For starters i love this phones hardware. Almost all of the hardware specs of this phone are excellent. The 1ghz CPU by qualcom is a very good choice, but not quite a bleeding edge chip. Having a dedicated gpu would have been a better choice for the resolution and processing requirements of the other parts of the phone (gpu's can accelerate alot more than games).
512MB ram is a good choice and certainly enough for most needs. However ram is super duper cheap these days and i'd much rather have 1gb of good system ram than 1gb of extra storage space(which is what the evo gives us). the 4.3 inch screen is certainly sufficient, and in this space i dont think there really are much better panels resolution and aperture wise available.
I have certainly enjoyed playing with the 8MP camera in video and snapshot mode, but it also has its flaws. Being very sensitive to light the framerate (in video mode) can go from whats looks like(because i have no way of actually checking) lower 20's to less than 10 frames per second. Also while the 8MP sensor allows for nifty resolution it does not make for the cleanest image(in both video and snapshot mode). Due to lower quality optics being used and very little logic. I've found that flash also seems not to fire in correct sync with the (non mechanical IE FAKE)shutter of the camera sensor. Causing blurred images even with the flash on, I even attempted to circumvent this problem by manually setting the iso mode in the camera options to no avail. Also i really love the back facing camera and i would love it if i could actually use it for something.
I dont like fring its ugly and buggy, i dont like QIK. I dont know what it is, i just know i wont like it(J/K). It honestly never even occured to me that skype was not available for android yet (dont even mention that verizon peice of garbage). And it looks like we get it either until the end of the year. If even then (for video). I have had some opportunity to try out video on evo. And while some videos look good they are often not the right ratio and leave the screen largely empty. Some videos had obvious framerate & sound sync issues. Even on youtube. Let me go ahead and say i have not even played with HDMI, fm radio, or bluetooth. None of these do i really use, However i do like lots of extras and you cant go wrong with any of those. I tried only a few games out primarily raging thunder 2. I was not impressed by this games performance in the slightest. I would expect a 1ghz phone to be able to outperform atleast a Nintendo DS. I believe this part calls for a facepalm. I believe im supposed to thank HTC and their infinite wisdom for the 30FPS cap on the phone.
As for the 4G. I live in north dallas inbetween several major urban area in small residential housing area. Before signing up for my evo one quick trip to the sprint website and a little bit of address information would have me believe that im lit up like a christmas tree for miles all directions with 4G connectivity. Only after purchasing and bringing the phone home to realize i have no 4g connectivity at all do i back to the sprint website and go back to my coverage map. Yup see there i am all green, oh wait what is that? when i zoom in all the sudden the maps starts looking like swiss cheese. As i zoom all the way down my exact house do i see im not covered at all. Upon further testing i found that many areas that say they have 4G do not infact have 4G at all. After finding a 4G tower less than a mile away from my home. I drive to the tower to test my phones capability. Speedtest avarage download being 4300kbps or 430Kilobytes per second or about 4mbps. And upload averaging almost exactly 1000kbps or 100 Kilobytes per second or 1mbps. Well bellow the stated peak limit of 10mbps for downloads, and 1.8mbps peak of uploads. Mind you im sitting right beside this tower. I get much further from my home wifi. As i start driving, toward my house. I lose coverage in less than half a mile. Upon further consideration of this 4G technology i dont think its ever gonna work(right). I cant imagine them putting up enough towers to blanket a city yet alone suburbs or rural. There just is'nt enough real estate. I want to love this device, however this phone needs alot of love, and up against the onslaught on new phones just over the horizon, it needs it quick. Otherwise this could easily end up a dead end long before it ever reachs maturity. I have only owned my phone for 10 days. I will return it(if major upgrades dont happen soon) and go back to a peice of crap metroPCS phone for another six months while i wait for either this phone to get its act together or jump on one of the new LTE phones from the competition. Also i'd like to ask, what would you guys prefer a new single network connection combining all voice and data functions like the new LTE network verizon/metropcs is designing with possibly less bandwidth or a multiple network IE seperate voice and data connections with possibly more bandiwidth. Please consider all the known implications before replying. Lets keep this critiquing unbiased as possible please. If theres anything major please feel free to let me know.
