Smartphones

  • Guest, it's time once again for the massively important and exciting FoH Asshat Tournament!



    Go here and give us your nominations!
    Who's been the biggest Asshat in the last year? Give us your worst ones!
jeydax

jeydax

Death and Taxes
1,416
941
Well, the issue started for me when I landed in Tampa, but my phone was acting REALLY weird at the airport before we took off. The internet said full 4G yet data wouldn't work at all, for instance. We took off, landed in Tampa, and I had to use my innate sense of direction to get to my destination like some sort of animal. I figured maybe it was just fucked from traveling but I have never had the issue traveling to Portland, Kansas City, Vegas or LA for work... so... wtf?

We'll see how it behaves when I drive home tonight.
 
Tarrant

Tarrant

<Prior Amod>
16,038
9,477
Two days ago in downtown Minneapolis on my work G2

rrr_img_64862.jpg
 
meStevo

meStevo

I think your wife's a bigfoot gus.
<Silver Donator>
6,568
4,846
Not sure what it is, but really itching to move from Android to Windows Phone. Would miss Hangouts and Tapatalk, though sites are getting better w/ mobile skins these days and there's the sub-par Board Express.
 
Vaclav

Vaclav

Bronze Baronet of the Realm
12,650
877
Tarrant_sl said:
Two days ago in downtown Minneapolis on my work G2

rrr_img_64862.jpg
Click to expand...
When Triband/Spark was still working right here I was getting something like 55/30 with a similar ping out here near Towson, MD on the M8 - although it did vary by which part of the neighborhood I was in even seemed going one street over could cost a ton of speed. Hopefully the wonkiness is shortlived though. Sprint Spark is definitely the shiz when it's working right and you're in a sweetspot though.

[And note, for those not realizing what he's referencing - the LG G2 is a Sprint Spark enabled phone as well]
 
Joeboo

Joeboo

Molten Core Raider
8,157
140
xadion_sl said:
Is spark just sprints name for their lte?
Click to expand...
No, I don't know the exact name for the technology behind it, but it's an upgrade to their LTE. Not every phone that is LTE compatible will be Spark compatible, it takes different hardware to run.
 
Kirun

Kirun

Buzzfeed Editor
19,673
16,088
meStevo_sl said:
Not sure what it is, but really itching to move from Android to Windows Phone. Would miss Hangouts and Tapatalk, though sites are getting better w/ mobile skins these days and there's the sub-par Board Express.
Click to expand...
Windows Phone is great, if you just want a phone to browse the web, text/make calls, and a few other miscellaneous things(Word, Excel, Office 365 integration, etc.). On top of that, Nokia phones are just fucking incredible from a hardware standpoint. Hands down the best smartphone I've ever owned from that aspect.

The issues with Windows Phone arise if you rely on any of your more "popular" apps on Android/iOS, outside of Facebook. App support for Windows Phones is abysmal. I'm really contemplating stick with Windows Phone in December, once my contract is up. I can't stand the lack of app support, but the hardware on Nokia's phones keeps drawing me back in.
 
T

The Ancient_sl

shitlord
7,386
16
Kirun_sl said:
Windows Phone is great, if you just want a phone to browse the web, text/make calls, and a few other miscellaneous things(Word, Excel, Office 365 integration, etc.). On top of that, Nokia phones are just fucking incredible from a hardware standpoint. Hands down the best smartphone I've ever owned from that aspect.

The issues with Windows Phone arise if you rely on any of your more "popular" apps on Android/iOS, outside of Facebook. App support for Windows Phones is abysmal. I'm really contemplating stick with Windows Phone in December, once my contract is up. I can't stand the lack of app support, but the hardware on Nokia's phones keeps drawing me back in.
Click to expand...
^
Windows Phone has a great OS. Not great enough to sacrifice some of the things that make my phone a smartphone.
 
Vaclav

Vaclav

Bronze Baronet of the Realm
12,650
877
Apparently there's 3 bands you can do LTE on, Spark enabled devices can use multiple LTE bands at once to theoretically get three times LTE speeds in a perfect situation.

I think their statement in the press release was 1Gbps was theoretically possible in a perfect storm or something? (note Gigabit for that though I think, so 128ish from what speedtest would report I think?)

That's why it's easier to just call it Tri band though. Definitely the term the industry will use in general if the others do it.

It's been problematic for me locally recently though personally. So many users added from GS5 launch seems to be causing overload versus the capacity they have or something.
 
Lenas

Lenas

Trump's Staff
7,595
2,307
Kirun_sl said:
I'm really contemplating stick with Windows Phone in December, once my contract is up. I can't stand the lack of app support, but the hardware on Nokia's phones keeps drawing me back in.
Click to expand...
Update your phone to 8.1 and see what you think.

I was getting ready to jump ship to Android but now I'm back on board.
 
