Gadgetory

quite some time ago Google introduced Google Wallet if your phone had NFC if your carrier supported it if you have the app installed and configured and if you could find some place to pay using your phone you were all set it sounds like an awful lot of Hoops to jump through and if you thought that you're not alone Google did - I'm Joe Levi for pocket now and this is our unboxing of the Google Wallet card so not so much an unboxing as an unfolding this is just a letter it comes in a regular envelope a very plain envelope with no branding on the outside at all in fact that's why you're not seeing me cut into the envelope it just came with my address through a window and that was pretty much it once we got inside well then it's just a letter i've redacted some things here like my name my name is here but my address and some numbers up here that i don't know what they were but they didn't look like an account number but just in case they were I took those out of course it tells you all about your Google Wallet card activate your card using the app not using the dial-in 800 number like you would on a normal debit card and that's what this is a MasterCard debit card which you'll see in just a minute you can spend this anywhere that accepts MasterCard locations I of course it's got all of your fraud monitoring all of that fun stuff that you come to expect from a credit card or debit card and then you can get notified of your purchases and whatnot because it ties in with your Google Wallet moving down to the card let's do the michael fisher peel off here Oh how does that sound real good okay I've gone ahead and redacted a few things right across here's the credit card number the debit card number the expiration date and whatnot I've covered all that up so you can't go and buy yourself a car off of my card but that's it that's all it looks like let's go ahead and take the activation notice awful see if you can hear that because so ah tour how's that for a unstriped fail right there not much to see up here just normal stuff very plain very simple kind of reversed you'd expect to have your MasterCard logo your hologram stuff your name on the front all of that is over here on the back name and card number up there expiration date of course and your signature block nice silver bar for you to to write with so that's that's essentially it you can see it is a debit card this is not going to work of course until I sign it and until I activate it so let's see what we have to do to activate the card in the app itself if you want to get a Google Wallet card the way you do that is open up Google Wallet and there will be a card in here at software card not a physical card that gives you instructions on what you need to do to request a card be delivered to you mine took about four or five days to get here take a little bit longer if it's over a weekend or a holiday weekend like it has been recently next step is to activate it it says here it has my card already arrived if so activate it now go ahead and do that this is what the back of the card looks like and it's asking for the last four digits of the card I'll go ahead and do that off camera and show you the next step just as simple as that I went ahead and I put in those four digits I just got an email saying that that registration has been received and on to the next page it says here you go I can now spend my wallet balance using it this card my wallet balance right now is zero dollars and zero cents but as soon as I put some money over here I can go ahead and spend this just like a would a debit card or a credit card just it will draw from that balance directly I can even get cash from ATMs though you may have to pay a buck-50 ATM fee or whatnot so make sure you don't get gouged by that so after that brief tutorial I hit next and we're good that's literally what it says and we're good next step is to add money to the wallet balance or just say done and in that case we are done and we are ready to go that's essentially it Google Wallet and Google Wallet card there are certain drawbacks and limitations that using the Google Wallet app and even the Google Wallet card still include such as a new feature or restriction depending on who you ask you now have to have a positive balance in your Google Wallet account to draw from in the past I was able to use my phone to just scan and pay and it would debit directly from my Associated bank account that appears not to be the case anymore or something else is going on that's causing all of my transactions to decline where the bank account that is tied to doesn't decline who knows but the Google Wallet and the Google Wallet card are now going to use that Google Wallet funding source so you want to make sure that you put some money in there whether that's a good thing or a bad thing I don't know but to me it says that that's just one more card that you're going to have to carry around in your wallet the way wallet used to work and the way I'd like it to continue to work in the future is for you to select a funding source that automatically debits that account whenever you use your wallet whether that's on your phone or the Google wallet card obviously you can't change your funding source using the card but you can using the app at least that's the way it used to work why it doesn't anymore I don't know but by doing that Google would be able to liberate our wallets from carrying around three four five or even more cards just let us pick which one we want to use with the app on our phone whether or not the vendor supports NFC payments or not no it wasn't a traditional unboxing like you might have come to expect from pocket now but hey it's new it's tech and it works with your smartphone Android and iOS so if you liked what you saw why not throw the video a thumbs up and of course make sure you have subscribed to our channel so you don't miss out on all kinds of cool stuff whether that smartphones tablets accessories or who knows what else you'll be right up to date as soon as we release a video of course follow us on all of your favorite social networks mine is Twitter where we're at pocket now and I'm at Joe Levi thank you very much for watching we'll catch you next time you