And all i wanted was video conferencing.
Metathias
How did you locate the 4g tower closest to you?
notmike said:
How did you locate the 4g tower closest to you?
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I drove around till i got 4g signal Then meandered my way around following signal strength til i could see it. Never got full bars for 4g until i had line of sight. It was a big tower too. Still only covered about 1/2 to 3/4 of a mile.
4g upload is capped at 1mb
where is the map you can zoom on? can't seem to find it.
supdawg said:
4g upload is capped at 1mb
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Where does it say that? Mine is 1.3-1.6 normally
I can't believe I read...
that entire message. I must be off to wash my eyes!
Don't post stuff like this without an industry source. As far as I know, this is not true. I often get 1.7 in downtown Chicago.
supdawg said:
4g upload is capped at 1mb
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Sent from my PC36100 using XDA App
Read it.
GumboChief said:
Don't post stuff like this without an industry source. As far as I know, this is not true. I often get 1.7 in downtown Chicago.
Sent from my PC36100 using XDA App
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It's been mentioned by Sprint, Most Blog Sites, and Many other People. It has been shown on upload tests through SpeedTest, DSLReports, etc that its capped at 1MB or very close to it.
Please provide a screen shot of 1.7Mb/s upload as I have not seen that either and I have fast 4G where I live.
Here is from the developers site about cap.
http://developer.sprint.com/site/global/home/4g/wimax_experience/wimax_experience.jsp
Next time I am on Michigan & Randolph, I will run a test. I dont have it in my current log as I blanked my phone last week for whitslack rom.
mrmomoman said:
It's been mentioned by Sprint, Most Blog Sites, and Many other People. It has been shown on upload tests through SpeedTest, DSLReports, etc that its capped at 1MB or very close to it.
Please provide a screen shot of 1.7Mb/s upload as I have not seen that either and I have fast 4G where I live.
Here is from the developers site about cap.
http://developer.sprint.com/site/global/home/4g/wimax_experience/wimax_experience.jsp
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For those getting > 1mb, that may change in the future. I know 4G is capped at 1mb here.
supdawg said:
For those getting > 1mb, that may change in the future. I know 4G is capped at 1mb here.
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My speedtest was on June 17th, when going to see my eye doctor. I am really curious to check, now.
Sent from my PC36100 using XDA App
Okay this is a HUGE a huge disappointment to me. I have a Netgear b/g/n router and it seems to drop the N connection (where I get 3/4 bars) and return to the g connection (1/4 bars) and limits speeds to 5mbps. Please tell me I am not the only one with this problem and that it will be fixed. I know I've not heard this problem before...
P.s. I am sitting in the same room with my Xbox Slim and it maintains n the whole time, so no, I don't think its my router...
Wow. Almost 50 views and no comments. I wonder if it's just mine. Anyone know the exchange policy at Costco after 2 weeks?
Ive heard some wireless routers advertised as N can only really support one wireless N connection at a time.
Shouldn't have gotten a netgear router.
Droidicus said:
Okay this is a HUGE a huge disappointment to me. I have a Netgear b/g/n router and it seems to drop the N connection (where I get 3/4 bars) and return to the g connection (1/4 bars) and limits speeds to 5mbps. Please tell me I am not the only one with this problem and that it will be fixed. I know I've not heard this problem before...
P.s. I am sitting in the same room with my Xbox Slim and it maintains n the whole time, so no, I don't think its my router...
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Why do you need "N" to work? Do you have internet speeds that fast? Are you getting dsl or cable running at 300mbps? I mean thats the only logic for wanting N on your phone, to have the internet be that fast. You do realize, the internet wont be any faster just because it travels over N vs G. If your internet is 10mbps, its going to be 10mbps over both G and N.
