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iPhone 5 ponderings . . .

syadasti

i heart mac
Apr 15, 2002
12,690
290
VT
I'm sure there are various ways to get more life, but the fact is that the current crop of 4g phones are juice hungry, and I don't see Apple jumping on that 4g bandwagon until the technology has matured.
The fact is NOBODY makes a true 4G phone and no cellular provider in the US has a 4G network either - the ITU made this clear. Nobody will be close to 4G for at least a few years.

http://news.cnet.com/8301-30686_3-20022011-266.html
 

dante

Unabomber
Feb 13, 2004
8,807
9
looking for classic NE singletrack
The fact is NOBODY makes a true 4G phone and no cellular provider in the US has a 4G network either - the ITU made this clear. Nobody will be close to 4G for at least a few years.

http://news.cnet.com/8301-30686_3-20022011-266.html
Could really care less whether they call it 3.1G, 3.5G, 3.99999999G, etc, I'm loving the consistent 16mb down, 6mb up on mine (VZ's LTE)... If VZ needs to differentiate it from the agonizingly slow speeds of 3G, I'm totally ok with whatever they call it.
 

mandown

Poopdeck Repost
Jun 1, 2004
20,127
7,678
Transylvania 90210
Could really care less whether they call it 3.1G, 3.5G, 3.99999999G, etc, I'm loving the consistent 16mb down, 6mb up on mine (VZ's LTE)... If VZ needs to differentiate it from the agonizingly slow speeds of 3G, I'm totally ok with whatever they call it.
What device are you on? You notice any downsides to the NO2 speed boost, like heat, glitches in the matrix, rouge groups of British dwarves appearing in your closet?
 

dante

Unabomber
Feb 13, 2004
8,807
9
looking for classic NE singletrack
Using a HTC Thunderbolt. Phone gets a bit warm when using as a mobile tether, and battery life suffers if you're using 4G. Standby can easily last a day plus and barely use any battery, whereas heavy internet use'll soak it down in ~4 hours. Not a problem for me, and apparently if you call up and complain you might be able to obtain a bigger battery from Verizon. Haven't tried that, though...

I will say that the speed is a bit..... superfluous though. I mean, no bittorrent. No Netflix (unless you hack it). Additional money spent for mobile tethering (again, unless you root it). No HDMI out, so even if you do DL movies, you're stuck on your little screen. Surfing the net seems mostly limited by your processor and ping (and I haven't tried finding adblock for it yet). And to top it all off, if you use too much bandwidth, VZ can throttle back your speeds.

So, stupidly fast, yes. Practical application? Not worth paying more for it over 3G, IMO (with VZ, it's the same price).
 
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Silver

find me a tampon
Jul 20, 2002
10,840
1
Orange County, CA
Could really care less whether they call it 3.1G, 3.5G, 3.99999999G, etc, I'm loving the consistent 16mb down, 6mb up on mine (VZ's LTE)... If VZ needs to differentiate it from the agonizingly slow speeds of 3G, I'm totally ok with whatever they call it.
Using a Verizon card in downtown Long Beach, I was uploading to an ftp at higher speeds than at home with a Uverse connection.

I don't know if that's a measure of how fast Verizon's wireless is, or how bad AT&T's Uverse sucks. And I like my Uverse connection :D
 

dante

Unabomber
Feb 13, 2004
8,807
9
looking for classic NE singletrack
Using a Verizon card in downtown Long Beach, I was uploading to an ftp at higher speeds than at home with a Uverse connection.

I don't know if that's a measure of how fast Verizon's wireless is, or how bad AT&T's Uverse sucks. And I like my Uverse connection :D
I have a 6down/1up U-Verse connection primarily because I'm a cheap bastard and don't want to pay the extra $5/month for the 12down/1.5up plan. VZ's wireless blows either of those out of the water, especially on the upload speed. Now, if they just had the capacity to allow for unlimited data, they could pretty much take over home internet usage without having to lay miles and miles of fiber (kind of like how cell phones have taken over from landlines).