greenbastard

Very impressive, yet extremely stupid on T-Mobile's part. Band 12 should be left as a last resort band for users on the edge of service and indoors. If they are going to aggregate bands, it should be Band 2-4.

OK, so after the update there are a couple of things that are bothering me. 1. After every startup, I keep getting that annoying SD Card Media Transfer notification. Not really annoying now, but I can tell it will get old quick. 2. I've spent most of my day in non-Sprint areas this morning. Ever since the last update, I have yet to establish a data session with Verizon (which is another ordeal). So naturally, this morning I try to play with the roaming settings over and over again to see if I can connect (I coudn't ). To my surprise, Wi-Fi kept turning itself on over and over again while roaming. It is extremely annoying as our WiFi network is only for networking and has no internet. Also, everytime Wifi turned itself on, it reset my data roaming guard to ON over and over. Roaming on Marshmallow is a freakish nightmare . This may be a Connection Optimizer feature, but unfortunately I cannot find the settings to that anymore. It used to be under Network Settings, but its not there anymore. If anyone can find it, please let me know! 3. The Sprint Logo on boot up is annoying. Too much bright white. Also the Sprint/Roam notification is a bit weird, but at least that goes away with any notification (Thank God for SCP) Now for the good things... 1. My web browsers are no longer crashing! . Memory Leak BE GONE!!! 2. Phone was extremely slow at first, but now that it had most of the night to settle it is as smooth as it was under Kit Kat. Of course, Touchwiz will probably never work flawlessly on this phone, but at least its working better than it used to under Lollipop. 3. Some apps (mostly Airbnb and Kayak) used to take an eternity to start up. But now, they seem to work a lot better. Still slow, but a lot more tolerable. Things I have yet to test. 1. Bluetooth connectivity. Every update causes my Bluetooth to go haywire and I have to reestablish all of my connections with my headphones and vehicles. We'll see... 2. Battery Life. I haven't had a chance to compare battery life, but as of right now the Android System is eating up more battery than my Screen. This is probably due to all the rebooting I have done to the phone, but it is still something I will keep my eye on for the next couple of days. 3. Signal. This is one thing Samsung is famous for. Devices that are nearing end of life are usually thrown that last update that will trash rf performance. It happened to my S2 and it happened to my S5. I will keep a tab on that as well.

Choosing which permissions you want and don't want apps accessing is huge for me. For example, ESPN, Shazam and Spotify don't need to access my contacts or know my location. It was about time Google allowed us to take control on what we want and dont want to share with apps.

PCA

OK, so maybe that guy over at XDA wasn't full of crap. I'm downloading an 891.75 MB update at this moment. I'll try to upload it to a hosting site before I go to bed since I won't have time tomorrow to even touch my phone. Fingers crossed. May Samsung have mercy on our phones...

Those screenshots could also be from the Note 4. I'll wait to see the build and RDF before I get my hopes up. An update would definitely give this phone a longer life and quite possibly help me wait until Google releases their next Nexus on the fall.

Sometimes. Sprint is known to install and fire up B26 without tweaking its load balancing. As a result you and every triband Sprint phone will be using B26 most of the time unless you're really close to the tower. Houston was one of the first markets to get B26 and B41, but even til this day there are still load balancing issues. I'm assuming once Clearwire Equipment is decommissioned, Sprint will focus on network management.

Really? One time I called because I kept missing calls and my phone wasn't ringing. The rep immediately credited my bill for $20. It's not that hard to get credit if you're nice to them about it. But then again, this was before Marcelo announced layoffs so I don't know if the new call center will be willing to do that.

He would probably be given bill credit if he complains enough. Sprint reps over the phone are quick to offer you Bill Credit even for the smallest inconveniences.

I certainly don't think Sprint will be the first one to make that move if it comes down to it. But I wouldn't put it past a company like Verizon. But again, its highly unlikely that they do. All they have to do is increase the prices for unlimited to cover growing costs and enforce a soft cap to users who go over a certain amount of data.

Just to end the argument... Yes. You will lose the Unlimited Data for Life Guarantee promo if you switch. So if Sprint one day decides to transfer everyone to tiered buckets, you won't be protected (likelihood of that happening is unlikely...soft caps are the future for users with unlimited plans) Yes. A 23 GB soft data cap will be implemented to any new contract/user. Even your 'Unlimited Data for Life Guarantee' is subject to it if you decide to lease or buy a device through installments with Sprint. Sprint guaranteed you Unlimited Data usage, but the fine print has always stated that they hold the right to throttle you in order to manage their network. Unlimited Data usage does not mean fast speeds. Unlimited data is unlimited data even at 1x speeds.

I still roam from time to time when traveling outside the city, but that's only on rural roads. Most U.S. Highways and Interstates are covered here in Texas. Having said that, ever since the GS5 received the last security update, I haven't been able to establish a 1x data session on Verizon. Phone and SMS work fine though.

That's probably because most users have moved on to LTE phones and have left HSPA+ uncongested. I live very close to a T-Mobile tower and HSPA+ is usually faster than LTE now. I get 18 Mbps on faux 4G while LTE gets around 16 Mbps.

I think that doesn't matter since Sprint will probably just end up implementing this policy to everyone in a couple of years. As of today if you're out of contract on a legacy plan, then the soft cap doesn't apply to you. But one way or another, we will all soon have that soft 23 GB data cap. It's inevitable. So may as well jump in on a price cut while you can IMO.