Recently my friend insisted that her new router be N, even though it was more expensive. She insisted she wants the fastest router. Then I said "You know...your home DSL is only 1.5mbps...having G or N won't matter, it will travel at 1.5mbps on G or N either way, you can't even max out G yet"
So my question to you is, why do you need N speeds coming to your phone. Are you under the impression this will make your internet faster? Is your internet speed 300mbps? If your internet is standard DSL or cable, you haven't even reached the top G speeds yet.
Is this making any sense?
I mean unless you do file sharing, thats a different story, but what kind of massive file sharing would you do between your phone and the router? LOL phones don't even hold that much information.
So even if they come out with Z technology thats 1 million times faster than current N, if your home internet is still standard DSL, doesn't matter if you run G/N/Z or any other alphabet letter.
take care
I asked a similar question a while back. This was the answer I got and it proved to be accurate.
n9mtb said:
The Vibrant's wifi is, as far as I know, 2.4 GHz only, but a typical dual band router setup does b/g only on 2.4 and n only at 5.8. If you have the option to do b/g/n on the 2.4 GHz band it should work.
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SamsungGalaxySVibrant said:
Why do you need "N" to work? Do you have internet speeds that fast? Are you getting dsl or cable running at 300mbps? I mean thats the only logic for wanting N on your phone, to have the internet be that fast. You do realize, the internet wont be any faster just because it travels over N vs G. If your internet is 10mbps, its going to be 10mbps over both G and N.
Recently my friend insisted that her new router be N, even though it was more expensive. She insisted she wants the fastest router. Then I said "You know...your home DSL is only 1.5mbps...having G or N won't matter, it will travel at 1.5mbps on G or N either way, you can't even max out G yet"
So my question to you is, why do you need N speeds coming to your phone. Are you under the impression this will make your internet faster? Is your internet speed 300mbps? If your internet is standard DSL or cable, you haven't even reached the top G speeds yet.
Is this making any sense?
I mean unless you do file sharing, thats a different story, but what kind of massive file sharing would you do between your phone and the router? LOL phones don't even hold that much information.
So even if they come out with Z technology thats 1 million times faster than current N, if your home internet is still standard DSL, doesn't matter if you run G/N/Z or any other alphabet letter.
take care
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why have a car that can do 60 mph when the car that does 30 mph will get you where you're going, eventually. /s
vibrant + allshare + NAS = happy tunes anywhere in my house. N just gets my tunes to me faster/farther.
your car comparison sucked.
jamesd86 said:
why have a car that can do 60 mph when the car that does 30 mph will get you where you're going, eventually. /s
vibrant + allshare + NAS = happy tunes anywhere in my house. N just gets my tunes to me faster/farther.
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Your car analogy made no sense. If you have a ford focus that tops out 85 mph, and a ferarri that tops out 260mph. However, you are limited to driving around at 30 miles per hour, doesn't matter which car you drive. Since you are limited to 30mph, the focus and ferarri are going to get you from point A to point B at the same time.
Same **** with G versus N on your vibrant. N can handle higher speeds, but if you are LIMITED BY YOUR DSL OR CABLE SPEED, THEN both will run at the same speed, until you max out G. The only way to max out G is to have dsl or internet that runs faster than G is capable of.
Again, only benefit of running N on your phone is for massive file sharing really fast, but your phone doesn't even hold that much info, so that makes no sense. Or the other benefit is getting signal at greater distances. Chances are your router that is running g/n is going to provide just as power a signal to your phone running G or N.
SO AGAIN YOU WON'T NOTICE ANY DIFFERENCE RUNNING N OR G ON YOUR PHONE IF YOUR MAIN CONCERN IS INTERNET SPEEDS.
UGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHH
Lets see. First off, if you do any media streaming via wireless in your house, you want the higher speeds. Second, I like to vpn from my laptop to my computer (so I don't have to leave the couch). The difference in the smoothness when on an n network vs. a g network is very notable. Third... And probably most important in a setup like this.. A single g device connected to an n router will slow ALL the wireless devices on the network down to n speed, regardless of what they are communicating with. It is this very reason I have two separate access points. One to handle n traffic and one to handle b/g traffic. So unless he wants to allows his whole network down, he should probably try to stick with n.
