HTC EVO 4G LTE

[pyroscott]

 

Welcome to my world.

 

I absolutely cannot stand the radio. I was just on vacation in the USVI a few weeks ago and I would literally lose data (with 2-3 bars) for hours and hours (sometimes all day) with absolutely nothing I could do to fix it (while voice would work fine). I would just have to wait it out and hope it connected (and this was on two different accounts, two different gnexes, both of which were replaced at a corporate sprint store with brand new phones, so it's not the phone).

 

Speaking of USVI - they are in MAJOR MAJOR need of network upgrades. Holy heck coverage is spotty and slow.

 

I thought you would find this interesting:

 

 

 

In Boston, I still have random data disconnects. Typically, the phone still shows as connected with the "blue" bars but the data up arrow will get "stuck" and I will lose data. After a minute or so, it will reconnect. Prior to the software upgrade sprint released, it would just go grey and you would have to reprovision manually. I am convinced the update just allows it to reprovision itself.

 

Why they didn't just use a qualcomm CDMA chip is beyond me. I suppose if you don't stream radio or use your phone a lot to surf, it isn't that bad... but I do, so it's annoying.

 

Comparing signal to the EVO, places where the GNEX doesn't have native sprint service the EVO will still hold on. WiFi is just miles better than the GNEX as well. GNEX one room over will lose signal and loop over and over reconnecting/disconnecting to wifi while the EVO will have 2 bars (and my tablet has full wifi coverage).

 

I think GS3 vs. EVO 4G LTE should be a much more interesting comparison.

 

I must have lucked out and bought the only GNex that works just as good as any other phone. The wife has the RAZR MAXX, with its "awesome Motorola radios" and there have been very few times that she had better signal performance. There have been more times that the GNex had better service. I would classify the 2 as being on a level playing field. The wifi is slightly weaker on the GNex, but I can still connect outside through steel siding, so it isn't that bad. Maybe the Sprint version is worse... Or maybe if you expect the radios to perform poorly, it becomes a self fulfilling prophecy.

 

Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using Tapatalk 2

[WiWavelength]

I must have lucked out and bought the only GNex that works just as good as any other phone. The wife has the RAZR MAXX, with its "awesome Motorola radios" and there have been very few times that she had better signal performance.

 

Or it could just be that both of you are slumming with your non Qualcomm LTE chipsets...

 

 

AJ

[pyroscott]

 

Or it could just be that both of you are slumming with your non Qualcomm LTE chipsets...

 

 

 

AJ

 

Pfffffffft qualcomm...

 

Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using Tapatalk 2

[themuffinman]

 

 

Speaking of USVI - they are in MAJOR MAJOR need of network upgrades. Holy heck coverage is spotty and slow.

Where at in the USVI was this happening to you? I've tentatively got a trip scheduled there later this year or early next year so I wanna know what to expect and where.

 

I am in the USVI every single month for one reason or another on business(I was born and raised there as well) and I can tell you that upgrades are definitely needed. As far as coverage goes, its actually pretty decent if you are on St. Thomas, if you are going to St. John or St. Croix its basically hit or miss' Hell I can be 15 miles out to see fishing for tuna and king fish and still get coverage. Now during peak hours of the day there tends to be quite a bit of dropped calls and 3g can be non existent. Now most, if not all buildings there are made out of concrete so if you are somewhere like in an interior room then signal strength can drop of very quickly. So if you are gonna go there make sure you leave any positive expectations about sprint at the door or else you will be highly disappointed.

[Odell]

Someone awhile back had mentioned that they were having WiFi connection issues. Well today I experienced the same thing while here at home. I couldn't hold a signal for more than a few seconds even sitting right next to the router. The only thing that helped was changing the channel on my router. I haven't lost signal once since I changed the channel. I downloaded WiFi Analyzer from the Market and determined that my neighbor was on the same channel. I chose a channel with no one else on it and things are holding fine. I can't say for sure that was the problem but that's the only thing I changed.

[Rawvega]

 

 

I am in the USVI every single month for one reason or another on business(I was born and raised there as well) and I can tell you that upgrades are definitely needed. As far as coverage goes, its actually pretty decent if you are on St. Thomas, if you are going to St. John or St. Croix its basically hit or miss' Hell I can be 15 miles out to see fishing for tuna and king fish and still get coverage. Now during peak hours of the day there tends to be quite a bit of dropped calls and 3g can be non existent. Now most, if not all buildings there are made out of concrete so if you are somewhere like in an interior room then signal strength can drop of very quickly. So if you are gonna go there make sure you leave any positive expectations about sprint at the door or else you will be highly disappointed.

 

Good info muffinman. I hope to spend most of my time on STJ and some on STT. At this juncture I have no plans to visit STX, but of course plans are always subject to change. I've heard that the quality of life could decline very rapidly on STX due to the recent closing of Hovensa....

 

If you don't mind me asking, what kind of business are you in that let's you be fortunate enough to get down there so often?

 

Sent from my Mean Evo 3D using Tapatalk 2!

