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HSPA+ 21 vs 42

aurora40

Android Enthusiast
Just FYI. A friend got his N4 over the weekend. I have a GNex (as did he) and we are both on T-Mobile.

At work today we did some speed tests with the phones side-by-side. At work I usually get HSPA:8 or 9, but did not look this time to see what the actual connection was.

We ran a speed test during rush hour, usually speeds are lower in the morning, I assume all the people streaming music or checking traffic or something.

I got 1.1Mbps, he got 5Mbps. We tried later in the day, I got 3.0Mbps, he got 9Mbps. Usually I get in the ballpark of 3-5Mbps at work, I've never seen close to 9.

We have a similar route home, and there is a traffic light that must be right next to an underutilized but high-speed tower. I always get super speeds there, around 8-9Mbps. Today I got 8.9Mbps, which isn't too bad. But he managed to pull down 21Mbps.

No idea why we both got sent to Indiana for the test, but here was the fast result:

Galaxy Nexus HSPA+ 21:
313552662.png


Nexus 4 HSPA+ 42:
313465848.png


It seemed like, at least in this testing, it is anywhere from 2-5 times faster. What was interesting was even at lower speeds, the dual-carrier seems to make a difference, with him getting almost 5 times the speed during a congested period of the day. Apparently DC-HSPA makes a difference most of the time, not just when you are pushing the upper limits of HSPA+ 21.

The speed difference is definitely a compelling aspect of upgrading for me. I was also impressed with how fast face-unlock works on his phone. On the GNex there is a 1/2-1 second delay while the camera sort of "turns on". His snaps on so fast it almost unlocks before you see it (though I don't think he has blinking enabled).

I didn't realize they removed the stock android browser in favor of Chrome, though. I think the mobile Chrome browser sucks. And I like being able to view flash sites if needed.
 
Just FYI. A friend got his N4 over the weekend. I have a GNex (as did he) and we are both on T-Mobile.

At work today we did some speed tests with the phones side-by-side. At work I usually get HSPA:8 or 9, but did not look this time to see what the actual connection was.

We ran a speed test during rush hour, usually speeds are lower in the morning, I assume all the people streaming music or checking traffic or something.

I got 1.1Mbps, he got 5Mbps. We tried later in the day, I got 3.0Mbps, he got 9Mbps. Usually I get in the ballpark of 3-5Mbps at work, I've never seen close to 9.

We have a similar route home, and there is a traffic light that must be right next to an underutilized but high-speed tower. I always get super speeds there, around 8-9Mbps. Today I got 8.9Mbps, which isn't too bad. But he managed to pull down 21Mbps.

No idea why we both got sent to Indiana for the test, but here was the fast result:

Galaxy Nexus HSPA+ 21:
313552662.png


Nexus 4 HSPA+ 42:
313465848.png


It seemed like, at least in this testing, it is anywhere from 2-5 times faster. What was interesting was even at lower speeds, the dual-carrier seems to make a difference, with him getting almost 5 times the speed during a congested period of the day. Apparently DC-HSPA makes a difference most of the time, not just when you are pushing the upper limits of HSPA+ 21.

The speed difference is definitely a compelling aspect of upgrading for me. I was also impressed with how fast face-unlock works on his phone. On the GNex there is a 1/2-1 second delay while the camera sort of "turns on". His snaps on so fast it almost unlocks before you see it (though I don't think he has blinking enabled).

I didn't realize they removed the stock android browser in favor of Chrome, though. I think the mobile Chrome browser sucks. And I like being able to view flash sites if needed.


Yesterday I pulled down 14 Mbps in NYC on Tmo...pretty fast for something running on anything other then LTE.

However it kind of varies, other times I'll get only 3-4 Mbps...But for the most part I must say Tmo is pretty good considering the price for service.

As for speed on the N4 as a whole...pretty dam fast, especially switching apps and what not! Facelock is insanely fast as you said, you can definitely feel that quad core doing its job..
 
So, I can't even get ANY download speeds on my phone. My buddy's Gnex also registers nothing. Do you guys think that the Speedtest App isn't able to work with 4.2.1? Because we are both on that update.
 
So, I can't even get ANY download speeds on my phone. My buddy's Gnex also registers nothing. Do you guys think that the Speedtest App isn't able to work with 4.2.1? Because we are both on that update.


Are u on at&t? Had same problem before switching to T-Mobile.
 
Are u on at&t? Had same problem before switching to T-Mobile.


I am, but it just started happening like a week ago. I'm super annoyed because I want to be able to use this app. I was hoping someone else other than Ty and I were the ones having the issues. Note: I have the Nexus 4, he has my old (read: 3 weeks when he bought it) Galaxy Nexus.
 
I am, but it just started happening like a week ago. I'm super annoyed because I want to be able to use this app. I was hoping someone else other than Ty and I were the ones having the issues. Note: I have the Nexus 4, he has my old (read: 3 weeks when he bought it) Galaxy Nexus.


The app works for me on Tmobile, but didn't at all when I was using the nexus 4 on at&t. It would ping and then conk out.
 
So, I can't even get ANY download speeds on my phone. My buddy's Gnex also registers nothing. Do you guys think that the Speedtest App isn't able to work with 4.2.1? Because we are both on that update.

We tried an att sim today in his nexus 4. The speed test would not run. We assumed it couldn't get service. I will try it on my gnex.
 
We tried an att sim today in his nexus 4. The speed test would not run. We assumed it couldn't get service. I will try it on my gnex.


Yeah, super weird, it DID work not even a full week ago. Super frustrating. I want to know my speeds darnit! :confused:
 
I was also impressed with how fast face-unlock works on his phone. On the GNex there is a 1/2-1 second delay while the camera sort of "turns on". His snaps on so fast it almost unlocks before you see it (though I don't think he has blinking enabled).

I didn't realize they removed the stock android browser in favor of Chrome, though. I think the mobile Chrome browser sucks. And I like being able to view flash sites if needed.
Thanks for the heads up on the face-unlock. I had tried it before on the S3 and thought "nice but gimmicky" but on the N4 it's actually very functional. It's faster than unlocking by any conventional method.

Chrome is slow. The stock Android browser worked perfectly well for me. Shame they got rid of it.
 
So, I can't even get ANY download speeds on my phone. My buddy's Gnex also registers nothing. Do you guys think that the Speedtest App isn't able to work with 4.2.1? Because we are both on that update.

I dont know if this will work on the ATT sim, but for the straight talk sims on the APN if you remove the proxy then the speed test works again.
 
We tried an att sim today in his nexus 4. The speed test would not run. We assumed it couldn't get service. I will try it on my gnex.

Sorry for the late followup. I get the same thing on my GNex. It technically works, but the download speed is like 2kbps and takes forever to finish.

I used speedtest.net via the browser (since the GNex browser does Flash) and it was more normal, about 900kbps down. This is on par with what I'd get in the past from AT&T around here.

As someone mentioned, it probably has to do with the APN, but heck if I know what AT&T APN's to use to get around it.

That said, the DC-HSPA+ capability of the Nexus 4 is not useful on AT&T. The point of the thread was to illustrate how much better speeds the N4 gets vs the GNex on T-Mobile, and how it is better pretty much all the time, not just when approaching the theoretical bandwidth limits.
 
I think the initial ping is long because HSPA+ 42 kicks in when data downloading starts. The very next ping is usually 100 and under.
 
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