The Dave

It was a lot better than the T-Mobile Wing that I had before it. I am excited about this phone and the other triband phones coming. I will probably end up getting whichever phone comes out first. My Evo 3D keeps freezing, going into infinite boot loops and the hour worth of battery charge is getting annoying. I just hope they get rid of that blink feed or whatever HTC calls it. When I looked at the One, I couldn't get past how much it reminded me of WP8. I do like the stereo speakers on the front. I imagine that would pair nicely with the giant screen to make for Netflix nirvana.

I can't wait to see 800 in St Augustine. Most of the sites here trail off to 1x or just barely reach before the next tower gets picked up. I would love to see a constant strong signal and no more 1xRTT or "metropcs/verizon" roaming for a half a block before the next tower gets picked up.

The rumors all say dual sims, but with the size of the thing there is no reason why there wouldn't be a way to have an SD slot. I also feel a track pad would be more useful than a fingerprint scanner. My Samsung Moment's home button doubled as a track pad and it was useful since on smaller windows and Web pages it was easier to use the track pad than selecting or scrolling through things with my fat thumbs.

I would have to say just try to stay patient. When I was told that St Augustine was upgraded and I checked the maps and saw it was more or less there, I was discouraged that speeds and signal were about the same. It took a little time before I noticed the difference. It takes time past when the upgrades are "turned on" to tweak and adjust everything and as others have mentioned in other threads, the 3G side is usually brought up in clusters and not as each site is upgraded. I started noticing that webpges were loading faster, there was less delay after I selected things and my signal seemed to stay more consistent. Now, speed tests show sub 100 ms pings and my speeds are consistently very nice. Plus, as more people use phones that can use all three of the bands, it will lower the burden on each one since it won't be 100% traffic on PCS. It will get better, just try to stay the course.

I remember the cool thing to do was wearing a Motorola Startac around your neck like some techno bling.

Not trying to argue, but technically the original poster said he was hoping not to pay for a service he wasn't receiving. That 4G charge was the reason why it caused a rift for a period of time that some still cling to in non 4G markets saying they have been paying for 4G that wasn't delivered to their market.

I am not arguing that Sprint wasn't justified in charging for a smart phone's share of data. But, when I was upgrading from my 3G only Samsung Moment, the rep clearly stated if I got the Evo, I would pay the $10 4G premium but if I got a non 4G smart phone, I would keep my current bill. Because of that, Sprint specifically designed it to be exclusively a 4G add on. Later on, they made it more broad by calling it a premium data add on and charging it to everyone. Since Sprint reps now deny it is a 4G charge causes the confusion and bitter feelings since customers during that time frame were honestly told it was for 4G but now everyone insists they must be mistaken.

Just an update, they fixed that tower that was screwy. I guess at least someone here has their GED. Not sure why signal check would see my signal past the limit before, but now I am between - 79 dBm and - 103 dBm, kinda just jumping around now.

When I first got my Evo, Sprint charged me a "4G data charge". We didn't have wimax yet and I did argue why I was forced to pay for a service they said wouldn't be available in a year. A few months later they did change the name to "premium data charge". The problem is, Sprint won't admit they did refer to it as a 4G charge, so people to this day get confused on this point. Now, I cannot speak for LTE since I have a wimax phone, but 3G has been everything I thought it should be back when it first came out. I get pings in the 60-90 ms range and speeds up to 2.5 mbps at times. It is truly faster than my wimax 4G speeds and more consistent. I am not sure about the 20% increase in range, but I do get much better signal in some places. I live in a stucco house wrapped in metal wire with double glazed low e windows and get a full 6 bars. Pretty impressive if you ask me.

I find that most stealth sites just look silly. The fake pine and palm trees are really ridiculous when you have this lone palm tree sticking 150 feet above the rest of the tree line with proportionately stubby leaves compared to its size. The flag pole sites I have seen are so thick with comically massive flags to attempt to blend in with their size. Personally, I like nice monopole tower. I am a tech guy to the core so when I see a high tech looking panel with fiber optic cables running down it makes me feel warm inside.