[themuffinman]

Good info muffinman. I hope to spend most of my time on STJ and some on STT. At this juncture I have no plans to visit STX, but of course plans are always subject to change. I've heard that the quality of life could decline very rapidly on STX due to the recent closing of Hovensa....

 

If you don't mind me asking, what kind of business are you in that let's you be fortunate enough to get down there so often?

 

Sent from my Mean Evo 3D using Tapatalk 2!

 

I'm an accountant and my dad has his own accounting firm there on st.thomas. I refuse to actually live there so commuting every month is something that I simply decided to do. The hovensa plant closing is both a blessing and a curse to st. croix and to the overall economy being that they employed about 2000 people and the total population of the USVI is about 100k. Anyway, if you are on st john then I hope you are staying around the cruz bay area, anything past that part of the island is hit or miss(mostly miss) for sure as far as service goes.

[Rawvega]

Yes, we'll be staying in Cruz Bay though I do want to trek through the National Park and explore as far east on the island as time will allow. However, I have no expectation (or real desire) to use my cell phone during my exploration. Someone I know who has made a couple of jaunts there says that I may (or may not) roam on some carrier called "Choice" (I think) once I venture out of the native Sprint coverage in Cruz Bay. If so, cool. If not, I don't think I'll mind too much.

[irev210]

Yes, we'll be staying in Cruz Bay though I do want to trek through the National Park and explore as far east on the island as time will allow. However, I have no expectation (or real desire) to use my cell phone during my exploration. Someone I know who has made a couple of jaunts there says that I may (or may not) roam on some carrier called "Choice" (I think) once I venture out of the native Sprint coverage in Cruz Bay. If so, cool. If not, I don't think I'll mind too much.

 

There is only one tower on saint john. Coverage is very spotty.

 

Coverage on saint thomas was much better. Everywhere seemed to have 1-2 bars, which I thought was interesting (never great coverage, but at least you had something). I loved the giant SPRINT sign at the Sprint store on saint thomas. Impossible to miss. Speeds everywhere were basically 1x speeds. Perfect for emails/calls... so I wasn't really complaining.

 

I am sure residents and visitors will be much happier once network vision lands. After leaving, I felt very spoiled being back in Boston - native sprint coverage here is very good.

[Rawvega]

There is only one tower on saint john. Coverage is very spotty.

 

Coverage on saint thomas was much better. Everywhere seemed to have 1-2 bars, which I thought was interesting. I loved the giant SPRINT sign at the Sprint store on saint thomas. Impossible to miss. Speeds everywhere were basically 1x speeds. Perfect for emails/calls... so I wasn't really complaining.

 

Yeah I noticed the one tower thing in the interactive maps. Kinda shameful, but what can ya do...I'd like to think that whenever they're able to turn on 800MHz there that coverage even from just that one cell site should be strong in Cruz Bay. Hopefully, if and when Sprint is able to turn around their finances and start posting a profit maybe they'll add just a couple more cell sites to St. John....

[irev210]

I must have lucked out and bought the only GNex that works just as good as any other phone. The wife has the RAZR MAXX, with its "awesome Motorola radios" and there have been very few times that she had better signal performance. There have been more times that the GNex had better service. I would classify the 2 as being on a level playing field. The wifi is slightly weaker on the GNex, but I can still connect outside through steel siding, so it isn't that bad. Maybe the Sprint version is worse... Or maybe if you expect the radios to perform poorly, it becomes a self fulfilling prophecy.

 

Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using Tapatalk 2

 

Not sure, the signal strength according to wifi analyzer is the same (gnex vs. evo) but it drops down to 1 wifi bar and just starts disconnecting/reconnecting.... murdering battery life and the whole point of using wifi.

 

I live in a very urban area but I am the only user using WiFi @ 5GHz (for now). Not sure what else is interfering but I get about a 10dB swing in signal strength constantly. While I get that on the EVO 4G LTE, the evo doesn't disconnect.

 

I picked channel 36, thought it would give me the best range. I'll try channel 153, maybe that will improve the stability of the connection.

 

Forget using 2.4GHz... I would have to compete with a TON of users.

 

There are so many... it can't even capture them all:

 

 

It's going to be a sad day when 802.11ac comes and ruins my 5GHz band.

[themuffinman]

Yes, we'll be staying in Cruz Bay though I do want to trek through the National Park and explore as far east on the island as time will allow. However, I have no expectation (or real desire) to use my cell phone during my exploration. Someone I know who has made a couple of jaunts there says that I may (or may not) roam on some carrier called "Choice" (I think) once I venture out of the native Sprint coverage in Cruz Bay. If so, cool. If not, I don't think I'll mind too much.

Yeah I noticed the one tower thing in the interactive maps. Kinda shameful, but what can ya do...I'd like to think that whenever they're able to turn on 800MHz there that coverage even from just that one cell site should be strong in Cruz Bay. Hopefully, if and when Sprint is able to turn around their finances and start posting a profit maybe they'll add just a couple more cell sites to St. John....

