koiulpoi

And yes, I was just illustrating my frustration at the time, I'm actually not remotely prone to 'Hulk SMASH!' knee-jerk reactions or outbursts at all in actual real-world practice. *g*

It's uncanny how many people will say things like "I'm about ready to smash this phone!"

What's worse are those who actually do.

For the first several days I had the phone, that 'feature' was annoying and irritating to the point of almost wanting run over the phone with a steamroller and bashing my head into a wall.

While I am certain you are using hyperbole, I do not recommend that as a solution to your problems. The $150 ERP deductible just to get the same phone, well... doesn't seem worth it.

 

While I do agree (I've used the phone for a bit), not only has the phone (the only one that does that) not seem to have been a very big seller, I have yet to have a single customer ask me about it, or even mention it. Most have no idea that WiFi is even a thing you can do. Most also regularly clear out the "29 updates available" notifications they get from Google Play, as well as "System Update Available" ones...

Yep, you can "use the hell out of it" right up to 2 GB or 6 GB when you pay an extra $19.99/mo or $49.99/mo, respectively, for a mobile hotspot plan. Otherwise, your use is clear abuse.

 

AJ

But... then why would he need to be rooted or jailbroken? And why is he talking like tethering is unlimited?

just me feigning innocence that's all

However, Verizon is not deploying their LTE 750 on every site. Whereas Sprint is deploying LTE on every site in their network.

 

Robert

Absolutely. Does VZW have LTE on any frequencies other than 750? Because, observing their coverage maps, I'm very certain the same tower Sprint uses (a few hundred feet behind where I work) is also leased by them. That, and I haven't seen anything else that could be it.

 

Perhaps LTE 800 will work out well anyways, as it is, like you said, on every cell tower. We need something like that here. Beautiful scenery... until you look at it from a cell provider point-of-view. Then it's a nightmare of hills and trees and farmland and metal buildings.

About what I expected, honestly. But...

Getting consistent 140 would be a blessing in said parts of this market. I don't even think LTE 800 is really going to help this market much, as VZW's LTE 700 doesn't even reach to most of these places (at least, as far as I've seen; don't have a device to do extended testing on)

There are places in the market I live in where Sprint service barely reaches. Places where roaming on VZW happens at least half the time, and even that, barely. Towers are sparse; this is a rural area, and 4G LTE will only reach so far out of town. And yet it's covered in Sprint customers, many thanks to iDEN migrations; areas where Nextel voice worked fine all day every day.

 

I'm expecting that 1xAdvanced (and, perhaps later, LTE) on 800 MHz will alleviate some of these problems, at the very least getting voice to everyone.

 

So my question is, what kind of data speeds can be expected on 1xAdvanced? Similar to 1XRTT on Sprint now? Faster? Slower? Not at all?

Go to a corporate-owned Sprint store and demand a white box/RF test.

 

Actually, the S3 might not be compatible with that test... let me know.

Splashtop and various cloud services, so I can carry my desktop in my pocket.

 

Oh, and OnLive/Onlive Desktop.

The Motorola Photon was the best performing Sprint phone I ever owned.

Too bad it was locked down and didn't have much dev support.

I loved my MoPho when I had it. Ran CM9 on it since day 1 of ICS community support. It was an amazing phone; I could drive through areas marked as the fringe of "roaming" on the coverage map and still pull a 1X Sprint signal. Trust me, there's a lot of those around here. It was a marked difference going to the EVO LTE, I tell you what. We sold a decent number of them to people around here for just that very reason. I kinda regret that, looking back, as those people won't be able to take advantage of ESMR, and this area needs that extra coverage desperately.

i wouldn't mind paying say 10 bucks more a month if we were allowed hotspot usage (say 5gb a month).. seriously, it's 2012 and data should be dirt cheap.. if i were CEO i'd include 2GB of free data hotspot on everything plans and $10 extra for 5-6GB of data. i would probably do something crazy like $1/GB. i can only imagine what an advangte sprint would have over the other carriers if they steped up the game weren't so greedy like the other carriers when it comes to data.

Well, considering Sprint's current data overage charges are around $50/GB, I'd say that would be a vast improvement. You really don't want to go over on a hotspot on Sprint.

Gvoice isnt available in Puerto Rico. it doesnt send calls to voice mail. I meant to say that in order to make my phone fetch my text messages from the network that I have to make any sort of phone call. and for that I use my voice mail. After hanging up the phone call, all the messages that were sent to me are actually received by the phone.

Oh, I didn't mean that. In your OP you said phone #3 was constantly sending incoming calls to voicemail. That, plus the SMS issues, usually point to an issue with the phone keeping connected to the network, usually only seen in fringe areas (at least around where I live). How does your 1X signal strength compare to other phones?

Does it still send all incoming calls to voicemail?

 

Have you tried Google Voice? It uses data instead of SMS for texting, and I find it works better overall. Not to mention, it takes over your voicemail, which works better than Sprint's. Now, this would be a "bandaid" fix, not an actual one, but it might just work well enough to make you happy.

