Well I'm leaving the big V so that shouldn't be a problem. Any problems on T-mobile?
And besides free calls (I already have this) and the voicemail stuff (I never use this), what's so awesome about it?
No, T-Mobile has been one of the few leading the way with google voice integration. The only problem that can happen on their end is if you wanted to use google voice as your t-mobile phone number's voicemail service and you're on a T-Mobile prepaid plan. They don't allow it at the moment. It's not a concern if you're using your t-mobile number as strictly a forwarding number and no one is ever given it, though.
There are a lot of neat advantages:
1) It liberates your phone number. I recently left Verizon for T-Mobile and was able to just cancel without having to wait for Verizon to transfer the number. (Coincidentally, I've gotten a lot less junk calls on my phone lately.)
2) You can forward to any phone/device. I get bad reception at my house and I have a landline bundled in with my cable. My google voice number will also ring out to the landline when I get a call, giving me better voice quality and not using up any of my minutes. I can also answer phone calls/texts on my tablet or on my computer.
3) Advanced phone features for free. I can make conference calls using my cell phone number to other phones, I can record conversations (it announces it on the line, so it isn't too creepy), I can switch between forwarding phones on the fly, I can be notified of everything (voicemail, texts, missed calls) via email, Google automatically blocks junk/spam calls (and for the rare time something makes it through, it is super-simple to block a number), you can setup multiple voicemail greetings for specific people or groups of people (or force them to go to voicemail automatically), you can actually give people a weblink to call your phone number and they aren't able to know your actual number, and, finally, insanely good long distance rates.
4) Free data calls through hangouts. This allowed my friend to go for the T-Mobile 100 minutes/Unlimited Text/Unlimited Web for $30 plan because he can use his 4g connection to make and receive phone calls. It's great for me because now I get fantastic "cellphone reception" at my house and anywhere I have wifi.
Exactly. That would mean SMS, GV SMS, and Hangout messages would all be in the app. Sounds like a mess. It doesn't help either that the Hangouts app has gone to shit.
Is it possible to use GV with the new Messenger app?
It's not confusing at all. It merges all your contacts into single conversations. You wouldn't bother giving out your phone's actual number to people, so you'd just have to deal with hangouts and your google voice number conversations being merged. You can select how you want to send something to someone in the chat, sending it via google voice or hangouts.
Having said that, yes it is still currently possible to use the existing google voice app to text and check your voicemail. I imagine in the future the integration will get better and they will force a migration over to hangouts eventually.
I wouldn't worry about getting a N6 though, Google is pretty good about returns/refunds.