 

Yeah the more east you go the worse the signal will get and as far as sprint adding a tower or two more that will probably never happen. With 75% of St. John being a national park it makes the other 25% of the land insanely valuable and it would definitely not be worth it for sprint to find somewhere to put a tower when the relatively small population of residents lives mostly on the cruz bay side anyway. So sprint really would have no incentive to really put towers any where else..

[S4GRU]

 

Yeah the more east you go the worse the signal will get and as far as sprint adding a tower or two more that will probably never happen. With 75% of St. John being a national park it makes the other 25% of the land insanely valuable and it would definitely not be worth it for sprint to find somewhere to put a tower when the relatively small population of residents lives mostly on the cruz bay side anyway. So sprint really would have no incentive to really put towers any where else..

 

Also, on the east side, there is probably limitations so as to not interfere with the British Isles. If my VI geography from memory is accurate.

 

Robert via Galaxy Nexus using Forum Runner

[themuffinman]

Also, on the east side, there is probably limitations so as to not interfere with the British Isles. If my VI geography from memory is accurate.

 

Robert via Galaxy Nexus using Forum Runner

 

I guess that would make sense, the island of Tortolla is about a mile and a half off of the north eastern coast of St.John. Weird thing though is that I can get a sprint signal on the western half of Tortolla sometimes.

[Rawvega]

 

 

Yeah the more east you go the worse the signal will get and as far as sprint adding a tower or two more that will probably never happen. With 75% of St. John being a national park it makes the other 25% of the land insanely valuable and it would definitely not be worth it for sprint to find somewhere to put a tower when the relatively small population of residents lives mostly on the cruz bay side anyway. So sprint really would have no incentive to really put towers any where else..

 

Yeah you're right that Sprint would have little incentive to pay the exorbitant costs to build new cell towers on STJ. I was just thinking that in better times perhaps there might be towers from at&t and/or this Choice company that Sprint could co-locate on, but it's definitely not something that I'd hold my breath for.

 

Sent from my PG41200 using Tapatalk 2

[Rawvega]

 

Also, on the east side, there is probably limitations so as to not interfere with the British Isles. If my VI geography from memory is accurate.

 

Robert via Galaxy Nexus using Forum Runner

 

Does that work both ways though? I've read over on city-data about people with AT&T inadvertently getting roaming charges from some carrier(s) in the BVI.

 

Sent from my PG41200 using Tapatalk 2

[themuffinman]

Does that work both ways though? I've read over on city-data about people with AT&T inadvertently getting roaming charges from some carrier(s) in the BVI.

 

Sent from my PG41200 using Tapatalk 2

 

Now that is true, not only people in St. John but people who live along the north side of st. thomas experience the same roaming issues from the BVI but it all seems to be isolated to only att customers for the most part though. I haven't heard of any sprint customers experiencing that issue.

[S4GRU]

 

Now that is true' date=' not only people in St. John but people who live along the north side of st. thomas experience the same roaming issues from the BVI but it all seems to be isolated to only att customers for the most part though. I haven't heard of any sprint customers experiencing that issue.[/quote']

 

There may be no carrier in BVI running in PCS. At least PCS CDMA, at any rate.

 

Robert via Kindle Fire using Forum Runner

[Rawvega]

Digicel and CCT it appears: http://www.sprint.com/popups/pop-gprsCarriers.html

 

Sent from my PG41200 using Tapatalk 2

[themuffinman]

There may be no carrier in BVI running in PCS. At least PCS CDMA, at any rate.

 

Robert via Kindle Fire using Forum Runner

 

Sprint phones do roam there, I think its either 1.99 per minute or something close to that. As a matter of fact I will be there in 3 weeks to attend a wedding.

[JohnHovah]

I hope you all enjoy your trip to USVI! I haven't made it out that way yet, hopefully before hurricane season

 

Back on the topic, will this ULTRATHIN case work on the Evo LTE?

http://www.androidpo...k-less-is-more/

Edited June 11, 2012 by JohnHovah

[TH4RO]

I have been trying to find the digital battery widget from HTC that I had on my OG EVO. I miss having the specific percentage of battery life. I tried the app share from my old EVO but it would not let me share it. Has this bugged anyone else? I know there are several after market apps but I really like the one HTC made. Has anyone found one they like for EVO LTE?

[centermedic]

Battery Widget by JINASYS is pretty nice.

[Hiro11]

To echo some other comments here, I've experienced three niggling little bugs on this launch ROM:

1. Auto time update issue

2. Random "roaming" warnings

3. Wifi (very rarely) a bit shaky

 

Overall, it's still an awesome phone. Also, it's worth noting that this initial build is still much more stable and less problematic than the launch ROM on the initial OG Evo 4G (which was a bit of a nightmare). Over time, HTC really improved that ROM, the final 2.3 build was very smooth. Hopefully these small launch issues will be solved soon. At this point, we just need widespread LTE here in Chicagoland. The entire Sprint network is essentially non-functional right now in wide swaths of this area. It's kind of pissing me off.

Edited June 11, 2012 by Hiro11

[TH4RO]

You can get rid of those first two issues in settings.