First dual mode (FD-LTE/TD-LTE) phone launched in Hong Kong

[Thomas L.]

This article is already a month old, but I never saw it posted here, and I thought it would interest people, as it shows how imperfect the technology still is that will be required for Sprint to integrate Clearwire's 2.6ghz TD-LTE into their handsets. The ZTE Grand Era runs on China Mobile's TD-LTE and FD-LTE ('regular' LTE) networks, but to switch between the two, you currently have to reboot the phone. It's also interesting to see the difference in performance between the FD-LTE and TD-LTE network.

 

http://www.engadget.com/2012/12/18/zte-grand-era-lte-launches-in-hong-kong-with-dual-mode-lte/

[jefbal99]

My buddy had an LG Revolution, one of Verizon's first LTE phones and it had to reboot when switching from EVDO to LTE. It was very annoying when he was checking to see if LTE was deployed in Lansing yet. The LTE on that phone was a battery killer, it was terrible. Almost as bad as the Wimax chipset on the OG Evo

[WiWavelength]

I doubt that the ZTE handset is a particularly relevant frame of reference. This is just speculation on my part, but I bet that FDD and TDD are on separate basebands and that at least one is not a Qualcomm chipset.

 

AJ

[Thomas L.]

I doubt that the ZTE handset is a particularly relevant frame of reference. This is just speculation on my part, but I bet that FDD and TDD are on separate basebands and that at least one is not a Qualcomm chipset.

 

AJ

 

I actually thought about that after I posted it and did research about ZTE's LTE products - they don't produce a single dual-mode chip, just separate TDD and FDD LTE chipsets.. Hopefully that's the case!