Have her call care (*2) and have them refresh the phone. If that doesn't work, have them file a network ticket.

Try... Phone -> Dialer -> ##UPDATE# -> Dial

Basically the same as a profile update on other phones. If that doesn't work (or fails)...

Settings -> General -> Reset -> Reset Network Settings

Should make things happy again.

So, um, what exactly are the Administrative and Regulatory charges? I understand what the other ones are for - funding (E)911, funding programs like Assurance Wireless so everyone has access to emergency services, etc. Those I am glad to pay. But the Sprint ones specifically... that explanation never sat with me that well.

 

And, just checked my own bill. I'm not paying Administrative and Regulatory here in MI. Just the universal access charges, which go towards the aforementioned "obamaphone" programs (goodness I hate that term).

So I take it to mean that Sprint may only offer me a Galaxy Nexus or GS 2 in exchange for my Viper which is suffering from the same symptoms as the 1st one I had?

That is unlikely. Customers have noted that phone replacement lists are usually not inclusive, and may even change over time.

 

I can't confirm, the manager said those were the only phones the system would allow for an exchange

This is likely true.

but I was told by the tech that corporate stores(the manager I'm dealing with is from a corporate store here) were able to make exceptions to offer exchanges for any type of phone as long as there was a problem with the original model the customer bought.

This is unlikely. You'd probably have better luck through Care, all things considered. Unless this whole issue has already resolved itself.

My guess is it mucks with something internal to make the phone display more signal bars than you actually have. I've had to "fix" more than a few phones for people that had the issue of "no bars"... even though they had zero actual network issues. They just wanted more bars on the screen.

Wait, wait, wait. You mean it is supposed to be pronounced like "el-tee-eee"? And here all along I have been saying it as "lit-eh."

 

 

AJ

You have no idea how many people I've had ask me what I think about the "New EVO Lite" (or light, or whatever they're thinking). People's brains put an extra letter in there to try and make sense of it.

 

As a side note, I'd say most people around here still have no idea what the differences between an SD card and a SIM card are.

As an aside aside, an SD, a SIM. That's how I say it, anyways. es-dee, sihm.

A quick Google search and I find the following reference page:

http://www.gpuss.co.uk/english_usage/a_or_an.htm

The first thing they say is "There are two schools of thought..." meaning both are correct. Language is funny like that anyways, as it is less hard and fast than many people would leave you to believe.

 

Personally, I say "an LTE".

We performed testing on 1x and EVDO on 800, 850 and 1900 as well. The EVO LTE is definitely a weaker radio performer than several other Sprint devices. But it is mid range over all in total radio performance. But I wouldn't necessarily attribute this to a weak radio. It could be related to its metal back construction, and other factors.

 

Robert

Ah, I see. Well, you must admit "weak radio" sounds better than "sucks at getting signal dagnabbit"

 

At any rate, I remember reading that there was a multiple device comparison of radio performance article that was being written, but I can't seem to find it. Did it not get posted, or am I just bad at searching? This sort of information is quite interesting to me.

As I said, I cannot comment on LTE performance, especially compared to 1x and EVDO. When the two EVO LTE's I have access to trend around 5-10 dBm worse reported 1x signal strength than, say, a Galaxy SII or Motorola Photon, claims of a weak radio start to sound more true. This is definitely noticeable in areas of fringe service, where I may show "no service" or roaming, and others can make calls by pulling down -101.

 

Perhaps it's merely defective hardware, and I should just swap mine out.

What can you tell us about the sprint known issues database? Does Sprint acknowledge the LTE connection issues people are talking about with the EVO LTE?

Sadly, I cannot confirm or deny anything. Not like I have any authority (I'm just a S&R tech in a store), but I do rather like my job, and it has been made clear to me on several occasions that sharing information from the KI tool is immediate termination.

 

All I can speak of is my own experience, as I own the device. I've never hopped on LTE service myself, but the EVO LTE has a weak radio in my opinion. It can be inferred from public-facing information (search XDA, if you're really curious) that Sprint and HTC have acknowledged said problems, as the last Baseband/PRI addressed LTE connection issues.

Even the official updates tend to be buggy.

Ain't that the truth, if the Sprint Known Issues Database is any indication. Naturally, I can't tell you anything about it without losing my job, but the fact that it exists... well, that should tell you something.

I haven't missed Flash since I moved on up to CM10.

 

And let me tell you, CM10 is a dream compared to stock ICS. This phone turned from "yeah I guess it's decent" to a powerhouse by switching to something AOSP-based with Jelly Bean.

 

Sure, it has its bugs, but that's what happens when it's not official.

I will likely turn on tethering to fill in at work when our awful AT&T U-Verse connection goes out. Rather annoying to have your internet go down when your entire operation (including your VoIP phones) works over the internet. This way, we could at least keep processing sales and whatnot. I've done it before on 3G, but it's unbearable for certain operations.