ericdabbs

Awesome pics. Keep up the good work guys.

According to briefmobile it looks like Sprint will be using embedded sim cards at least for this phone to access the LTE network. I am still not sure if this is a good thing or bad thing. One thing is for sure its still gonna suck not having the ability to switch even among sprint phones on the fly and of course with other carriers.

I still don't understand the reasoning as to why Sprint likes to do things out of the norm. Lets just hope that the Galaxy Nexus and LG Viper have real sim cards like Verizon and MetroPCS.

http://briefmobile.c...for-lte-network

Any word on SVDO support on all Sprint 2012 handsets? That would be a nice feature to have so that way ATT cannot make fun of Verizon and Sprint for not being able to talk and surf on 3G with CDMA.

2000 maH battery = WIN!!!

4rings..when was this LG LS-831 phone FCC approved? I hope this is not the phone that will be launched this fall. I want that Windows Phone in the fall to have LTE service as well as the Windows Phone Apollo OS preinstalled.

Edit: It looks like this was approved back in Oct 2011. Seems like such a long time to be released after being approved about 6 months ago. Hopefully it gets launched soon.

Josh...I think the problem is that physical keyboards on large smartphones adds thickness which is a no-no in terms of smartphone trends. All the manufacturers are striving for thinner and bigger screen smartphones especially to compete with the iPhone. While I agree with you that there are still individuals including yourself that would like to see a smartphone that has all the features of a high-end smartphone but with a physical keyboard, the market demand just isn't as high as it was once before.

I used to be like you in that I loved the physical keyboard on the smartphone because to me it was easier to type text messages, websites or anything that requires word entry but the more I used the onscreen keyboard, the more I got used to it and probably would not get a physical keyboard anymore. Not to mention that the physical keyboard smartphones are thick as heck.

Hopefully more markets get bumped up. There are plenty of markets that need to be accelerated to catch up to AT&T.

I think that it would be a good idea to partner up with the RCA folks for a LTE network sharing agreement. This way Sprint could get more revenue from the LTE network sharing and hopefully gain some more access to PCS spectrum from the regional carriers.

Looking from the outside, my biggest concern is that though this is a great idea, a 5x5 LTE carrier is not enough to support Sprint's own postpaid customers let alone allowing more regional carriers to come in. If Sprint can manage to gather enough spectrum to have at least a 10x10 or even better a 15x15 LTE carrier then I think Sprint should go for it.

Finally Arizonians can breathe a sigh of relief. It never made sense to me why Phoenix was so low on the totem pole. To be honest, I would have expected Phoenix to be in the early to mid 2nd round announcements. Hopefully as time goes along we can see more markets being accelerated and looking forward to Sunday's chat.

We still use the Nextel service quite a bit here. Be interesting to see how the coverage fares after those sites are decommissioned.

Has you ever considered trying out the Sprint Direct Connect service through CDMA as an option? Might be a good time to start looking into it.

Nice to hear progress on this topic. I think that the iDEN thinning of towers has been often overlooked as a key piece of Network Vision of reducing operational costs to help Sprint's balance sheet.

Hopefully some time in early 2013, we can hear the good news that the entire iDEN network has been decommissioned which will pave the path for LTE at 800 Mhz.

Wow great news. I just hope that more markets jump into the first round. Seems like Ericcson and Alcatel Lucent are rocking with Network Vision progress with the majority of the first round markets but Samsung is lagging behind. Hopefully Samsung can make up ground and have more first round markets.

It's possible that they may choose to deploy an additional 3x3 LTE carrier on 800 in these SouthernLINC areas to supplement the 5x5 LTE 1900 carrier. That's a distinct possibility. But not one that we can confirm definitively at this time. But if we do, you can guarantee you'll hear it here!Robert

Well I really hope so since Sprint really needs to take advantage of any available spectrum to supplement its 5x5 LTE 1900 carrier. Even a 3x3 LTE carrier will help with in building penetration even if it is slower speeds and they have the capability to do so.

I just really hope that Sprint does FCC testing for both CDMA/LTE on the entire 817-824 Mhz to account for both a 5x5 LTE or 3x3 LTE carrier.

It appears like a lot of the southeast states will only get a 3x3 LTE carrier at 800 Mhz.

It would be nice to see in the future if sprint could somehow buy out the 809-817 Mhz, 854-862 Mhz spectrum to expand their 800 Mhz holdings once iDEN goes away and any other users of that spectrum. Maybe Sprint could buy out SouthernLinc in the future.

I wonder what phone cases are available by Freedompop for this Wimax thing. Due to the huge amount of phones out there, I can't imagine Freedompop supporting that many phones.

Its always nice to see that Sprint is still committed to windows phone 7 lineup. Hopefully a nice Nokia WP7 phone hits this fall.

ehh maybe though ist not really an ARM 15 as from what ive read Qualcomm does their own thing and it is greater than A9 but less than A15 in a sense...When that Tegra4 comes out then you can't compare to any current S4 as there is no quad-core MSM variety S4 out yet...and not set to be out till beg next year...I'm okay comparing the tegra3 versus the current used S4 MSM8960 as your comparing a newer tech 28nm tech dual-core versus the older 40nm A9 quad. It makes things interesting there as you need to see its not all about cores in the device and its about the whole entire package offered in the SoC...

