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Apple Stops Allowing Sprint iPhone Activations, Removes Sprint References From Online Store
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Bars alone are mostly meaningless when comparing signal strength.
T-Mobile is clearly the fastest, but they still have consistency issues, especially in congested areas. I've been with all three over the past 6 months (long story...), and live in one of the most densely populated areas in the U.S. (all three have mid-band 5G enabled here), and the experience on AT&T/Verizon has remained better due to their consistency. I also know that won't be the case everywhere.
T-Mobile is clearly the fastest, but they still have consistency issues, especially in congested areas. I've been with all three over the past 6 months (long story...), and live in one of the most densely populated areas in the U.S. (all three have mid-band 5G enabled here), and the experience on AT&T/Verizon has remained better due to their consistency. I also know that won't be the case everywhere.
I have a first party Verizon business SIM for data and I can tell you that it is disappointing. Many times it will say 5G and just not have an internet connection, or not work any better than LTE.
Far too many times I’ve had to switch data back to my Tmobile MVNO personal line and watch as one bar of LTE works better than multiple bars of 5G.
Yes, in the spots with 5GUW it works well. Not mind blowingly, but about as good as most wifi. But that’s true for all the network operators in their sweet spots.
Sadly in my experience AT&T generally works the best but of course they are a nightmare to deal with.
This is true regarding "bars." Though, less so because of signal strength. It's really about what bands are available. There is more bandwidth available in most of the mid-band licenses that carriers have, so it's common for them to move you to mid-band when it's available. It's all about balancing capacity where it's available and keeping low-bands as little utilized as possible in order to reserve that capacity for devices in areas where only low-band reaches. The consequence is that you are more likely to see lower "bars," but better speeds because you're getting more throughput or capacity from a wider mid-band PCC than from a narrow low-band that has strong signal strength. That is a somewhat simplified explanation, as carrier aggregation, MIMO, and modulation complicate it somewhat. But at the end of the day, signal bars generally mean very little and shouldn't be relied upon to determine signal quality or network capacity in a given area.
T-Mobile is probably the most consistently fast due to their head start with n41 over AT&T's and Verizon's delayed ability to use C-band. You could make the argument that Verizon is "fastest"...where they have mmWave deployed. It usually exceeds 2 Gbps and can reach 4 Gbps in good real world conditions. It's just rarely available due to the limited range.
AT&T isn't really the fastest in any category, but they are generally consistent. That might not sound like a glowing commendation, but as long as you're seeing downstream throughput above 10-20 Mbps, upstream above 5-10 Mbps, and latency below 50-60ms on a mobile network; you're probably going to feel like the experience is "good enough".
T-Mobile soundly kicks Verizon's ass here.
Especially data. I can have full 5 and great voice quality, but can't even open a website or email.
Same here. In my area I see anywhere from 400-800 mbps down on my iPhone 12 Pro with t-mobile. I was with at&t for at least 2 decades and I was lucky to see 80mbps (with the same phone). My ISP is amazing (500/500 for $50). If I didn't have them I would very likely go with t-mo's home internet service too.
I still have my Trēo 600, 650, 700. Before that I had Qualcom digital and a Mitsubishi DiamondTel
I still have mine! I just charged this thing up a week ago and said to my SO “people used to comment on how big it was.” It can’t be much bigger than an iPhone SE. Crazy how the market changes.🪦 RIP Sprint! Do you guys remember the HTC EVO 4G? 🥺
No I hear ya. AT&T is better in some places, Verizon better in others and T-Mobile in others.
Where I am at, T-Mobile is king and blows the other 2 out of the water.
This was my first smartphone. It seemed huge and so advanced at the time. I held on to it and traded it in four years ago. When I turned it on to wipe it, it seemed so ancient and small. I really wish that I’d held on to it though. It’d be fun to take it out and laugh about it every once in a while.🪦 RIP Sprint! Do you guys remember the HTC EVO 4G? 🥺
I did so much with it. I had it rooted and loaded tons of ROMs on it. The battery life was absolutely horrible, so I had a huge Zerolemon replacement battery that helped it last longer. Where I was, Sprint was absolutely horrible. They has some early version of 4G that barely worked out in the open and was unusable indoors. And the 3G on it was beyond useless. But it had wifi and that made is usable. We’ve come so far since this phone came out.