T-Mobile holds part of the cellular band in Myrtle Beach I think.

I've noticed that B26 in my area has a terrible signal to noise ratio compared to B25 originating from the same tower. The full potential of B26 coverage has yet to be reached for Sprint in many areas. Unfortunately, speeds will take an even bigger hit when that happens if the network isn't dense enough and properly balanced on the network side. As it stands today, 3G evdo pulls at least 1 Mbps everytime in my area (which pre NV era was 0.10 Mbps) which is way faster than B26. Hopefully Sprint figures out load balancing once 8t8r Sprint equipment replaces Clearwire equipment.

Having worked at a public HS in the past, the biggest bullies aren't the students, teachers or administrators. No. The biggest bullies were the damn parents!

And it still gets bad during rush hour. Not as bad as back when it was six lanes only, but it's still bad. People in Katy may as well be living in East San Antonio. Houston would be better off getting rid of their HOV lanes and placing a fast Metro rail line in its place for commuters in The Woodlands, Clear Lake, Sugar Land and the Katy area. Or maybe stricter and harder driving tests for everyone since it seems like any idiot is allowed to drive now and clog up traffic.

Wouldn't the FCC run into potential spacing issues? If another station down the road also decides to not go into the auction, reshuffling wouldn't be as easy.

Midtown is one of the areas that both T-Mobile and Sprint need to urgently densify. Sprint works great for browsing, especially when you're drunk and eating at Mai's around 3 AM. T-Mobile I haven't tried as much since Sprint is my DD. Honestly, even though T-Mobile has wideband LTE on AWS, I don't think I would ever use it as a daily driver. As an Android user, texts are still relatively important to me and T-Mobile always seems to lose texts or have them arrive extremely late at times. And that entire Ella Blvd is a wireless nightmare for Sprint users (but a fatty's paradise if you know what I mean). It's quite odd since it is covered very well, but then again the hospital probably doesn't help. The tower that services the area closest to the freeway is physically blocked by the hospital's parking garage. Not much Sprint can do there since the area is pretty dense already with 3 towers in the immediate area of that fast food corridor.

So your entire family and friends check which band they are on religiously like us wireless nerds? I find you're being far-fetched in order to prove a point. But I'll give you the benefit of the doubt nonetheless. Unfortunately, I can say my B41 experiences are almost the same for Dallas, Arlington, Fort Worth, and Austin as of last year.

It's not 'mis information'. Those are the facts for Houston and the greater Harris County area. You may experience something different in NYC, but it is what it is in Houston. I'm not sugar coating the current situation just because this is a Sprint focused site. You may claim B41 works for you indoors 8 blocks away, but a Clearwire B41 tower (which is colocated with Sprint B25/B26) about 2000 ft away doesn't even penetrate my home. An 8t8r panel next to a grocery store can't get its signal past the frozen food section. In Houston, I'm probably only on B41 20% of the time indoors, and that 20% of the time is when I'm really close to a tower broadcasting B41 or outdoors. Head to head, T-Mobile beats Sprint in this market indoors. I usually average anywhere between 8-15 Mbps on T-Mobile (with slowest speeds around 2-3 Mbps and peak speeds around 40 Mbps). Outdoors, Sprint wins easily with speeds averaging 20-30 Mbps (with slowest speeds around 10 Mbps on fringe signal and 40-50 Mbps when getting extremely close to the tower). Butnin the end of the day, that outdoor speed victory is irrelevant in a Southern city with harsh, long humid summers.

From what I've experienced in the greater Harris County area, T-Mobile is faster than Sprint about 70% of the time. You may think he is a fanboy (and maybe he is), but he isn't wrong to say that the T-Mobile network in Houston is actually very good when compared to At&t and Sprint. Sprint's failure to successfully balance their loads has been their downfall in most of Southeast Texas. I can see Band 25 have speeds of up to 8-9 Mbps while B26 can't even establish a connection with a server to test. That's the life around some parts of Houston unfortunately for Sprint. Of course, when B41 is available, then it usually either matches or beats T-Mobile (even without CA). I actually can't think of a scenario where I've seen B41 get beat by T-Mobile's 20x20 AWS network. The problem for Sprint is that, contrary to what everyone here claims, B41 is an outdoors only network. I've seen some Sprint 8t8r panels around town, but they only perform slightly better than the current Clear equipment. Sprint can densify as much as it wants, but B41 suffers from enormous signal degregation inside buildings. Outside of putting actual repeaters in every city block, B41 won't go inside businesses/houses and can't be used by people indoors. I've seen a case of Sprint 8T8R equipment being next to a grocery store (HEB), but B41 can't even make it past the frozen food section before I'm bumped down to B25/B26. So while Sprint's B41 network is faster than T-Mobile, T-Mobile's wide band AWS network reaches way more places. This is why Sprint should attempt to at least gain low band spectrum in the upcoming auction or trade/buy midband spectrum. B41 just doesn't get the job done in my experience.

They should. Their HSPA+ is now just as fast as their LTE.

Who are we kidding, the US will probably be the last country to get the update and then Sprint will take it's sweet time releasing the update with its own bloatware. Since upgrading now switches you to the 23 GB unlimited policy, I may hold on to this phone as long as possible. Outside of touchwiz being slow, this phone still handles every app out there incredibly smooth. I just don't see a reason to upgrade right now. I don't need LTE roaming and CA is basically useless since band 41 is non existent indoors.