Bought this for extra comma for when I'm out of service. Works great

It is amazing for what it does. The free year was not offered. The 13.99/ month plan for 80 messages is a very fair price in my eyes. Wish they did not draw you in with the free year thing. I love it so far.

For the past few years I’ve been going to the boundary waters in Northern Minnesota where cell phone service is widely non-existent. I found it hard to relax at times not knowing if there was an emergency going on back home. I spent too much time trying to look for cell service instead of relaxing. This year I’m planning a week long camping trip to Canada where I know cell service with be non-existent. I was already having anxiety knowing I was going to be disconnected from loved ones for a whole week.Recently a friend of mine recently showed me the Zoleo device he planned on purchasing. I started doing research on the Zoleo when I came across the Motorola Defy. The Motorola defy caught my attention as the device itself was cheaper and the subscription options were much more affordable compared to Zoleo and other similar devices.After receiving the Motorola Defy in the mail, I tested it as rigorously as I could for a week. It should be noted I live in rural northern Wisconsin where cell service is often spotty or non-existent. I took the device deep into the National Forest near where I live and where cell phone service is non-existent. I never once lost satellite connection and I was able to message my wife without any issues. I also took the device with me during a half day kayak trip through the forest where there is no cell service. I again never lost satellite connection no matter what direction I was facing. Messaging went through just as fast as using cell towers. I’ve yet not found a place where I wasn’t able to stay connected to a satellite unless I was inside or standing next to a tall building.This is only my experience in northern Wisconsin and I can’t speak for anyone else. I can’t wait to test it in Canada. I have faith it’ll work just as good there based on my experience thus far.Update… I just got back from my week long fishing trip to Canada. I was in Ontario about an hour away from any type of cell service. The Motorola defy worked well, however; there were a few cons.It is noted during my trip I had the 80 messages a month plan; at least that’s what I thought. As I was messaging my wife, I noticed my data allowance percentage was decreasing rapidly after each message. I later realized the plan says “ Up to 80 messages a month”. I read on the Bullitt website any messages longer than 35 characters will use more data, hence fewer messages allowed for the month. Bullitt states 35 characters is the average text length, which I find hard to believe. I sent and received about 28 messages, some including my location. I ended up with 21 percent remaining by the end of the trip. I probably would have gotten close to 35 messages before running out of data.It is also noted, Bullit limits the number of characters you can send in one message. This equals to about four to five lines of typing. Any messages longer, the message won’t send. Same went for my wife when she tried messaging me from home using the Bullitt app. This was frustrating because I wanted to tell my wife how my day went. I had to fit a lot of information in one small message, unless I broke it down into several messages which would ultimately end up using all my data. My friend had the Zoleo device with him, and he said he is allowed up to 900 characters per message. Also with the Zoleo, they go by actual messages sent and received instead of data, which I thought was simpler.Secondly, as I was running out of data, we drove into town where I had cell service. I was trying to upgrade my plan to the freedom plan so I had more messages without a year long contract. Unfortunately it would only allow me to upgrade to the 300 message a month with a 12 month contract. If I read the plans right, you can only switch to the freedom plan if your monthly data allowance ran out, which mine had not.I’m still giving this device five stars. This is based on affordability along with the device sending and receiving messages flawlessly. I just wish you could send longer messages along with the data plans going by true message counts and not by data used based on length of messages. I hope this helps.

I love it !! Great price, speedy delivery and a great price for the year - the subscription is only $80 CDN for the entire year and give me 250 messages. It works great and the app is really easy to use.

EDIT: Spent the day yesterday hiking the Boone Fork to Calloway Peak trail in the Grandfather Mountain State Park. This can be a very challenging trail w/ a 2200' change in elevation with multiple actual ladders constructed to facilitate climbs. Even at the very top, this unit could NOT make a connection to a satellite. As this is a 4.5 hour hike round trip, if someone were to be injured toward the top, it would be many hours before someone else in the party (assuming you're not alone) could hike back down, drive for help, and return with assistance. This along with other hours spent hiking very popular areas tells me this is NOT the device you want to rely on for help.Original review:This is a totally useless device for a HUGE part of the US. Hiking miles on the Mountain to Sea Trail, the vast majority of the time there is NO satellite service. They chose to use only satellites visible facing south but of course the MST runs east-west (or west-east depending on which way you start). Despite that, apparently there are going to be huge swaths of other parts of the country where you cannot get a clear south face view to reach a satellite and if you need emergency services having to rely on only this satellite system is likely going to mean you will not be able to call for service. I cannot understand how their coverage maps are not considered fraud by the FTC. It appears they just took a map of the US and coloured it in. Do they assume no one will ever figure out the device doesn't work? The MST is shown as fully covered and yet there’s zero signal over a great majority of it. I managed to get one message out as a test and didn’t move more than 10 feet and couldn’t get the second message out and yet according to the compass app on my iPhone I had a clear view of the direction that their app said the satellites were located in. Save your money, this device isn’t likely to save you in far too many places.Add to all of this, their support is poor at best. There are so many other shortcomings for this product and its associated app, I cannot imagine why anyone would recommend this.Anyway, device returned. I'd give it 0 stars if Amazon allowed me to.