Oh, and there was also a problem with my phone where the camera flash would fire too early and it was impossible to get pictures with the flash.
If where’s it’s at has high prices. Maybe people are better off taking Verizon’s cheaper Visible service if they want to stay with Verizon.
What is Sprint? What is Mint? Will there be none left?
Depends. I have some dead spots with T-mobile, but in many areas that I frequent it is faster than my 400/20 cable modem. But there is one nearby area where I get 5Guc and 4 bars and the speed just sucks.
I ALMOST had this phone.
ALMOST!
When it came out I was going crazy trying to find one for months. Nobody had any stock. I had a Palm Pre at the time and was desperate to upgrade because it was becoming obvious in late 2010 that the platform really didn't have a future.
So after much hemming and hawing I decided to buy an iPhone 4 after checking one out at the Apple Store and totally falling in love with the screen. It's hard to describe just how amazing the iPhone 4's screen looked compared to ANYTHING else on the market. It felt like it was from the future. The build quality too. It was a grand slam product.
I had actually been resistant to the idea of an iPhone up until then because of the platform's closed nature, but the 4 was just SO GOOD I stopped caring as much after that. (Though to this day I still wish they'd allow proper sideloading!)
But yeah, that was it. iPhone user for life after that, ALL BECAUSE HTC/SPRINT COULDN'T GET ENOUGH EVOS OUT THERE.
Oh wow I wish they had offered that to me.
I just ate the ETF because I was so desperate to get rid of my Palm Pre and the iPhone 4 caught my eye.
I had the HTC Inspire on AT&T. It was my last Android phone I held onto before switching to iPhone. I remember it seemed huge when I had it. I remember a couple friends making fun of how big it was while they had their dainty little iPhones.
I had it for about 2.5 years, and toward the end, I was going to trade it in and just before I could do that I dropped it and shattered the screen so that ruined the trade in value. I just got rid of it last year. I took it to an electronics recycler.
I’ve been team iPhone ever since I switched from that old HTC phone.
Verizon (and AT&T) are competitive with T-Mobile now, especially on multi-line plans.
My story is the opposite in that I went back and forth between the iPhone and the Evo and ended up choosing the Evo. Oh well. It took until 2022, but I finally found my way off of Android and to the iPhone. 😊
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I still have one sitting around somewhere.
said:
🪦 RIP Sprint! Do you guys remember the HTC EVO 4G? 
I still have one sitting around somewhere.
Since the merger was completed some time back,it should not have any impact.
Yep was the first 4G phone. I got it when it first came out so excited spamming speed tests. 2 hours later the battery died. After many updates and even rooting and flashing custom rom I finally got more than 2 hours of battery life with regular to heavy use. Take me back, I was so much healthier back then🪦 RIP Sprint! Do you guys remember the HTC EVO 4G? 🥺
T-Mobile is the only carrier in my area that can provide the most reliable coverage. Sprint was also great when I had them back in the 90s until the first iPhone. I have a line on Verizon but I can't even get reliable 5G most places I go. Forget AT&T, they are the worst here in my part of Colorado.
Had Sprint for most of my cellphone life. I know some have had issues with them, but where I live it had been rock solid more me.
T-Mobile still has areas of this city that has NO SERVICE. AT ALL. And at my house, I could barely get any sort of voice or data reception. And at work, I had no service whatsoever trying out T-Mobile. So I switched to Verizon and haven't looked back.
Great service wherever I've needed it so far. <fingers crossed>
T-Mobile still has areas of this city that has NO SERVICE. AT ALL. And at my house, I could barely get any sort of voice or data reception. And at work, I had no service whatsoever trying out T-Mobile. So I switched to Verizon and haven't looked back.
Great service wherever I've needed it so far. <fingers crossed>