Well, while I was waiting for my EVO 4G LTE to arrive, I opted to get an unlocked galaxy nexus, and hooked it up with a $30 a month plan with tmobile pre paid 4g.
100 min voice + unlimited data + unlimited text (really 5 gig of data until throttle of course) about $30 and change in taxes a month.
I did this because I wanted to see what stock android was like, as well as compare tmobile signal to sprint signal around Seattle.
Plus, my epic touch 4g has been acting REALLY weird of late, losing charge MAD fast and not coming close to lasting a full day--on Thursday I was trying to charge the epic 4g and it STILL was losing juice even on the charger...although a reset and a different cable may have fixed that problem!
So..despite all the doom and gloom on the forums, the evo 4g LTE did eventually show up only a week late! (damn for being so impatient...) so now I have both to play with...for the moment...
So what do I think so far?
1) Galaxy nexus feels really good in the hand, especially with the diztronic TPU case. Perhaps its because I am coming from the epic but all the buttons on the sides feels natural and easy to reach. Also sweet to have charger and headphone ports on the bottom of the phone.
2) Stock android on the galaxy is clean and without bloat.
3) Decent tmobile coverage in seattle so far
4) Data speeds pretty good, but clearly this is not LTE version, fastest speed I got so far was 6 meg/s down and about 4 up. Wifi Speeds about 23 mg down and 20 up (I get crazy fast speeds at my highrise apartment in seattle)
5) You can totally see the 720p screen is sharper and nicer than most screens out there and much sharper than my epic 4g touch.
6) sound quality ok.
7) pictures ok but not great...panaroma is very nice
8) the lack of an SD card storage is bad. GSM/UMTS verzion is only 16 gig storage (more than I probably need but less than I want!)
9) Why no Gorilla glass??? Sigh
10) GSM/UMTS/HSPDA samsung phones are better than their cdma phones? I keep hearing about how bad the epic touch 4g cdma is...and I admit it seems to take a while for the radio to kick it once I lose a wi-fi signal.
About the Evo 4G LTE
1) The screen is amazing, but I still had a hard time viewing in sunlight today. Side to side yes its better than nexus galaxy, but its not a massive difference.
2) Sense. Ugh. It does provide some neat functions, but it does feel like its trying too hard. Compared to stock on the nexus it sort of makes me understand why stock is so popular in custom roms.
3) Obviously the lack of LTE is a major downside to the phone. Seattle won't get LTE for a while longer. To add insult to injury the LTE card is buried in the phone unlike verizon or ATT. Not sure why they did that.
4) sealed battery...lack of options in terms of extended batteries or swapping an extra battery. At least it does have an SD card slot--and 64 gig class 6 cards do work if you format it!
5) Sprint network is still sprint network. Some places its ok, others bad. Download speeds on 3g have been pretty miserable (not sure if any different from evo3g or epic 4g touch).Wifi speeds on
evo have been amazing--on my wired connection I usually get 90 to 100 mps download and about 65-80 mps upload...and the evo 4g lte is the SAME on wireless! so yes, its amazingly fast on wifi (new chips obviously) and I wonder how fast LTE will be. But will be a while.
6) Voice quality ok, hd voice is not here yet though
7) does not feel as good in hand--got my diztronic tpu case today which helps (prior case was not good) but harder to reach power button, I seem to hold power and volume at same time when reading to tap power button--why didn't they put volume on left side of phone or lower on the phone on the right side? Sheesh. Just does not feel as good in my hand as the nexus.
8) battery life? too soon to tell, thursday was bad but only had partial charge and I tried downloading larger file on 3g which was a huge mistake...
9) Camera? I seem to be having some weird issues with it--seems like the white balance is off...will need to play with it more, the capacity to take so many pics so fast is impressive, as well as video and pics at the same time...not sure it has as many options as the epic touch 4g though
So far...not sure if I will keep it. Might be easier to battle with nexus on tmobile, and its a true world phone since it not quad band but penta-band....
the unlimited lte data might come in handy depending when sprint gets it...but..how will it impact battery?
