T-Mobile's Magenta Max Plan: Is It Really Worth Upgrading?

Mobile phone service carriers' various tiers of service plans offered to customers are always shifting. It can be difficult to figure out when might be a good time to switch plans, as so many variables are in play. Specific to T-Mobile, there are other perks to consider before switching to one of the company's more enticing new plans, like Magenta Max, one of the higher-end plans currently offered by "The Un-Carrier." It contains a lot of great benefits for frequent travel, like international high-speed data and free in-flight Wi-Fi with T-Mobile partners, as well as for those who consume massive amounts of mobile data on their phones. For a lot of people, it's a great option.

There are exceptions, though. T-Mobile has long offered all sorts of unique promotions that go way beyond the tiered plans themselves. For example, maybe you signed up during a buy one/get one free offer for adding new lines, or you activated the T-MobileKickback feature made available during a short window in 2017 and 2018 that knocks $10 off your bill during each cycle for every line that used less than 2 GB of data that month. Maybe you were lucky enough to get an employee's friends and family discount. Those would go away if you switched plans, though, so if you have one or even several of them, then that might be a good reason not to switch.

So, let's take a look at the core perks of upgrading to the Magenta Max plan to help you decide whether it's worth it or not.

One kind of person who would get a lot out of upgrading to Magenta Max from a lower tier is a frequent traveler, as there are a few perks that benefit them in particular. For example, T-Mobile has partnerships with some in-flight Wi-Fi providers that allow T-Mobile customers to get free or discounted service while on planes. This benefit isn't included with T-Mobile Essentials at all. On regular Magenta, video streaming is limited to four full-flight streaming sessions annually. On Magenta Max, though, it's unlimited.

It doesn't end there, though. T-Mobile also bundles mobile data in over 200 countries, including Canada and Mexico, where Magenta Max customers get 5 GB of high-speed data trip before speeds drop to 256 kbps. On Essentials, that data is 128 kbps with no initial high-speed allotment. On regular Magenta, it drops to 128 kbps after the high-speed allotment, but for other countries, T-Mobile's comparison chart appears to have filler text mistakenly entered where the full terms should be.

If you take a lot of road trips, there's another perk in Magenta Max: a one-year subscription to AAA, the long-standing automobile owners' club with roadside assistance and other perks. 

T-Mobile's version of "unlimited" data on its plans has some caveats. Besides some plans rate-limiting video, T-Mobile also delineates some plans as having more "premium data" than others. This refers to the tower priority that different customers get. Just as postpaid customers' data has priority over prepaid customers' data, which has priority over those using smaller carriers' leasing network space, T-Mobile prioritizes some postpaid customers' data over others.

You need to consume a lot of mobile data for this to matter, though. On Magenta Max, premium data is unlimited, while Essentials is capped at 50 GB, and regular Magenta is capped at 100 GB. Using your phone for that kind of data or more in a given month is an excellent reason to upgrade to Magenta Max.

In addition, if you're grandfathered into the old ONE plan or on the currently available Essential or Magenta plan, then officially, your mobile video streaming is rate-limited to cap it at 480p. However, if you upgrade to Magenta Max, that rate limiting goes away completely, allowing you to stream up to 4K video using your mobile data. So, if you're the type of person who watches a lot of videos on the go and you're on one of the lower plans, a Magenta Max upgrade would guarantee you the best possible picture quality.

Wireless hotspot data is nice to have on your wireless phone service plan, but it's not something that the average person necessarily needs a lot of. Unlimited data on the phone proper, sure. But most people don't need much hotspot access daily unless they travel without consistent Wi-Fi access. At least among T-Mobile's plans,  5GB for regular Magenta customers or 15 GB for Go5G customers is more than enough monthly hotspot data for most people. If you need more, though, Magenta Max is a good option.

Magenta Max includes 40 GB of monthly 4G LTE hotspot data, a major leap beyond the aforementioned two plans. So, if you're constantly on the go and need to work online in places where there isn't a Wi-Fi network to connect to, switching to that plan is a perfectly convenient option. However, if you need even more hotspot data, then the 50 GB offered by Go5G Next and Go5G Plus might be the better pick.

In September 2017, the Un-Carrier introduced a new kind of perk for its customers when it announced "Netflix on Us," a free Netflix subscription bundled into T-Mobile accounts. This didn't come with a price increase or anything like that: T-Mobile just started throwing in Netflix for free. Among currently available plans, it's part of all but Essential. Since then, other streaming services have either been bundled with T-Mobile service plans, while others still have been made available as a free year or a free six months, usually as part of the weekly "T-Mobile Tuesdays" promotions.

One streaming service that's fully bundled with Magenta Max but not lesser plans is Apple TV+. Though you get six free months with regular Magenta, it's included the same way Netflix on Us is if you subscribe to Magenta Max. That gives you another perk that has tangible value — especially considering the recent Apple TV+ price hike — when comparing Magenta Max to whichever plan you have right now. 

All three of the major cellular service carriers have apps for blocking spam calls, with T-Mobile's being named Scam Shield. All T-Mobile subscribers can use the apps. However, it also has a ScamShield Premium tier, which normally costs $4 per line per month to add to Essentials or regular Magenta but is included with Magenta Max.

Scam Shield Premium has a few key features:

• It lets you pick types of more legitimate calls to automatically send directly to voicemail, like (legitimate) telemarketers, political campaigns, and charity fundraisers.
• Voicemail transcription: The transcripts are available in the voicemail app or sent to you as an SMS message or email.
• Reverse phone number searching.
• The ability to create "always block" lists stored on T-Mobile's servers instead of your handset makes it easier to migrate across devices.

If you were already considering adding ScamShield Premium service, and the other perks included in the plan are enticing, it may be worth upgrading to Magenta Max.