022, October 31
BODY Dimensions 172.7 x 80.4 x 12.5 mm (6.80 x 3.17 x 0.49 in)
Weight 290 g (10.23 oz)
SIM Dual SIM (Nano-SIM, dual stand-by)
IP68/IP69K dust/water resistant (up to 1.5m for 30 min)
Drop-to-concrete resistance from up to 1.5m
MIL-STD-810G compliant
DISPLAY Type IPS LCD, 120Hz
Size 6.58 inches, 104.3 cm2 (~75.1% screen-to-body ratio)
Resolution 1080 x 2408 pixels, 20:9 ratio (~401 ppi density)
Protection Corning Gorilla Glass 5
PLATFORM OS Android 12
Chipset Mediatek MT8781 Helio G99 (6nm)
CPU Octa-core (2×2.2 GHz Cortex-A76 & 6×2.0 GHz Cortex-A55)
GPU Mali-G57 MC2
MEMORY Card slot microSDXC (dedicated slot)
Internal 256GB 8GB RAM
MAIN CAMERA Triple 108 MP, f/1.9, (wide), 1/1.52”, 0.7µm, PDAF
8 MP, f/2.2, 119˚, (ultrawide), 1/4”, 1.12µm
8 MP, (night vision), 2 infrared night vision lights
Features Triple-LED flash, HDR, panorama
Video 1440p@30fps, 1080p@30fps
SELFIE CAMERA Single 16 MP, f/2.2, (wide), 1.0µm
Video 1080p@30fps
SOUND Loudspeaker Yes
3.5mm jack Yes
COMMS WLAN Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac, dual-band
Bluetooth 5.2, A2DP, LE
Positioning GPS, GLONASS, GALILEO, BDS
NFC Yes
Radio Wireless FM radio, RDS, recording
USB USB Type-C 2.0, OTG
FEATURES Sensors Fingerprint (side-mounted), accelerometer, gyro, proximity, compass
MagSafe compatible accessories
BATTERY Type Li-Po 5380 mAh, non-removable
Charging 66W wired, 53% in 15 min (advertised)
15W wireless
Wireless reversed
MISC Colors Black
Price About 260 EUR
Here are two online comments regarding this phone model.
I’ve watch 5 YouTube reviews with actual phone and 2 of them got the faulty one. Guess Ulefone has terrible quality control process. Also it seems like this phone take bad pictures even though it has 108mp camera. I used to have armor 12 and sold it after a month. Ulefone always looks good on spec sheet but not in real usage.
Dude, you were absolutely right! I watched 3 videos and it was more than enough to me. This phone cameras and chipset performance are utterly lame! 272k on AnTuTu with a chipset that has an average score of 340~390k.
I’ll avoid this one without any shadow of doubt.
Oukitel WP17, Oukitel WP19, IIIF150 R2022 and Doogee S96GT are much better.
Other online comments are more positive.
I have never used this model, so cannot confirm these opinions. But on paper, it is much cheaper than Samsung and Apple phones.
Henry says
Here is a comparative 4G model phone priced at $254.99 with the follow specs.
OUKITEL WP22 Rugged Smartphone Unlocked,13GB + 256GB Android13 Cell Phone,10000mAh Battery 125dB Speaker 6.58″ FHD+ Rugged Phone, Helio P90 48MP Camera 20MP Night Vision Mobile Phone,4G Dual Sim OTG NFC.
10000mAh battery? That should last several days. It is not 5G compatible unlike the Ulefone models.
Again, have not used this model to confirm how good or not good it is.
John Sinclair says
Hey Henry,
The OUKITEL WP22 was the other one I was going to post here just for the price point,
The 10000mAh battery usually equates to 1200-1250 hours standby depending on what’s running in the background so roughly 50-52 days of standby time, 75 hours talk time, 41 hours Music, 16 hours video and 12 hours of gaming.
Once again you can add 1TB of storage with a TF Card for around $30.00 on amazon so for around $285.00 you have a phone with massive 1.28TB storage and massive 10000mAh battery.
The cameras are from Sony and It also runs on Android 13 so that is another plus.
The only thing I think that would made this phone complete would be a little more onboard RAM say 12GGB.
If you’re not in a rush to get a 5G device and right now no one should be, it’s a nice phone with some excellent feature with a very reasonable price point.
The only thing left after the purchase of the phone is to find a compatible vendor that participates in the lifeline program like GenMobile TruConnect and Access Wireless to name a few and you’re all set!
Going back to the original point in this thread, Henry is right, you are not going to get a phone like this for free, you will have to do a little research and see what the biggest benefit to you is going to be.
However just as Henry and I posted here, it doesn’t have to break either.
Good Luck to you in your search for your rugged phone and hopefully this tread will help in your decision making process.
Qurat says
My father switched from the Assurance Lifeline to the Safelink Lifeline just a few days ago after 9 years. The reason was basically their defective free phones and they are now not giving their customers an option to shop for better phones at a discount. My father wanted to keep his old number and I thought it wasn’t a difficult task but to my surprise, it’s not so easy. The Safelink company gave him a new number. I called Customer service for solving his problem as he is 90+ & cant dig into technicalities but after a long call, and a series of questions SafeLink agent asked me to call the Assurance support team & ask them to release his old number & also give my father’s Pin number, email address, etc. Just imagine if I was not there how distressing it could be for a 90 years old? I request the Lifeline plan providers, let their customers keep their phone numbers unless they request to change it. It would lessen their hassles for sure.
Free Government Cell Phones says
Good for you, Qurat.
Jane Vanzant says
My cell is locked and I can’t remember the code my phone number is (843) 286-**** I’m Jane Vanzant I need help
Free Government Cell Phones says
This is an issue for your service provider’s customer service team, Jane. Give them a call (assuming you have a landline or can borrow someone else’s cell phone).
John Sinclair says
Did you put a pin or password on the phone or did it come locked from the provider?
if it was the provider they will have the PUK(Password Unlock Key) for you.
If you set a password or pin and don’t remember it, you would need to contact the Technical Support Team for whoever manufactured the phone i.e.(Samsung,, LG, Motorola etc.) and have them walk you thru a factory reset.
A factory reset is destructive as it return the phone to the state of day one out of the box meaning that you will loose your pictures, contacts, messages, downloaded apps, etc.
Hopefully you had a backup on the cloud so you can restore what was lost during the reset.
Hope this helps!
Have a Great Easter Weekend!
Michael Teer says
Do any of the acp or lifeline companies offer broadband home phone options instead of the handheld phone.
Free Government Cell Phones says
Many, but not all Lifeline companies offer home phones, but they are discounted, not free.