cletus

Luckily for the continued existence of the universe, there are many options for charging phone batteries when traveling from big name companies like Energizer. No removable battery, No SD card? Well, unless I am mistaken this phone offers something that the entire Samsung/HTC/Apple lineup currently does not: Triband LTE.

My wife is going to love this phone. Her biggest complaint right now is smartphones are too cumbersome for her small hand to hold and power on etc easily and she doesn't like the side power buttons.

Event is live: http://www.engadget.com/2013/08/07/lg-g2-livestream/ No speakers at work so I am following here: http://www.engadget.com/2013/08/07/lg-optimus-g2-liveblog/

Not sure how I feel about the power button/volume button on the back as I tend to pocket my devices but I will have to see how reviewers like it. To me the most important thing for this device is RF performance.

I believe it is highly likely that Sprint will seek money through Softbank financing due to the access Softbank has to cheaper financing on the Japanese bond market.

Good news then. Following the Softbank purchase, Sprint has moved from beggar to Welfare recipient or Sugar Baby depending on your viewpoint.

Junk status is appropriate. Softbank took on a huge liability in Sprint and junk status is reflective of future risk, not present optimism. To keep up the planned CapEx ALONE for Sprint, Softbank will have to take on probably $15-20 billion more in debt. Actually I believe the figure was $8 billion for 2013 and 2014 and then $6 billion per year for AT LEAST 4 more years after that. That is simply an enormous amount of money to finance for a company that lost something like $50 billion over the last 8 years.

Well, at least they have come out and stated what we all knew was true. Network vision is taking longer than anticipated for reasons partially out of Sprint's control. I'm not too concerned though as what I am really looking forward to is the addition of Clearwire towers and 800 mhz spectrum.

yeughh. Do LG phones typically come locked or unlocked?

Well, in my case it kept me from moving to another carrier completely. So, Sprint still gets revenue off of my service at Ting and I am not providing money to competitors. Win-win in terms of "losing" a customer. Once Triband phones are here I plan to go back to Sprint but I have to say, having a $38 phone bill is pretty damn exciting.

So Republic Wireless seems to beat this already. Both offer mediocre locked down phones but Republic Wireless has unlimited data.

How has LG been with Android updates and how intrusive are the LG "skins"? I'm super interested in this phone unless it is not very well supported and loaded down with terrible skins..

This is sort of off-topic but I would enthusiastically recommend against this MVNO for two reasons. 1) The customer service is absurdly bad and to get one of my relatives issues fixed I ended up spending 45 minutes on hold. 2) This is the T-Mobile NATIVE network which means you get about as much coverage as a G-string. Great for the beach but terrible for cellphone service. You are better off picking almost any MVNO from any other carrier because what absolutely will happen is that you will leave the urban area with good signal and suddenly have no service at all. No voice/No texts/No data. I tried out the T-Mobile native network on their $30 plan and I was shocked that people continue to recommend it as the greatest thing ever. If you must try out T-Mobile, http://www.solavei.com/ has roaming (but is expensive). Otherwise, maybe net10 wireless for the AT&T network with roaming. On the Sprint side, Ting is a good bet https://za8ilf19763.ting.com/ (shameless referral link for $25 off my bill and yours) that allows roaming on Verizon. If you go with a MVNO with no roaming I recommend AT&T or Verizon. Unfortunately while the Sprint network is leaps and bounds better in terms of coverage than T-Mobile it still cannot beat the rural coverage that AT&T and Verizon currently have,

Yeah, the only scenario people would do this in is early upgrades I guess? OTOH, taking a Google Play edition phone to a Sprint MVNO like Ting/Virgin/Zact might be attractive for some people. A minuscule amount for sure though.

As far as I understand it boils down to this: GSM phones use SIMs on the various GSM carriers so if you have a SIM you can toss it in any compatible phone and you are good to go.. However, Sprint and Verizon require pre-approval for all phones before they are added to the network. In addition to this the radios/apk files must be digitally signed by Sprint/Verizon. Basically these networks don't want to allow Google to update their phones without extensive testing and signoffs beforehand. Google does not like this and is therefor not supporting CDMA.

I'd put the chances of a CDMA Play Edition of the phone at precisely 0.000001%.

Another vote for Ting with more reviews of the service in a thread here: http://s4gru.com/index.php?/topic/2606-the-ting-thread/ Roaming voice and SMS is the reason I chose Ting (Verizon has better coverage in a few more rural spots I need it when visiting family) and it has been fantastic for me so far.

Maybe he meant this: http://www.bizjournals.com/kansascity/stories/2006/07/31/story2.html?page=all

Yes, but in the case of the changes to employee discounts Sprint did post that it was a material change on a page from one of my bills. The changes in April to billing structure etc DID allow for an ETF. So, a tax increase would not be a material change and neither will this administrative change. I guess S4GRU moderators could just copy paste numbers for Sprint support and tell people to call and then lock the thread but it won't stop people making threads or complaining about changes/poor service in other threads. Being pro-Sprint is fine and I think we are all here because we want to see Sprint succeed but I also see no issue with people discussing charges that make them unhappy and seeking advice on alternatives. I generally tell people who think they are paying too much to move to Ting because the service remains the same and Sprint still makes more money (albeit less than a contract customer) than if it lost a customer left for a competitor.

Hmm. I disagree. If people come here asking how to force roaming so Sprint kicks them off the network I have a problem with that. If people come here asking for advice on if a rate change means they can leave without ETF then I am okay with that. Which is better for the community: People who are unhappy and see increasing charges but remain complaining about Sprint until their contract ends or people who are able to end a service that clearly is not working up to their expectations? I've been a Sprint customer for a long time and I ended up moving my lines to Ting anyways. Why? Because I don't feel the current Sprint network is worth $157/month for 2 lines and the changes to how the employee discount were applied cost me $5 extra a month. I do plan on rejoining Sprint with triband phones BUT I can sympathize with people that are feeling nickeled and dimed for the subpar service that still exists in many parts of the country.

To piggyback on this. I have a WiMax phone and I have noticed that some sites in Austin appear to have higher bandwidth available now than a year ago. Part of that is, of course, due to people moving off WiMax but it is not a consistent change among all the towers here. I am fully expecting Austin to be in the next round of cities that Clearwire LTE is launched in. If only someone in Austin had a Triband hotspot to test. . .

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U7y6kXwMo_M

Interesting... like others I plan to wait for RF reports before jumping in on a new phone. First isn't always best as the EVO LTE showed us.

Tsk tsk, no credit for the speedtest picture edit: now I see it. I wonder why it didn't show up under the pic until after I refreshed. Oh well

The other option is to take your phone to an MVNO like Ting until Triband phones arrive. This is what I am doing and without changing my habits much I pay about 45% less per month. However, I know my data usage (and therefor cost at Ting) will go up on a triband phone so I do plan to go back to Sprint. FYI, The "back to new" customer timeout at Sprint is like 45 days. Just something to think about.