Sent from my Vibrant using the XDA app.
Typos, incorrect words, gibberish, and other nonsense brought to you courtesy of Swype.
SamsungGalaxySVibrant said:
Your car analogy made no sense. If you have a ford focus that tops out 85 mph, and a ferarri that tops out 260mph. However, you are limited to driving around at 30 miles per hour, doesn't matter which car you drive. Since you are limited to 30mph, the focus and ferarri are going to get you from point A to point B at the same time.
Same **** with G versus N on your vibrant. N can handle higher speeds, but if you are LIMITED BY YOUR DSL OR CABLE SPEED, THEN both will run at the same speed, until you max out G. The only way to max out G is to have dsl or internet that runs faster than G is capable of.
Again, only benefit of running N on your phone is for massive file sharing really fast, but your phone doesn't even hold that much info, so that makes no sense. Or the other benefit is getting signal at greater distances. Chances are your router that is running g/n is going to provide just as power a signal to your phone running G or N.
SO AGAIN YOU WON'T NOTICE ANY DIFFERENCE RUNNING N OR G ON YOUR PHONE IF YOUR MAIN CONCERN IS INTERNET SPEEDS.
UGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHH
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my car analogy doesnt make sense because you either a. have no sense of sarcasm or b. (i think its this one) u took my analogy and completely f'ed it up.
btw, i'm on an N network and my browser on the phone really flies. might shoot down to g only and see if theres a difference or if the increase is because i'm coming from g1/mt3g.
edit: web browsing...not a huge difference, deff noticeable though. allshare on g only was not that good, took too long to start a song. I like my N! lol
People who say that you need a 300mbps connection at home to take advantage of Wireless N are just being silly. Not only is there better coverage with an N connection, but you will also have better speeds if you have a decently fast line (doesn't have to be over 54mbps even)-
I'm a Verizon FiOS user with a 25mbps symmetrical (same up and down) connection. The problem with many G routers is that although they say 54mbps its unlikely you're going to necessarily reach that under real conditions. For example the stock Verizon FiOS router actually limits my speeds a bit, to around 20mbps downstream. If you're trying to upload at the same time its going to be a little slower even. That's about all I can get, especially when further away from the router. However, with a new wireless N router which I've just recently installed, I can max out full 25mbps downstream, and even have the same going through upstream at the same time. The range of the signal is better, and it even seems as if latency is slightly lower (or there's less 'jitter' in general). Wireless N allows for much smoother connectivity, and I would highly recommend it to anyone with a decently fast broadband connection.
Now having said all of that, you may not care about ~20mbps vs 25mbps (speed difference for downloads in my case) on a phone, and that makes sense as it probably can't even render pages fast enough to take advantage of that. But still, wireless N makes sense to have in general.
Its your router. Force it to use only N.
I find it slightly humorous that I feel compelled to justify WHY I want to connect via N. In future posts I will remember to justify all of my needs/desires first, I.e although I have a navigation system on my Yukon Denali, I dint have it in my Infiniti, so I want the gps to work.
Like others have said before, its faster when streaming videos, it has a much farther and stronger signal (i have a large house) etc. As to why I don't just force it to use n only, genius!.... I have a Wii, PS3, older xbox360, 2 desktops and 3 laptops depending on g. Currently only 3 devices on n. I like to share media. Is that enough of an explanation?
As I swype this response, I can see the wi-fi bar go from 1 bar to 3. It seems schizo.
On Speedtest, when I have n it pegs out at 10mbps, I can tell when its on g because it seems to tap out at 5mbps every time.
Again I just thought I would see if others have experienced similar issues.
Lock on dang it! You know you want to! It's the stronger signal!
XfooYen said:
I asked a similar question a while back. This was the answer I got and it proved to be accurate.
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By the way, THIS very well might be the issue in my current configuration!