Tarrant

Tarrant

<Prior Amod>
16,038
9,477
joeboo_sl said:
No, I don't know the exact name for the technology behind it, but it's an upgrade to their LTE. Not every phone that is LTE compatible will be Spark compatible, it takes different hardware to run.
Click to expand...
Vaclav explained it well enough. Sprint has three different frequencies they broadcast, their old iDen network (800MHz), 1.9 (GHz) and TDD1-LTE at 2.5GHz (Clearwires old spectrum). Sprint owns over 80,000 towers nationwide (now twice as many as any other network) now because of it and they are now working and consolidating all those onto single towers instead of only having one broadcast one piece of their spectrum. They named their triband towers "Spark". What it enables people to do is hop up and down to different frequencies for optimal speeds depending on range to the towers and also takes network congestion into account as well. Those towers once fully functional and once the bugs are worked out will be fantastic, it's just a matter of getting there. The fact that the FCC refused to allow Sprint to have their old network towers operational while they built the new towers to replace them is the root to all Sprints network issues for the last year.

Sprint is the first to make the move, Verizon has been scooping up some spectrum to go through the same transition in the future as well.
 
Vaclav

Vaclav

Bronze Baronet of the Realm
12,650
877
Indeed - it was heavenly for the 2 weeks it worked - was faster loading webpages than loading them on the FIOS in the house with Spark - even doing voice searches and such it was quicker versus manual searching. I look forward to it being back.
 
jeydax

jeydax

Death and Taxes
1,416
941
My GPS seems to have resolved itself after re-installing FasterGPS... or maybe that wasn't it. But it is working fine now.

I ran a speed test on my Verizon phone earlier near the airport and was getting 34.5 Mbps. Did I miss something or what was so good about the Sprint one?
 
Tarrant

Tarrant

<Prior Amod>
16,038
9,477
jeydax_sl said:
My GPS seems to have resolved itself after re-installing FasterGPS... or maybe that wasn't it. But it is working fine now.

I ran a speed test on my Verizon phone earlier near the airport and was getting 34.5 Mbps. Did I miss something or what was so good about the Sprint one?
Click to expand...
The speed test I posted was with the tower just running a quick test. I posted it here just show that Sprints speeds are intact improving.

I've seen others of in the 60's for networks that are about to fully roll it out.

Also Airports are a bit different, their towers are optimized for ridiculous speeds.

Verizon has had reliably fast speeds for awhile, they currently lack that ability to do what sprint will be doing which will have (in theory) the single most stable network in the nation once it's rolled out. Verizon wont be far behind though to do the same thing that Sprint has been doing, it wont be as diverse though unless they pick up more spectrum.
 
Tarrant

Tarrant

<Prior Amod>
16,038
9,477
Yes, and Verizon is pretty pissed about it (semi rightfully so) because when the FCC does its spectrum screens to determine who owns what and who owns more then whoever they don't include Sprints 2.5 GHz licenses in their spectrum screens. The reason for this (begin to get technical) is that the 2.5GHz spectrum is also used by broadcast radio services and educational broadband service. Sprint doesn't use all the useable spectrum on that wave, but they use a huge chunk of what could be used for commercial use. If the FCC counted it, Sprint would technically own more spectrum than every other provider.

So as far as Verizon is concerned while Sprint is a "smaller carrier" in terms of subscribers, they are a monster when it comes to useable spectrum and to limit Verizon and AT&T but not Sprint is a huge slap in the face to them. I'm sure you'll see a lot of push back in the near future.
 
jeydax

jeydax

Death and Taxes
1,416
941
Tarrant_sl said:
The speed test I posted was with the tower just running a quick test. I posted it here just show that Sprints speeds are intact improving.

I've seen others of in the 60's for networks that are about to fully roll it out.

Also Airports are a bit different, their towers are optimized for ridiculous speeds.

Verizon has had reliably fast speeds for awhile, they currently lack that ability to do what sprint will be doing which will have (in theory) the single most stable network in the nation once it's rolled out. Verizon wont be far behind though to do the same thing that Sprint has been doing, it wont be as diverse though unless they pick up more spectrum.
Click to expand...
I should clarify and say by airport I meant in Highland Park... but fair enough. I travel quite a bit for work and in other areas T-Mobile in the past has sucked out of the metro area (just my experience) but that was a few years ago. It is mind boggling still that anyone can get 30+ Mbps regardless of area.

Verizon's speed is actually WORSE when at the actual MSTP airport, for anyone curious.
 
Abefroman

Abefroman

Naxxramas 1.0 Raider
12,595
11,939
So I'm having a problem with my Galaxy S4. Entirely at random it decided it can't recognize the sim card and has to reboot. This can happen with it laying flat on a surface or in my pocket. I did a little research online and this seems to be a problem with the S4. I have phone insurance with T-mobile and was wondering if I should go through them and probably get fucked with some deductible or go through Samsung since it is still in the 1 year warranty period. Now I do have Jump with T-mobile for the upgrade things but I really like the phone and don't really see anything out there worth starting payments over again.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.