Actually what I think you are eluding to is what I proposed in comparing the Tegra 4 vs S4 since by then both chips will be running on A15 processors and be 28 nm. Tegra 4 will be quad core and S4 is dual core. If what you are saying is true in that its all about the entire SOC package, then the S4 should be on par with or if not better than the Tegra 4. That will really show that the S4 architecture is really superb in that it doesn't need a quad core in the Tegra 4 to get the same performance in a dual core. I can bet that if they did a test of the S4 Krait vs an OMAP 4 chip with 45 nm, that the S4 chip will blow it out of the water as well. The OMAP 5 is the chip that should be in comparison and not the OMAP 4.

By comparing the Tegra 3 vs S4 there still puts doubt and other variables in whether the huge performance increase is from the lower die size, A15 processors, architecture. From what I have been reading, the S4 seems to have a significant increase in performance to the Tegra 3. What is not to say that Nvidia could come back with the Tegra 4 and blow these guys out of the water.

I am loving the results of the S4 and the progress these chips are making with performance. Lets just hope we can get some benchmarks for the OMAP 5 and Tegra 4.

THIS!!!sooooo many people tend to overlook the 28nm in the S4 vs the 40nm in the tegra3...its not all about the # of cores in the device anymore now that they are going lower in the process with 28nm and even lower int he future...Only thing i HATE is the none removable memory!!! WTF. Thats the one thing Sprint should of made HTC bend over and put removable storage in the thing...Thats one thing that I can't overlook. extra Dropbox storage means nothing if you can't stream from it...

Its not only just that but comparing the Tegra 3 vs S4 is not a fair comparison because not only is the Tegra 3 (40nm) vs S4 (28 nm) but the fact that the Tegra 3 uses ARM-Cortex-A9 processor vs S4 uses ARM-Cortex-A15 processor. To me comparing the # of cores and the die size between the chips doesn't mean much and what I really think makes the difference between the chips is the ARM-Cortex-A15 processor. It goes to show how much the power, improvements and performance the ARM-Cortex-A15 processor has become.

I really wish tech enthusiasts would stop comparing the Tegra 3 vs S4 or the OMAP 5 since its not apples to apples. The Tegra 4 coming out later this year will be quad core, 28 nm die size and will be using the ARM-Cortex-A15 processor. Once the Tegra 4 comes out, then I would like to see a comparison between Tegra 4, S4, and OMAP 5.

I wonder if it would be possible for HTC & Sprint to get Qualcomm to speed up the Quad-core S4 chips to get them to market quicker...Maybe get it into this device?

I don't believe that Qualcomm is set to launch any quad core chips this year since I haven't read any news nor has Qualcomm made any announcements at the big conventions like CES and MWC. I looked on wikipedia and I see a quad core S5 chip set for launch sometime for Q1 2013 but this date is obviously preliminary.

Wow I am really impressed so far with these phone announcements. The HTC One series will be a strong lineup for all carriers this year.

Please let there be a Motorola Photon 2 with LTE!!!!! If Robert says "Stay tuned!" for that, I am going to go nuts pressing F5 all day.

Ah this answers my question about the LG Viper. I can't wait until both these devices launch. I will definitely be heading to a Sprint store to test these devices out. Sprint has yet to release any devices since late last year and I hear a lot of customers are getting antsy about new devices and even thinking of switching carriers just to get some of the new devices.

Hopefully there are more device launches to come to keep the customers' feet wet.

I hope Sprint is using sim cards for LTE phones. I don't want to let Verizon's outages be the reason to be different than the rest of the wireless industry like they always seem to do. I am tired of Sprint doing that.

I am curious if MetroPCS uses sim cards for their LTE service. If so then Sprint has no reason not to implement sim cards. Sprint cannot afford to experiment with sim cardless LTE service with Network Vision.

Robert, any news on the LG Viper? Is that going to be released any time soon?

If you get info like this for the LA Metro market, I would gladly volunteer to drive around and do speedtests.

chips already support 2500/800LTE, that is NOT the reason. this has been discussed in great detail multiple times on here. Qualcomms chips support the frequencies so its NOT a chip issue in the slightest....Its more of a hardware limitation space issue as they run out of space for needed antennae in the device with each band they want to support...It also has NOTHING to do with it "not being ready yet." If that were the case then like I mentioned above the EVO3D would NOT of been certified to use the 800MHz in the future b/c when the device was released at that point in time they were not set to open 800MHz up to it until end of 2013-2014 if I recall correctly...So why would they include this on the EVO3D even though they knew it would of been over 2-3yr away from being able to be used? 2500LTE will be up and running by next June already in over 5K locations...That puts 2500LTE on a shorter time frame than the EVO3D being able to use 800MHz band...Seeing 800MHz LTE will NOT happen till iDEN is shut off or moved over to make room, and that puts that time table past when we will see 2500LTE according to Clearwire....

so you answered your own question... Yes I have heard about the lack of space in the phone for additional antennae.

If that was the case then the EVO3D wouldn't of gotten 800MHz approval when it went through FCC before it was released...Theres some other reason here as to why 800LTE/2500LTE are not included....

The reason is simple. 800 LTE and 2500 LTE is not included because its not ready yet. 2500 LTE is not even ready since there are no chipsets out there that can support it hence the China Mobile agreement with Clearwire to establish standards. I don't think any customer really expected phones would support 2500 Mhz in 2012 though. Most expected 800/1900 Mhz support.

As for 800 LTE, it was probably tested in the labs and maybe some FIT testing but since the 800 Mhz band isn't completely cleared yet to deploy LTE, why would Sprint include 800 Mhz LTE support. I am totally fine with the 2012 phones not including the 800 Mhz and 2500 Mhz LTE bands.

Think of it this way, why hasn't AT&T and Verizon added LTE support in the AWS frequency bands when its obvious that is where they plan to deploy additional LTE carriers. Its simple...its not ready yet.