digiblur

 your going to look so stupid with that up to your head and the midrange specs almost guarantees that its not going to get updates or accessories and accessories are important to me. It will not fit into a pocket. I seen the reviews for this device and it is a hassle to put into even deep pockets as its closer to a tablet than a phablet. I'm not happy about this at all and actually to me doesn't make since why they would do this in the first place. For me anyway its basically wait for the G2 or just wait until next years phone or PRAY TO THE HEAVENS THAT THIS NEXUS ON SPRINT COMES TO SAVE US ALL! Amen. 

There's always a headset or bluetooth for those that need to jab on the phone all day.  I'm sure they've thought of that.  I can care less what I look like on the phone.  I can care less what others think as I'm no longer in middle school trying to fit in with the right "look". 

So back to the size thing.  What kind of pants do people have that a phone that is 0.6 inches longer and 0.3 wider but yet thinner not fit in?  If this were true that it didn't fit in the pocket, then my Note2 in the Otterbox defender definitely would not fit in my shorts, workout shorts, or 32 inch waist jeans.  Us older folk actually used to carry around this thing called a check book with all kinds of crap stuffed in behind the register sheets, which ended up being bigger than this phone.  Get over it.  Some people will enjoy this phone some will not.  Some will just secretly be jealous of the device and hate the fact that it isn't hip and they have to get a small phone to "fit in".  It's just the way things are.  It's great to have so many choices in phones and not stuck to just one size and look.  I'm not 100% sold on getting this device but I think it's great that Sprint has chosen to carry this device and make it tri-band to boot!  Awesome! 

We won't know what is inside this phone until that is released so I'm not going to go off any speculation. 

Now the size thing.  Of course it is not for everyone, some people just have small hands.  And you know what they say about people with small hands right?  They need small phones of course! After having my Note2 for a year now, I've said several times to people,  I wish the phone was just a little bit bigger as it would perfectly fit in my hands when typing and my thumbs wouldn't be on top of each other.  I was never a one handed typer on any phone...not even on my original RIM pager on the Motient network.

I for one can't wait to get this device and I'll probably go to the AT&T store this weekend to check it out.

I'd take a phone with the same exact specs of the Note2 but with 800LTE and 2.6 LTE added, I would buy it in a heartbeat. 

How's the RF specs on output?

Nice work AJ with the very quick turnaround!!

The Note2 is 151mm x 80mm so it really isn't that much bigger than one would think.  The biggest thing about the device is the Ménage à trois of LTE bands!

Then to further add to the confusion when comparing the Note2 and S3 side by side with debug screens on, I found the Note2 to acquire and hang on to a usable LTE signal longer than the S3 would. Case in point I can stand in one location with the S3 and Note2 on the table and cycle airplane mode on both phones the Note2 would pick up LTE and use it when the S3 would only EVDO. The difference was minimal but yet noticeable if you were looking.

Will have to see the real world tests when they come out as I don't give much claim to the FCC numbers. Nothing against AJ at all and his excellent work. For example, on paper the Note2 looks much worse in the LTE 1900 band category than the Galaxy S3. I've compared these phones together numerous times and every time the Note2 has holds on to the signal longer, picks it up first, and has a usable signal in more places than S3.

Nice article! I will definitely let my wife read this as she's my tower scouting driver. Last trip we made our daughter was with us looking for towers and actually found one when I couldn't see it through the trees. Funny stuff!

Great article as always!!

Actually no, the "best" one to use would be the latest version. Due to the age of 24006 I would not recommend anyone use it as it is missing some LTE markets and 800SMR markets. It would create negative experience for some users.

Also, some people prefer to use a "corporate 3G roaming" PRL and 24xxx is not this type by any means.

Forced to keep the 2G network? Huh? I guess you could say that. They would have a very hard time staying in business without voice and SMS service.

I'd love to see a similar write-up on how GSM works... I've always understood the PRL concept--I know the GSM side of things is more "network/server-based", but not really figured out the specifics.Also with

A good read if you are interested:

http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&ved=0CDAQFjAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.qualcomm.com%2Fmedia%2Fdocuments%2Ffiles%2Fmultimode-system-selection-basic-provisioning.pdf&ei=qYQMUcvTBq6A2QWe2IHQDw&usg=AFQjCNEauk7xsZ5NzXcLcLXOPWOUh-fJSg&bvm=bv.41867550,d.b2I&cad=rja

I saw some members on XDA that were reporting LTE in San Diego. I kept telling them "Sensorly or it didn't happen!"

I think Robert wrote it for them. Sounds like what he's been saying to people over and over for the past 6-8 months or more.

No, that "mystery feature" has nothing to do with PRLs.

