WHY would anyone pay 400-600 for a 3g phone?

[ddrueding]

Gmail is ironically not very good through an Android phone. Email is fine, but if I navigate to the site because I need to do folder management or look at an old message, none of the available views show me things I need to see, at least not with the builtin browser or Firefox for Android.

Interesting. I was having a similar problem, but I thought it was just because of my Android 1.5 lameness.

 

[Handruin]

Your fault for being on a service with data limits if that's important to you. Honestly, 5GB/month for most plans is probably plenty for the vast majority of users. The only way I could get above that on my other phone was if I tried really hard

Gmail is ironically not very good through an Android phone. Email is fine, but if I navigate to the site because I need to do folder management or look at an old message, none of the available views show me things I need to see, at least not with the builtin browser or Firefox for Android.

Would it sound like I was being a dick if I said: Your fault for picking a phone which limits a basic email feature, if that is important to you. lol

 

[Mercutio]

Would it sound like I was being a dick if I said: Your fault for picking a phone which limits a basic email feature, if that is important to you. lol

I'm not doing basic Email. It's completely fine for that. I needed to log in to delete a few thousand messages on a Google Apps account that was at quota. Turns out that neither Gmail Mobile nor the Basic HTML version of Gmail show the "select all" button or "select all messages in folder" for dealing with that stuff in an expedient fashion.

 

[Will Rickards]

You need to tell it to go to the full gmail site.
Not sure how you do that. But all these websites want to offer me the mobile version of their website and I want the full blown website as it works fine on my evo.

 

[Mercutio]

There's a setting buried in the menu options on the Android browser.

 

[Howell]

There was a time when one of the selling points of the AT&T network over Verizon was that you could be on a call and access the 3G network at the same time. I've just learned that this is also a limitation of the Sprint network. I also just learned that as a function ofthe way it works CDMA phone always use more power and thus drain the batteries faster.

Interestingly this means that the Verizon Iphone users will have a slightly different "iPhone Experience". I wonder how that will affect the iPhone's aura.

Also, I'm curious if the ATT signal problems near tall buildings Merc describes above is a function of some GSM technical limitation or ATT's cell placements. I don't know enough about microwave communication to muse intelligently.

From what can tell from here, GSM has a hard hand-off while CDMA has a soft hand-off and the soft hand-off reduces the likelihood of dropped calls. I think the inference is that GSM will never be a inherently reliable as CDMA and whatever the "dropped-call" situation is currently it is not going to change until we have a successor to GSM.

 

[Sol]

I wouldn't have expected that problem from Sprints WiMax network but CDMA will definitely result in a somewhat gimped experience for some iPhone apps. We're building an iPhone/BB/Android app at work at the moment and it will be severely limited when used on a CDMA network unless you have WiFi access at the same time. But most apps should be fine since most don't need to make or receive calls.

 

[Mercutio]

You can get calls if you're connected to the 4G network.

 

[LunarMist]

Wooooah, the Verizon doofus has an iphone now. :scratch:

 

[ddrueding]

Yup. The big controversy is whether the iPhone will suck as much on Verizon as it did on AT&T. That will decide whether it is AT&T's fault for having a crappy network, or whether it is the iPhone's fault for being so brutal with the network.

 

[MaxBurn]

Initial reports sound good, people are happy to note that NYC and SF voice/data coverage is far better for the VZW phone.

Looks like on the jailbreak front 4.3 is a whole new game and previous holes in 4.2.1 including the brand new untethered greenpois0n released today don't apply.

 

[blakerwry]

I was comparing top line phones in 3g and 4g, plus the Galaxy, at TMobile. The 3G just wasn't fast enough to do streaming video well, and web pages loaded pretty slowly. Reminds me of before broadband. I guess TMobile is onboard with the 4g network, and, they don't charge extra for it in their plans.
Handruin: Good article. Enjoyed it.

"Secondly, the "4G" you buy today is unlikely to be compatible with the "4G" of tomorrow. Right now "4G" is just a marketing term more so than a standard. When you buy in early you are likely to find that when 4G finally does make it widespread and to your area, that your phone is incompatible. A lot of early "3G" adoptors found this out the hard way as well. "

I wonder about this comment.

Anyone have any information on TMobiles' 4G?

4G is just going to be used as an excuse to charge you more for data while imposing data caps that didn't exist before.

Tmobile "4G" is actually HSPA+

http://consumerist.com/2010/11/how-fast-is-t-mobiles-4g-data-network.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/4G

I thought this was interesting, NPR talked about 4g networks a few weeks ago. There is apparently a "standard". However, none of the US networks meet that standard. I suspect that Stereodude is spot on. We won't see 4g for several years; needless to say, current phones don't support 4g if no 4g networks exist.

 

[MaxBurn]

That's because the 4G standard was developed well after they started deploying new equipment.

The suck part comes into play when they do start meeting the standard and still have to call it 4G. Consumer confusion will be rampant.

 

[LunarMist]

So which of the different pseudo-4G systems is actually faster, for example in downloading a 10MB file?

 

[Santilli]

My perception of fast might well be due to the Samsung Galaxy having a decent processor, vs. your average 500 dollar 4g phone...

 

[MaxBurn]

For a lot of stuff even edge is fast enough for me.