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T-Mobile's iPhone 5 Reviews: LTE Speeds Are Impressive, HD Voice Difference Notable
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HD Voice sounds wonderful. More than anything else, I've always wanted smartphones to sound as good as a landline. Of course it requires a T-Mobile to T-Mobile call unfortunately.
WAY back in the day I worked for a cell phone company, we're talking the analog cell phone days. An analog cell phone with quality speaker/mics and good reception sounded every bit as good as the landline. Digital brought with it way too much compression and sound quality suffered.
I remember customers indicated in surveys back then that what they wanted was better sound quality, not the Internet, or apps, or price, or any other feature. We kept our sound quality up compared to the competition. The competition decided to reduce voice quality and offer a cheaper price. Due to the surveys, we thought we were position better.
Unfortunately everyone flocked to the cheaper companies. In other words, customers in surveys wanted better voice quality but when it came to actually buy a service, low price ruled the day. And that's why voice service on a cellphone sucks so much today.
So true, and to add to that T-Mobile is artificially making it appear there's no contract when in essence there really is. If they are having customers pay for the phone via installment billing then if they were to cancel before the phone is paid for the customer will still owe the balance. From the way I see it (unless I don't have the whole story straight) it's still a contract, just fancy marketing to cover it up.
The current iPhone 5 works on HSPA+21Mbps on the 1900MHz band with the network refarm and 1700MHz LTE. The iPhone 5 releasing on April 12th will work on all the above plus HSPA+42 Mbps on the 1700MHz band.
It will have a big impact on resale value.
I understand - I doubt it will cause much of a "decrease" for current iphones.
Maybe $10~$20 but not much more as you still have a large chunk of people who couldn't care less about 1700 3G. Also the "current" iPhone 5 supports HSPA+42 on 1900 - t-mobile just currently caps it at 21Mbps.
The HD voice sounds great, but I hear you only get to enjoy it if you are calling another T-mobile phone over their LTE network. Most people I know are on AT&T or Verizon so until they support it this will almost be pointless.
The exception is if an entire family switches to T-mobile in an LTE city. I guess then they could at least hear clearer calls to each other. It's gonna take FOREVER for T-mobile to get anywhere close to the LTE coverage that Verizon or AT&T has.
The exception is if an entire family switches to T-mobile in an LTE city. I guess then they could at least hear clearer calls to each other. It's gonna take FOREVER for T-mobile to get anywhere close to the LTE coverage that Verizon or AT&T has.
This does allow you to get every new iphone when it comes out, and sell the old one. If the T-Mobile iPhone has access to all the frequencies of ATT and TMobile at their max speeds, it will be valuable as a used phone. So you'd be able to sell it (for $300?), pay off what you owe ($240), and start again with a new phone ($100 buy-in). You can't do this with ATT as easily, as you have to cancel your contract, pay the early termination, and I'm not sure if they give you full subsidy again. And ATT partial subsidy is a far worse deal that TMobile's pricing.
I'm not switching because of my wife's FAN discount on ATT, but I can see non-discounted customers switching.
Yeah but you forget that there is no unlimited option on Verizon or AT&T at all. The AT&T 3GB plan is $90 and their taxes/fees are also higher. It's more comparable to the T-Mobile $80 plan that has 2GB. Also all of these plans except the unlimited include hotspot. Want hotspot on AT&T? Your bill is automatically $105 before the taxes/fees.
Add in the benefit that there is never the worry of an extra $15 tacked onto T-Mobile if you happen to go over your allotted data, you just get slowed down and they are pretty clear about what the throttle limits are. What good is all that amazing LTE when you can't even use it without always having to worry about your bill going up by $15?
T-Mobile has already announced (and reiterated today) that they'll have LTE across their whole network by the end of 2013.
Totally. I still remember that my first cell phone, a Motorola StarTAC, had very respectable call quality when set on analog mode (never mind that it would physically heat up in the process). In particular, it had much less of the "walkie-talkie" effect wherein only one person can really be talking at a time. Full duplex is a wonderful thing that landlines have and compressed cellphone signals really don't.
I have often wished phone carriers would allot more bandwidth to, you know, the "phone" part of having a phone.
Internaut
macrumors 65816
It's good that T-Mob USA are being more transparent but I'd still recommend shopping around. Will T-Mobile let you pay that total cost up front?
How do you think AT&T would be doing without the iPhone? Probably not as well. T-Mobile is just getting it so it will gain more customers with that plus the cheaper prices. Can you get a iP5 on AT&T for $99? No, you cant!
Why do you think AT&T wanted to buy T-Mobile? Because they wanted their network.....which now is faster than AT&T's.
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Here in Vegas, it should be online but i dont have a LTE phone. My GS3 isnt capable i dont think.
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I was looking at the T-Mobile deal today and trying to figure out what I would be paying. For (2) iPhones would be $80 + $40 = $120/month. With my employer discount of 15% this would become $68 + $40 = $108 or $54/month for each iPhone. Plus I would only have to put out up front $198 (T-mobile) vs $389 (AT&T, Verizon and Sprint) for two iPhone 5(s). The unlocked iPhone 5 is $649 from Apple vs at the end of the T-Mobile contract I would be paying $99+480=$579.
So $54/month/phone for unlimited minutes, text (not that important to me) and data is a hell of good deal. That aside, I am still concerned about the data speeds I would be getting in my area in Michigan with T-Mobile which would be 3G right now. I am with Sprint right now and the data speeds are worse then horrible. Unlimited data plan, what a joke.
AT&T in Boston
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No, you're paying $99 up front and financing it (basically like a credit card, at a subsidized price) over the term, as long as it takes to pay off the phone. If you leave early, you owe TMobile the excess money.
Might want to read up on that. AT&T was going to dismantle their network anyways. They wanted to buy T-Mobile for their spectrum, that's it. Take down their AWS 3G and put up AWS LTE to supplement their 700mhz network for congestion, etc (what VZW will start doing soon, in high traffic areas like NYC)
hardly. Your fast speeds are gone once you leave the city and you're stuck on BLAZING FAST EDGE, whereas AT&T/VZW have LTE.
T-Mobile can't touch these speeds and they're on a loaded network in Boston, not some tested macro-cell that TMobile was using to show off LTE.
No, it's not. They're going to start selling a new LTE version of the S3. You're thinking of the Note 2.
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interesting article from BGR
http://bgr.com/2013/03/26/t-mobiles...+TheBoyGeniusReport+(BGR+|+Boy+Genius+Report)
The top of your phone indicates that you are on WiFi. A WiFi speedtest has nothing to do with what speeds you will get when you are not on WiFi.
Turn WiFi off and then run the same test.
I wish my wifi had those speeds. It's LTE. Look at the cell phone tower icon on the left. Wifi icon is different in the speed test app.
more proof
LTE
I wish my wifi had those speeds. It's LTE. Look at the cell phone tower icon on the left. Wifi icon is different in the speed test app.
more proof
LTE
Image
If you run the test with WiFi on you will be getting WiFi results. Turn off WiFi.
By the way. The top of your two images are different.
The same way AT&T, Verizon, and Sprint make profits. The only difference--instead of having a 400% margin, T-Mobile will only have a 200% margin.
Notice the dates on the speed tests on the left column. The image on top (with CM10) was my older S3.
The last image I put up is my stock Touchwiz Note 2 that I have now.
Doesn't matter if WiFi is on for the last picture. Those tests were run on LTE and it tells you that with the cell tower icon. I'm connected to WiFi now
Just took a screen shot again. LOOK LTE ON TOP!