Thanks to all the productive responses!
My Vibrant doesnt do that.
I have a Trendnet router
If you still have the recipt they still be able to return it or at least change it?
I have come full circle my brothas! My wireless router has n on both 2.4Ghz and 5Ghz bands. Thus, I should be getting the n on my 2.4Ghz-only phone. Ah, but here is issue again! The reason, among few, that I bought the wireless a/b/g/n router in the first place was for the distance magnification inherent in wireless n. This, you see, is how I came upon the issue in the first place. 1 bar alone do I get with the b/g signal, but 3 bars pop up now and again for a short time making me believe that the phone cannot hold on to the n signal!
Alas, my 30 days with this phone are coming soon. I think I shall exchange it on the morrow...
Does anyone know how to see if the Vibrant is using N or G? I gather from the post you can check it doing a speed test, but the internet connection would be the bottleneck. I took am looking for N Wifi so that I can stream wirelessly.
Droidicus said:
Like others have said before, its faster when streaming videos, it has a much farther and stronger signal (i have a large house) etc. As to why I don't just force it to use n only, genius!.... I have a Wii, PS3, older xbox360, 2 desktops and 3 laptops depending on g. Currently only 3 devices on n. I like to share media. Is that enough of an explanation?
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Click to collapse
My understanding is, If you have g devices active on your n network, your entire wireless network will be limited to g speeds. This may well be your culprit
Sent from my Vibrant using the XDA app.
Typos, incorrect words, gibberish, and other nonsense brought to you courtesy of Swype.
i agree with ConceptVBS. i had a similar problem with a netbook connecting at G speeds. i changed my network to N-only and now everything connects at full speed.
not sure the whole network would be slowed by one b/g device. i have a blackberry (for work) that connects at G, but my wife's desktop still connected at N speeds (270-300 Mbs).
I am looking to get the DHD, but being in the US, I will only get edge speeds. Anyone else in the same boat? Does it ruin all of the new sense features like the phone locator etc.? If it does not affect usability much, then I will get one.
Orlando, Florida
I've been using it for just over two weeks, and I can honestly say, it doesn't bother me one bit. I'm mostly on Wi-Fi, but when I have to use EDGE, I get speeds from 200 to 500 KBPS. The only place I notice it is trying to load HD video from either Youtube, or Flash videos on the browser, BUT it does work well enough for me. As I said I notice it, but it doesn't make it unusable. I can use Opera Mini for any browsing I do if I need to be on EDGE for long as that is very speedy even on EDGE. Overall I'm very happy. I even had an outage at my place last week, and I used the phone as a modem for my laptop, and yes it was slower than my usual high speed internet, but it got the job done. I think what people forget is most general data doesn't need blazing fast speeds. Just a couple of years ago we were on dial up. 56 KBPS. Getting 200 KBPS on this phone is more than 3 times dial up speed. That's plenty fast enough for using all the features on this phone. Get it, and enjoy!
i would imagine if you are just syncing emails as text, and maybe light internet use its probably fine. however where i am i would get 3g on it but my uni is in an area with only Edge data speeds and it was tolerable
however i did find myself really only using wifi even when 3g was available to me when your out and about tho 3g is handy but there are that many open wifi spots these days its not that hard to live without
Good to know, I just ordered
My billing/data cycle starts on the 3rd so as of today I am trying to keep track of what this thing does and when the data usage spikes.
On the 3rd according to Verizon I used ~20MB. They actually give you the option to download into a spreadsheet your data usage.
Side note: Here's an Excel formula I found handy for modifying their 0.XXXXXX GB cell into a useful numeric value cell that you can further manipulate.
You want to do =VALUE(LEFT(XX, LEN(XX)-3)) where XX is the cell value. If you're handy at all with an excel spreadsheet you will know what to do with this and how to copy it and maybe did it already yourself.
On the 4th my usage shot up to 86MB and it's interesting because usage is broken into bits. I'm pretty sure now that I was showing off a high definition youtube video while I was onsite with a customer and that alone was 40MB used up off my plan. I later went to pick up a fish tank and while I was there, showd another video for a few more megs used.
