exadyne

Is this measured by hardware only or hardware and software? I've been told Nexus 5 has top RF test results, but a quick search in the Nexus 5 forum shows it's been mired in reception problems. My N5 reception is better than it ever has been, but I can't say it's the best phone I've had reception with. 

 

Bottom line is reception is an equation involving the hardware (phone and towers), the drivers and the network and how well they all play together.

I believe it based purely on the FCC reports that show the hardware's radiated energy. The characteristics of look like the GS5 so it seems likely to perform about the same.

Any site anywhere that is performing below capacity is a priority site for new equipment. Then after all the sites that are performing below capacity is overlaid then they'll start focusing on other sites starting from urban areas and spreading out from there. 

I understand that. I'm just having a hard time picturing Durand as a location that is under performing. I don't have a band 41 device, nor access to the S4GRU maps, so going by Sprint's maps, it looks like MI has no Band 41 up yet. It seems surprising that Durand could be near the front.

Haven't heard of the $50 promo. How does one go about doing that?

Too late at this point in the year, but it might run again next year:

http://www.bestbuy.com/site/mobile-phones-promotions/gift-card-reserve-offer-details/pcmcat293000050015.c?id=pcmcat293000050015

Durand? Seems like an odd spot to put Band 41 equipment. I'm guessing this was planned before Marcelo's new marching orders to prioritize high traffic locations? Or are highways part of the high priority for Band 41? 

Anyone preordering with best buy to try and get the $200 gift card from them?

I intend to.

I just tried online with no success.  Apparently the pre-order with trade doesn't allow in store pick up on the website.  The online rep I just chatted with specifically stated that the GC is available in store only and not able to be used toward the GN4 purchase.  Any one know otherwise.  I am hoping he just didn't know because he isn't in the stores when these things launch and is just not familiar with the process.

In the past I've done Best Buy's register your phone and get a $50 gift card when you upgrade. When I did that, they applied the $50 right there towards the phone's purchase price. 

Correct.

 

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The only brick and mortar store I could imagine offering a lower price would be Sam's Club, and that only by a matter of dollars, not matching Verizon / AT&T's $299.99.

Unfortunately, Sprint seems to know they can pluck an extra $50 out of Galaxy Note users on their network. Don't know why they do this to Galaxy Note in particular, and not other popular phones.

One could assume it will drop at some point, but I can not share specifics of future price changes. That is an instant termination of employment. Best Buy does price match competitors for same devices. If another retailer is selling the Sprint Galaxy Note 4 for $300 it can be priced accordingly.

 

 

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It has to be brick and mortar retailer though, doesn't it? I know BB price matches some online stores, but contract mobile devices are an exception to that according to bestbuy.com.

For $300 above the Note's premium price, it best come with CAT 20 and connect to towers in the next state.

Let's just go for Cat 8 and have a phone that is all antennas.

I don't make device recommendations, personally.  But maybe someone else will.  But no device is future proof, and getting rid of your EVO should be a high priority.  For most people, CA on B41 will not be a big deal.  Maximum speed of 75Mbps, versus maximum speed of 150Mbps doesn't seem all that big of a deal.  However, if you were on B41 at the edge of service, it could be the difference of 10Mbps instead of 5Mbps.  So I guess there's that about CA.

And this is of course assuming the tower is free to provide two carriers to you at the given moment.

Also, did you mean cat 4 instead of cat 6?

No one has time in the interim.  And by the time we do, it is likely past relevancy.

Can you give the cliff notes of it while it still has relevancy?

Best Buy has their preorder page up for the Galaxy Note 4, but it is only showing AT&T right now. Their page says "Get a $200 Best Buy gift card at time of purchase with trade in of any working smartphone." which I assume overrides the $200 you can get from Samsung, but heck, no mail hassle.

http://www.bestbuy.com/site/promo/samsung-galaxy-note-4-128435

AJ and Robert are supposed to be working on an article on the N4 so I hope it comes soon.

 

Hate to say but it seems like the iPhone 6 has awesome RF performance, even better than the Nexus 5, and the Note 4 may just be so so like the S5.

 

Samsung can make a good RF device (S4T) but they are probably too busy programming touchwiz to care about top RF.

 

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I'd imagine that since the only real feature of the S4T was RF, they were going to push it for all it was worth.

You would think they'd have a lot of room to work for RF equipment given the size of the Note, but like I said before, I think they tend to recycle the RF stack out of Galaxy S devices.

Judging by this article on anandtech and from what we've seen on other Snapdragon 805 phones i would imagine it should be a cat6 capable MDM9x35.

 

http://www.anandtech.com/show/8465/samsung-announces-galaxy-note-4-hands-on

 

Can't imagine why they didn't enable carrier aggregation...