Lots of unanswered questions...
Others post your eexperiences!
100 min voice + unlimited data + unlimited text (really 5 gig of data until throttle of course) about $30 and change in taxes a month.
I did this because I wanted to see what stock android was like, as well as compare tmobile signal to sprint signal around Seattle.
Plus, my epic touch 4g has been acting REALLY weird of late, losing charge MAD fast and not coming close to lasting a full day--on Thursday I was trying to charge the epic 4g and it STILL was losing juice even on the charger...although a reset and a different cable may have fixed that problem!
So..despite all the doom and gloom on the forums, the evo 4g LTE did eventually show up only a week late! (damn for being so impatient...) so now I have both to play with...for the moment...
So what do I think so far?
1) Galaxy nexus feels really good in the hand, especially with the diztronic TPU case. Perhaps its because I am coming from the epic but all the buttons on the sides feels natural and easy to reach. Also sweet to have charger and headphone ports on the bottom of the phone.
2) Stock android on the galaxy is clean and without bloat.
3) Decent tmobile coverage in seattle so far
4) Data speeds pretty good, but clearly this is not LTE version, fastest speed I got so far was 6 meg/s down and about 4 up. Wifi Speeds about 23 mg down and 20 up (I get crazy fast speeds at my highrise apartment in seattle)
5) You can totally see the 720p screen is sharper and nicer than most screens out there and much sharper than my epic 4g touch.
6) sound quality ok.
7) pictures ok but not great...panaroma is very nice
8) the lack of an SD card storage is bad. GSM/UMTS verzion is only 16 gig storage (more than I probably need but less than I want!)
9) Why no Gorilla glass??? Sigh
10) GSM/UMTS/HSPDA samsung phones are better than their cdma phones? I keep hearing about how bad the epic touch 4g cdma is...and I admit it seems to take a while for the radio to kick it once I lose a wi-fi signal.
About the Evo 4G LTE
1) The screen is amazing, but I still had a hard time viewing in sunlight today. Side to side yes its better than nexus galaxy, but its not a massive difference.
2) Sense. Ugh. It does provide some neat functions, but it does feel like its trying too hard. Compared to stock on the nexus it sort of makes me understand why stock is so popular in custom roms.
3) Obviously the lack of LTE is a major downside to the phone. Seattle won't get LTE for a while longer. To add insult to injury the LTE card is buried in the phone unlike verizon or ATT. Not sure why they did that.
4) sealed battery...lack of options in terms of extended batteries or swapping an extra battery. At least it does have an SD card slot--and 64 gig class 6 cards do work if you format it!
5) Sprint network is still sprint network. Some places its ok, others bad. Download speeds on 3g have been pretty miserable (not sure if any different from evo3g or epic 4g touch).Wifi speeds on
evo have been amazing--on my wired connection I usually get 90 to 100 mps download and about 65-80 mps upload...and the evo 4g lte is the SAME on wireless! so yes, its amazingly fast on wifi (new chips obviously) and I wonder how fast LTE will be. But will be a while.
6) Voice quality ok, hd voice is not here yet though
7) does not feel as good in hand--got my diztronic tpu case today which helps (prior case was not good) but harder to reach power button, I seem to hold power and volume at same time when reading to tap power button--why didn't they put volume on left side of phone or lower on the phone on the right side? Sheesh. Just does not feel as good in my hand as the nexus.
8) battery life? too soon to tell, thursday was bad but only had partial charge and I tried downloading larger file on 3g which was a huge mistake...
9) Camera? I seem to be having some weird issues with it--seems like the white balance is off...will need to play with it more, the capacity to take so many pics so fast is impressive, as well as video and pics at the same time...not sure it has as many options as the epic touch 4g though
So far...not sure if I will keep it. Might be easier to battle with nexus on tmobile, and its a true world phone since it not quad band but penta-band....
the unlimited lte data might come in handy depending when sprint gets it...but..how will it impact battery?
Lots of unanswered questions...
Others post your eexperiences!
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