Saturday the 5th I have been pretty much around the house all day, but when I went out later that night a friend of mine watched a couple low res youtube videos. 31MB used in just a few minutes.
So far today... I have not been outside of a wifi hotspot except for midnight to 2am this morning when the device activated itself twice to presumably check mail or whatever... it used like 50 kilobytes.. negligable usage.
Please take a look at your data usage and if you don't mind keep track of what you are doing on your Xoom when you're out.
If you watch some youtube videos on your 3G... make a mental note of how many you watch and at what quality.
I think for some it will be very hard to realistically stay under 1GB a month of data usage unless they carefully plan out what content to watch or not watch. Upping this to 3GB is an option for some, but for others its a matter of convincing the budget keeper to spend more more more
cwizardtx said:
My billing/data cycle starts on the 3rd so as of today I am trying to keep track of what this thing does and when the data usage spikes.
On the 3rd according to Verizon I used ~20MB. They actually give you the option to download into a spreadsheet your data usage.
Side note: Here's an Excel formula I found handy for modifying their 0.XXXXXX GB cell into a useful numeric value cell that you can further manipulate.
You want to do =VALUE(LEFT(XX, LEN(XX)-3)) where XX is the cell value. If you're handy at all with an excel spreadsheet you will know what to do with this and how to copy it and maybe did it already yourself.
On the 4th my usage shot up to 86MB and it's interesting because usage is broken into bits. I'm pretty sure now that I was showing off a high definition youtube video while I was onsite with a customer and that alone was 40MB used up off my plan. I later went to pick up a fish tank and while I was there, showd another video for a few more megs used.
Saturday the 5th I have been pretty much around the house all day, but when I went out later that night a friend of mine watched a couple low res youtube videos. 31MB used in just a few minutes.
So far today... I have not been outside of a wifi hotspot except for midnight to 2am this morning when the device activated itself twice to presumably check mail or whatever... it used like 50 kilobytes.. negligable usage.
Please take a look at your data usage and if you don't mind keep track of what you are doing on your Xoom when you're out.
If you watch some youtube videos on your 3G... make a mental note of how many you watch and at what quality.
I think for some it will be very hard to realistically stay under 1GB a month of data usage unless they carefully plan out what content to watch or not watch. Upping this to 3GB is an option for some, but for others its a matter of convincing the budget keeper to spend more more more
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There is an app for that. Vzw has an app in the market which monitors your data with widget and its for tablets
I understand that there is an app for it. What I am looking for is active discussion between a small handful of guys who are actually paying attention to it. Perhaps the title of my thread and subsequent wall of spam I posted wasn't enough indication of that.
There are 2 or 3 threads where people are like "holy crap, what is my Xoom doing" because their data usage seems to be excessive. I would like to believe that its useful to someone other than myself to read some personal experiences like "I was driving to XX place and when I watched YY videos my Xoom consumed ZZ amounts of data".
Through the course of discussing this I hope that some users might become more education on how to keep themselves out of a pinch because lets face it.. not every individual is dilligent enough to go download the app, look at the widget (which you have to do ON their 3G network by the way.. thereby consuming more data), set up usage alerts... etc. Honestly I didn't think to look for those widgets until I read forum postings.
You're more than welcome to toss up some usage stats
I used up 90% of my 5gb allocation in about 3 days. We used the wifi tether so we could use the Internet while Comcast was moving our service between houses (we moved on the 25th). This device has been a sweet dream.
Sent from my Xoom using XDA Premium App
dustywilson said:
I used up 90% of my 5gb allocation in about 3 days. We used the wifi tether so we could use the Internet while Comcast was moving our service between houses (we moved on the 25th). This device has been a sweet dream.
Sent from my Xoom using XDA Premium App
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Holy cow! Were you trying to be conservative at all during that time with your regular PC usage tethering through the Xoom's Wifi/3G ?