Many people including myself theorize the LTE available file is for your phone to "remember" the 1X base station IDs of where it found LTE. When you are in the area again it uses this to determine if it should scan for LTE more often or not.

4159 is not a roaming SID. It's a Sprint native signal. What I was trying to show with numbers might not make much sense when you look at it without names. But that is of course how it looks in the PRL.

So let's try it with names to cut some of the confusion.

Sprint 800SMR & Sprint PCS SIDs are in priority group 1. Your phone will look for 800SMR first then go to PCS afterwards. They are on the same level of priority so your device is content with either of the SIDs since they are on the highest level of priority for your Geo.

Lose signal and your device could land on 4279, let's call this one Cricket. It is on a priority of 2 combined with a roaming indicator. I have found with the roaming indicator it is more of like an aggressive "flag" for the phone to do whatever it takes to find a non-roaming signal. Since 4160, Verizon, is in priority 3, your phone will not acquire it unless all attempts to connect to a SID on priority 1 & 2 have been exhausted.

This is the norm since Sprint most likely receives a lower roaming rate with Cricket over Verizon Wireless. So it only makes sense to have the phones try to use Cricket over Verizon Wireless but still allow your customers have the roaming coverage of Verizon where Cricket is not available.

Great idea and solid article, digiblur. This was sorely needed. Hopefully, the article will become something of an Internet meme whenever people commonly misconstrue a PRL as a "list of towers."One clarification I have, though, is "Band Class 25." There is no such thing. Band 25 is on the 3GPP (W-CDMA/LTE) side for the extended PCS A-G block range, while band class 14 is the 3GPP2 (CDMA2000) equivalent. Band class 14 is basically irrelevant now, since we know that Sprint is not going to deploy any CDMA2000 in the PCS G block.AJ

Thanks for the kind words and fact checks, AJ!

Yes it was definitely needed on just about any forum. I was glad to be able to share a bit of knowledge I have learned and reverse engineered over the years.

Hopefully after the PRL articles are written all of you will be experts on PRLs.

To All, please take note that I will not be discussing how to create your own PRLs and/or load them with this article series.

I find it odd that they are spreading out the Ericsson guys in Louisiana when they already have plenty of catching up to do.

Kudos to getting a market jump though!

Still trying to figure out where they started in Baton Rouge...we were on the list at one time and but nothing started. Head scratcher... don't get excited that your city is on the list, get excited when you see someone actually working in your area.

Very cool to see them starting work early, as the quicker they get this done the more money it saves on roaming and backhaul costs. Probably saves them a few bucks on tower leases as well since there is less equipment. This kicks Ericsson in the pants as they are getting way behind day by day.

They stole the crew that was supposed to be in the New Orleans/Baton Rouge market!

Woot woot! I see BR, LA on there. I can't say that it is underway yet though, might have to go check out a tower that is supposed to have started.

Kinda funny to see this before the upcoming Apple thingy or as I say "yearly milking".

Interesting legacy panels, you can see the RF shields on those, instead of them being inclosed in the antenna. Not very aerodynamic for a low wind load rating!

So, in the New Orleans market (or, at least, in Baton Rouge), EV-DO F2 is PCS 0100, correct? What is EV-DO F1? PCS 0075?Regardless, removing or negating an EV-DO carrier channel assignment in the PRL should not have much, if any effect. As long as you keep the local EV-DO F1 carrier channel assignment in the PRL, then your handset will locate EV-DO. Once it does, it will still see the multiple EV-DO carrier channels in the channel list message, so will still invoke the hashing algorithm. As such, you still have about a 50/50 chance of ending up on EV-DO F2.Basically, the PRL controls only system acquisition. But once a native system is acquired, the PRL is set aside and the hashing algorithm determines the carrier channel on which the mobile will idle.AJ

The typical channels for 4159/51 are 25 for 1x and 75 for EV.

I kinda figured as much as I've tried playing around with the channels in a ACQ record before. I even went as much as one time removing the Cellular channels from the VZW EV scan and just left in the PCS ones. It still went to the cellular side.

I can never seem to just toggle airplane mode on my EVO LTE, after toggling the 3G connection never comes back. Its just falls on its face. A reboot fixes it.

Maybe I wasn't leaving my phone in airplane mode long enough but I could never get it to flip over in the past. I would have to do an update profile. Totally makes sense now though. I always thought the Site told the phone which channel to use on the evdo side as I have tried removing some channel scans from the evdo side of the prl. I understand why our channel 100 sucks all the time in the places where the towers have 2 carriers..The nearby sites don't have 100 so the phone is hanging on to the channel at the very low signal. A bunch of poor signal phones on the cell brings it to its knees..The poor tower spacing here gets us in another double whammy. Wonder if I can negative out channel 100...hmmmm