Paying Full Price

[japetty]

LOL... personally, and family plan wise, I have never seen so many dropped calls from cell phone provider as I did with AT&T. That was enough in a major metro area to make me drop AT&T after only ONE two year contract... never looked back and never wanted to go back, AND NEVER will go back.

I have heard with their GSM service this is true. I can't say about at&t GSM, the at&t service I had was years ago and when I changed as at&t didn't like me roaming on other carriers so much I changed my service to GTE and never had bad service with them.

 

[fatboy97]

I have heard with their GSM service this is true. I can't say about at&t GSM, the at&t service I had was years ago and when I changed as at&t didn't like me roaming on other carriers so much I changed my service to GTE and never had bad service with them.

Good for you... but if my family can not make phone calls using a cell phone company then they lost my business and I will never make a recommendation to use them ever again... and that is just the basics that a cell phone company needs to do now a day. I guess I shouldn't even try to talk about how bad the service is outside of a large metro area.

 

[StuartV]

What is the different between the regular S4 and the Google edition?

I think the AT&T and T-Mobile S4 phones are not fully interchangeable. But, the Google S4 will work fully on either carrier.

In other words, the Google S4 has all the radio frequencies to do LTE, HSPA+, etc on either carrier. But, I think the AT&T version does not have all the radio frequencies to work fully on T-Mobile, and vice versa.

 

[s44]

I think the AT&T and T-Mobile S4 phones are not fully interchangeable. But, the Google S4 will work fully on either carrier.

In other words, the Google S4 has all the radio frequencies to do LTE, HSPA+, etc on either carrier. But, I think the AT&T version does not have all the radio frequencies to work fully on T-Mobile, and vice versa.

No, they're the same hardware. AT&T just has a software lock on some of the radio connections to keep you tied to their network.

Just like on the Note 2 (or S3!), you should be able to get around this by flashing T-Mo firmware (including the radio) to the AT&T model... or would be abe to if the bootloader weren't locked. There's possibly also a service menu workaround.

Both the Google and the T-Mo version have all the bands enabled for HSPA and LTE on both US carriers.

Incidentally, the Verizon model has the band for T-Mo LTE (AWS), because that's what Verizon's next LTE build-out will be on. So if/when T-Mo rolls out LTE and refarms 1900 to 3G in your area (the two go together), you should be able to use the Verizon S4 pretty much without limitation on T-Mo.

Translation: if Verizon ever takes away my unlimited LTE, I'm taking my S4 to T-Mobile.

 

[318sugarhill]

I think the AT&T and T-Mobile S4 phones are not fully interchangeable. But, the Google S4 will work fully on either carrier.

In other words, the Google S4 has all the radio frequencies to do LTE, HSPA+, etc on either carrier. But, I think the AT&T version does not have all the radio frequencies to work fully on T-Mobile, and vice versa.

Yes AT&T tmobile S4 are the same. Would cost Samsung more to manufacture separate phones for each carrier unless they HAVE to....like verizon. But everything else being the same except the inside also saves on manufacturing costs. The carriers are the ones that lock the phones to their frequencies....towers. My HTC rezound is GSM capable but not unlocked to work on tmobile or att