Sprint announces the EVO 4G LTE

[flyhighx]

So let me get this right. I pay $200 for the phone for 2 years, PLUS $10 additional per month for 4G, for a phone that may or may not EVER see a 4G area during it's typical two year lifetime? If it can't even do ANY 4G ANYWHERE (no wimax) right now, why should I pay $10 a month until they turn even the first LTE network on? If Sprint lights up LTE as slowly as many people think they will, people, this is nothing but a 3G phone for the likely duration of most people owning it.

I'm liking the phone, but having a hard time seeing it's relevance with sprint. If you don't live in Kansas city or one of the other extremely few announced LTE roll out cities, why would you get this phone only to see LTE be usable on it with a few months left in the phone's life cycle if ever?

 

[BergerKing]

Really disappointed in Sprint. They destroyed the gorgeous One X design and gave us yet another ugly black brick.

And what happened to the rumors of the 2650mah battery? I would much rather have a One X than this phone, it offers nothing new.

This is at least the fourth post I've seen you complain about 'it doesn't look like the other one' or 'Sprint screwed it up'. SPRINT doesn't make any phones. They don't design them. HTC makes the phone. And the majority of Android phones are indeed 'slabs' these days. Sprint got the Photon, which is one of the few newer Androids that can be differentiated from the
majority of the ones on the market without a lot of familiarization.

If they were all supposed to look trim and sleek, and exactly the same as what you expect them to, they'd be called Apples.

 

[BigDinCA]

So let me get this right. I pay $200 for the phone for 2 years, PLUS $10 additional per month for 4G, for a phone that may or may not EVER see a 4G area during it's typical two year lifetime? If it can't even do ANY 4G ANYWHERE (no wimax) right now, why should I pay $10 a month until they turn even the first LTE network on? If Sprint lights up LTE as slowly as many people think they will, people, this is nothing but a 3G phone for the likely duration of most people owning it.

I'm liking the phone, but having a hard time seeing it's relevance with sprint. If you don't live in Kansas city or one of the other extremely few announced LTE roll out cities, why would you get this phone only to see LTE be usable on it with a few months left in the phone's life cycle if ever?

The big difference: Sprint is rolling out the LTE network. They didn't deploy WiMax. Period. Clear did all of the groundwork, with a little Sprint help and a lot (a really really really lot) of Sprint money. When Clear got into financial straits we, the Sprint 4G users, took it on the chin. I think they learned from their mistake early on, as they were talking of launching the LTE network before WiMax was really off the ground. Even the deal they had in place with LightSquared wasn't for a full build of the LTE network. It was just for extra bandwidth on that seperate LTE network LightSquared was supposed to build. Sprint has had their own LTE network in the works for awhile now. They've talked about it for 2 years in shareholder meetings and in earnings reports. They have been planning for it, in a fiscal sense, for a long time.

I've been with Sprint continuously for nearly a decade. I've been screwed as much or more than the next guy. I also had Verizon and ATT at different times, for work, in there as well. I've been screwed by all of them. I have friends with Verizon and ATT still, and they complain about getting screwed all of the time. It's in our nature as tech consumers to want a better product and want it yesterday.

I bought the EVO 4G and the EVO 3D in spite of, not because of, the 4G network. Anyone who read up on it knew going in that WiMax was never a long-term solution and eventually Sprint would have to go with LTE. I'm glad it's happening sooner rather than later and I am comfortable in feeling that the LTE rollout will happen extremely quick, relative to the WiMax debacle.

Good God was I rambling on or what? Sorry.

 

[Dreamliner330]

I live in minneapolis and have 4g coverage that works pretty well. I've been relatively happy with the speed of 4g for daily use on a wimax. I am looking forward to lte.

As good as this evo looks, I think it will be in my best interest to wait a couple of months. Minneapolis should be getting lte before the year is over, and there will be many other lte phones releasing on Sprint soon.

I am interested to see what Motorola and Apple bring to Sprint in there next generation phone. I don't care about Samsung as I've been burned by their signal quality.

However if the display is anything other than lcd based, I won't buy it. AMOLED and Pentile look grainy with all the sub pixel shenanigans.

 

[flyhighx]

I live in minneapolis and have 4g coverage that works pretty well. I've been relatively happy with the speed of 4g for daily use on a wimax. I am looking forward to lte.

See, this is what I was talking about. There is a very good chance people in his position will buy the new EVO 4G LTE and not see a hint of 4G coverage until the end of not this year, but the end of the following year (2013). That is assuming of course LTE gets rolled out on schedule. In the meantime, I wonder how many customers (thousands, hundreds of thousands, more?) will by this phone and cease to get anything other then sprint's 3G service for all but a few months of the phone's life cycle if ever? In Dreamliner's case, let's say Minneapolis gets LTE in the summer of 2013, right in the middle of Sprint's LTE rollout timetable, you're talking about a whole year on only 3G coverage, and that could be longer. On top of that, Sprint will continue to charge them an extra $10/month for 4G service.

I was hoping this phone would include wimax for that reason. Sprint's 3G service is almost unusable for me lately. I've been with sprint since 1998 and will most likely leave for 2yrs and then maybe come back when they have a 4G service that serves my needs and deserves my money. I can't justify a 2yr contract now, $10/month premium on top of my monthly bill for the possibility of 3G service only.