Giggity

I would think a dedicated section for device reviews would be useful. I personally feel I can trust a review from someone here over someone at cnet when it comes to a critical look at the devices that come out. That way, someone knows when to avoid a dud such as the Evo LTE with its poor signal issue.

I can see that T-Mobile is trying to position itself as the speed king of the urban jungle, but as some have pointed out, what do they classify as urban? St Augustine may be considered a small town, but we are the oldest city in the country and we get a massive amount if tourists who visit all of our museums and shops. We have a college here that brings in people from all over the country. We have the World Golf Hall of Fame with 4 championship golf courses. We have the only IMAX theater in the region. We have a super Target, a super Walmart, Bed Bath and Beyond, etc. Yes, I drive by cows to get to my house, but once you pass those cows, I live in a community where the average house price is $450,000. I got rid of T-Mobile because once I got home, I had emergency calls only and I was tired of overpaying AT&T for a landline. At least Sprint has the good sense to have a tower right in the middle of both my community and the one across the street. I guess Sprint realizes the value of having service where they feel customers would need the service...despite being in the middle of a field of cows. Edit...not to mention that tower has 4G LTE :-D

The 3G in St Augustine is getting a lot better, too. My signal strength is 1-2 bars higher than it used to be in the areas I normally visit and a "bad day" for 3G is more like 0.6-0.7 Mbps down instead of 0.06-0.07 Mbps down...I have a half dozen tests that are well over 2 Mbps, even (that is faster than my WiMAX 4G has been many times, with lower pings, too). There are still a couple of towers according to the maps that are still the red "3G only", one that is "in progress" and a few that are "4G only", so there is still work to be done and 800 MHz still needs to come out, but until I can upgrade to a tri band LTE phone, the 3G has been pretty exciting to me.

So far all the recently released devices have felt underwhelming to me. I am beginning to think that the manufacturers also feel there is no point in releasing higher end devices until they can release them with the newer bands since those of us who would consider buying a more expensive model will be looking for that.

All I know is that I am very curious and interested in what comes up with mobilesolutions in the next year. If I can dump Comcast, I will name my first born after him. I hope and pray it isn't Egor or Herman..

My calls have been dropping and all data connections time out in two locations in St Augustine after the NV upgrade. It turns out they were installed incorrectly. Fortunately, when I asked Sprint, they even completed my sentence and were aware of the issue. Perhaps they denied the airwave since they know it is temporary while someone fixes whatever went wrong with the install

I have a personal goal to accept that offer.

I am still learning how to spot different carriers, but it looks like Sprint on the top and AT&T on the bottom. I don't think Verizon has RRUs by their panels.

I normally notice the flagpole and fake tree sites are near highways, so I imagine they are more positioned and tuned to serve road traffic than the population in the local area.

Karma is a beoch

I have only had Sprint and T-Mobile as carriers, but my dad had laughable Bellsouth service that became an even worse Cingular service, which is now AT&T, so I doubt I'd ever want to try them. T-Mobile was okay but issues with losing signal even inside metro areas here in Florida and their family plan was outrageous on price compared to Sprint. Besides slow 3G, Sprint has always had excellent signal everywhere I go and the only time it cuts out is in places even Verizon cuts out, so I can't ever complain that Sprint isn't a strong network. Now with network vision, data speeds are becoming as strong as their voice service. I doubt I would leave Sprint, nor do I imagine many others will once the build out is basically complete. If they keep to their current culture of offering competitive pricing and stay ahead of technology like I hear from the Softbank leadership, Sprint will have few defectors and can become the premier carrier in this country.

Since the 4g term seems to be used liberally by carriers saying something is 4g when it is more like a transitional technology, and from what I understand, until LTE advance is standard, we aren't truly 4g, I imagine it won't be long before we start seeing 5g being thrown around.

Sounds nice. I am sure Verizon also dropped their pants on pricing to snake a 130k device contract from Sprint.

By the way, I also enjoy using this app. In the 5 years I have used android, this is only the second app that I have actually purchased. Keep up the good work, I can't wait to use it once I have an lte phone.