Sprint Datasheet for it says it packs the MDM9625, which is cat 4. While cat 4 can do carrier aggregation, it can't do more than 20mhz aggregation, which would be necessary for Band 41, the only band Sprint is doing CA in right now.

NM, noticed this was posted before the datasheet. For some reason the forum sent me to a different page than the newest in the thread.

would it change at all if we said surfing the net? No video or music... It should be a lot more ppl than it takes to saturate a band 25 site right?

Still a lot of factors in that. What does saturated mean? Are all users in just sector of the tower. Saying band 25, are you refering to just LTE, not the rest of PCS used by Sprint for CDMA? How much spectrum is the hypothetical Band 41 licensed for?

For the general case, yes, Band 41 is going to support more users. For Sprint LTE in Band 25, you're looking at a 5x5mhz carrier, where as Band 41 sites are generally all 20mhz carriers, so each Band  41 carrier has twice the bandwidth, and Band 41 sites might have multiple carriers.

Anyone else familiar with Best Buy trade in program? I have an extended battery on phone (I'm looking for the original and original battery door), and I wonder how much, if any, it would count against trade in.

Ah, I thought the N450 was yours. If you owned it outright, I couldn't see why you'd bother spending on a new one at this point, but since it is TWC's modem, yeah you're probably better off getting one of the surfboards list by others.

I wonder if you can trade in an old EVO wimax get the $200 total credit and do easy pay.

 

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The way the ad is worded, Samsung won't honor it unless you can get at least $10 in trade in credit. Sprint won't let me check without a serial number, but Best Buy offers $8 at most for it.

Can you turn the router part off and use the N450 as just a modem to a new router? The N450 already is DOCSIS 3.0, not much point on buying anything now since no one is selling DOCSIS 3.1 modems.

https://samsunggalaxypromotions.com/Note4/

 

Interesting offer.  I wonder if the handset would have to be active to trade in.  That maybe wouldn't be a great deal for a Note II, might be able to get more on eBay, but buy a cheap used handset worth $10+ and trade that in?  Hmm.

Wow, that's awesome. I was going to hang on to my S2 / 4g Touch, but if I can really get Samsung to give me $200, I'll take it. Reading it, it looks like a loophole might be if Best Buy won't accept my phone at all as a trade in.

As far as the original poster or anyone else who can't wired service to their house, I suggest you go to your township hall or city hall. Ask to see the franchise agreement signed with providers and see what it says about guaranteeing coverage. Charter cable covers my area and when I moved in, they told me they wouldn't offer me cable even though my neighbor had it. I got the franchise agreement that said they have to provide coverage to every lineal mile that has at least 5 residences, which was true for me. I then told them I'd sue if they didn't install, and I wouldn't sue for the to install at my house, I'd sue for the township to be free of their contract.

WiMax isn't horrible, LTE had plenty of initial problems too, it is just a matter of WiMax didn't receive the development LTE did. Take a look at the characteristics of WiMax2 - it isn't that far off from LTE-A. As I see it, most of the reason the industry wanted LTE was politics - LTE was developed by 3GPP group, and so is a cellular trade group. WiMax came from IEEE.
Most of the things people complain about WiMax are actually problems with Sprint's WiMax network. Most of the real problems with WiMax that made it lose to IEEE are things users never even really experienced or would realize.

If it ends up being only CAT 4, people should sue for false advertising. The add says Cat 4 or Cat 6, not only Cat 4 or only Cat 6. Maybe then they'd bother making their phone pages accurate for the specific carrier. 

makes sense and thank you I guess I was curious if they have to test/approve CA if it's technically two 20mhz chunks. Not to mention most of what AJ and others say is way above my knowledge level so I need the tech for dummies version.

 

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Yeah, I was hoping one of them would chime in as well. I tried looking up the Galaxy S5 LTE-A edition in the FCC docs to see if I could find what carrier aggregation would look like, but I didn't see anything in its docs about it. In fact, the Galaxy S5 LTE-A edition seems to only support channels up to 10mhz in the US according to the FCC doc.

can someone be more specific to what document shows this info. Not trying to be difficult just trying to learn as these documents are very complex with a lot of info to decipher. Also it would help to see a comparison to a device that is CA approved to help see the difference. I understand it's a lot to ask so if no one is interested in providing no worries.

 

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The problem is it requires showing what isn't there, which is a lot harder than showing when something is there.

If you take a look through the list of LTE bandwidth tests for different MHZ (LTE Test report, page 34), you'll see the channel bandwidths. None of them is above 20mhz. Sprint's Band 41 is all in 20mhz chunks, so using two carriers would require 40mhz. I believe that is one of the signs that there is no carrier aggregation, but someone more knowledgeable can chime in over me.