 

[Dreamliner330]

Minneapolis will be getting LTE in by the end of this year. If you live in an area without LTE, get a WiMax device. Either the Photon or the Galaxy S2. Pretty simple.

I know it's not the best solution, but I'm not complaining. I pay a whole lot less on Sprint that I would on Verizon.

 

[smcolbert]

I know this isn't the first time or place this has been mentioned and I'm not the first person, but the $10 charge is not a 4G charge, it's a data charge. Go get a blackberry, an iPhone, a HTC arrive, ZTE fury, LG Optimus, any 3G phone has the charge. It's no different than big red or AT&T's data charge, except it's only $10 and it's unlimited instead of being capped or metered.

Sent from my Nexus S 4G using Tapatalk

 

[aviatordoc]

I know this isn't the first time or place this has been mentioned and I'm not the first person, but the $10 charge is not a 4G charge, it's a data charge. Go get a blackberry, an iPhone, a HTC arrive, ZTE fury, LG Optimus, any 3G phone has the charge. It's no different than big red or AT&T's data charge, except it's only $10 and it's unlimited instead of being capped or metered.

Sent from my Nexus S 4G using Tapatalk

I do disagree. If you look at the sprint packages , they do say unlimitted .... for x number of Dollars. And it clearly says unlim data there. So whats a data surcharge.
I am sure this argument has been made back and forth, but rest assured, that when sprint first intoduced it, it was for 4G, when EVDO was not charged and still had unlimmited data.

 

[crzycrkr]

I do disagree. If you look at the sprint packages , they do say unlimitted .... for x number of Dollars. And it clearly says unlim data there. So whats a data surcharge.
I am sure this argument has been made back and forth, but rest assured, that when sprint first intoduced it, it was for 4G, when EVDO was not charged and still had unlimmited data.

There's no argument, there's facts. The charge started with the EVO 4G an 5 or 6 no the later was applied to all smartphones. It has always been referred to as a premium data charge, and never a 4g charge. We all know it was started because of 4G, but Sprint never said that. They said it was for phones that use much larger amounts of data. They announced a few months after the EVO that the charge would be on all smartphones in the future.

Me, personally, I don't care. Spring t is still significantly cheaper than any of the other nationwide options. They could call it the keep data unlimited charge for all I care, lol

 

[BigDinCA]

There's no argument, there's facts.......

That's the truth. They never called it a 4G surcharge. The media referred to it as a 4G charge because it started with a 4G phone. I won't deny that they may have wanted it to be a 4G surcharge but saw the writing on the wall, within minutes, and reclassified it. It was always referred to as Premium Data.

 

[smcolbert]

The packages include data for regular phones, but you're not going to use several GB of data on your rumor touch, so there's no additional for those. If you have a smartphone with 3G or higher capabilities you could potentially use a much larger amount (I'm regularly at 6 plus GB) with no overages. How can it be called a 4G charge when it's on 3G only devices like the iPhone and LG optimus also?

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[anon(27512)]

Why does sprint get the good htc designs?!?!?

 

[crzycrkr]

Why does sprint get the good htc designs?!?!?

Lol, yeah, that Sprint HTC Hero was just beautiful compared to the original, lmao

 

[anon(27512)]

Lol, yeah, that Sprint HTC Hero was just beautiful compared to the original, lmao

Lol I see what you did there.

 

[smcolbert]

Lol, yeah, that Sprint HTC Hero was just beautiful compared to the original, lmao

Yeah, but that was literally their first android phone the Evo 4G is legendary, the 3D was great (in terms of design... Not many people use the 3D camera), the evo design (see what they did there?) was a brilliant form factor aside from camera bump, and I akways liked the build quality of the arrive as well. Windows phone aside.

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[crzycrkr]

Yeah, but that was literally their first android phone the Evo 4G is legendary, the 3D was great (in terms of design... Not many people use the 3D camera), the evo design (see what they did there?) was a brilliant form factor aside from camera bump, and I akways liked the build quality of the arrive as well. Windows phone aside.

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Just giving an example. I understand they want to keep it in the same vein as the other EVOs, but they could have taken some design cues form them while still modernizing the look in my opinion.

 

[Dakota 35-2]

Really people? Still going on about the look of the phone? Why whine about it, its not going to change, if its that big of a deal jump ship.

***Disregard any and all typos as my large thumbs cannot fit the keyboard correctly***

 

[crzycrkr]

Not whining, just discussing. How is anything to ever progress unless people voice their opinions? Discussing the lack of sophistication in the design is no worse than just blindly swallowing it because its the new best thing. I refuse to somehow talk myself into liking a poor aesthetic just because it's the best phone out there for Sprint users as others have done. I may still get it, depending on Samsung's offering this year, but its most certainly not going to be because of the aesthetics.

 

[Dreamliner330]

The only part of the design I actually dislike is the shiny plastic top. It cheapens the whole device, it should be metal and look just like the lower part.

 

[smcolbert]

It's important, but to me size, shape, weight, and distribution is all that's important as I always have some sort of case on my phone.

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