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Serious Question: Why Do You Need LTE?

I personally was 100% fed up with LTE'. I was an early adopter with the Thunderbolt and then also got the Galaxy Nexus. I made the choice that I was sick of LTE and that I wanted to try out HSPA+ for the improved battery life. HSPA+ has been nothing but a great user experience. That is what matters. The user experience. I hunt, and HPSA+ follows me yo my hunting grounds, full bars. VZW doesn't even offer coverage there. I'm so glad to be free of VZW. If that means no LTE so be it.
 
sean76 said:
I think what we're doing here is trying to really justify the nexus 4 not having LTE? The majority of those saying the phone doesn't need it don't live in an area lit up by LTE. I honestly can't sit here and say I don't care, I do! Let me make this very simple...if you had two devices in your hand, no matter the OS or the manufacturer and one was on LTE, and the other HSPA or +, and you were surfing the web or watching a few vids or clips, etc, and you ran them both side by side in area lit up by both, you'd pick LTE everytime. It's just as simple as that!

I'm not saying H+ is really crappy or not good, but it's older technology! It's plenty fast for some, but others that have been using it for some time will find it really hard to adjust, I have two devices I'm carrying at the moment. The N4 and iphone 5, ones a personal device, one is used for business. I've been using them both side by side for a week now. Here and there I will get some really good speeds, like really good as in 13-14Mbps on my N4 and others I will get really low speeds like 1-2Mbps. It's just the reality of the footprint that I'm seeing with Tmobile in and around NYC. When it's good, dam it's really good! But when it's slow, most of the time indoors, it's just really slow. It is what it is! However I haven't dropped not one call on my nexus 4, not one, so that's great because it is a phone 1st and foremost.

But LTE in the five boroughs is just never a let down for me, it's basically always fast, and just really works. Like I said, if its in your area, and you try it, you will find it very had to not use it.
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The LTE experience really varies depending on where you are at. I think the take home message is simply that, if you have good and consistent coverage where you spend most of your time, it's a big plus and worth having. But if you're not in an area with consistent LTE coverage or no LTE coverage then it's something you live well without simply because you're not used to it.

Once LTE coverage becomes as common and as standard as 3G/ HSDPA coverage, it will be a different story and I don't believe it'll be an issue to debate over. But, LTE is far from perfect yet so individual user experience will be good or bad depending on the individual's experiences and expectations.
 
sean76 said:
I'm not saying H+ is really crappy or not good, but it's older technology!
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So is a gas range, and your car's internal combustion engine, and light bulbs, and most refrigerators, and dish washers, and most every electronic appliance we use on a daily basis. Just because something is an older technology does not make it worse technology.
It's plenty fast for some, but others that have been using it for some time will find it really hard to adjust, I have two devices I'm carrying at the moment.
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I think this is only the case for some, not most. I constantly go between using computers at my office and my home, and my office has a much faster Internet connection than my home, but for the stuff I do (web surfing, research, videos, content creation online), I hardly ever notice the difference.

One has to also keep in mind the much more limited and pricey nature of current LTE offerings. For those who are not grandfathered, signing up for Verizon's cheapest plan with data on a smartphone is $90 a month plus taxes ($40 for device, $50 for 1GB shared data). If you're taking full advantage of LTE, you will burn through that data in about a week at best. If you are not - i.e you are on wi-fi as often as you can, which is almost always slower than LTE, why would LTE matter so much?

I don't doubt that Verizon's LTE is the Ferrari of mobile data. But not everyone needs a Ferrari, and most do just fine with a Honda or a Ford.
 
Alot of you keep saying Verizon, at&t does on fact have great LTE service, well in NY anyway. I left Verizon after the GNex debacle and will probably never go back, they're signal was very inconsistent and I don't see that type of inconsistency with at&t, not one bit.

All in all, I'm bowing out of this debate because honestly to me it doesn't matter, I'm lucky enough to be able to have both an LTE device and HSPA+ device on me all the time, best of both worlds I guess.
 
Coming from Verizon 4G LTE, to Straight Talk on the Nexus 4, I see no difference in speed.
The only difference is coverage: AT&T [via StraightTalk] vs. Verizon. Verizon will always win when it comes to coverage (at least in my area).
 
sean76 said:
I think what we're doing here is trying to really justify the nexus 4 not having LTE? The majority of those saying the phone doesn't need it don't live in an area lit up by LTE. I honestly can't sit here and say I don't care, I do! Let me make this very simple...if you had two devices in your hand, no matter the OS or the manufacturer and one was on LTE, and the other HSPA or +, and you were surfing the web or watching a few vids or clips, etc, and you ran them both side by side in area lit up by both, you'd pick LTE everytime. It's just as simple as that!

I'm not saying H+ is really crappy or not good, but it's older technology! It's plenty fast for some, but others that have been using it for some time will find it really hard to adjust, I have two devices I'm carrying at the moment. The N4 and iphone 5, ones a personal device, one is used for business. I've been using them both side by side for a week now. Here and there I will get some really good speeds, like really good as in 13-14Mbps on my N4 and others I will get really low speeds like 1-2Mbps. It's just the reality of the footprint that I'm seeing with Tmobile in and around NYC. When it's good, dam it's really good! But when it's slow, most of the time indoors, it's just really slow. It is what it is! However I haven't dropped not one call on my nexus 4, not one, so that's great because it is a phone 1st and foremost.

But LTE in the five boroughs is just never a let down for me, it's basically always fast, and just really works. Like I said, if its in your area, and you try it, you will find it very had to not use it.
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The point of the thread is what's the difference in 20mbps and 200mbps? If I can stream HD video there is literally nothing else I need. That's all.
 
I don't really need LTE to be honest... it's just that the best carrier in my area is a LTE carrier. If I was confident in the HSPA+/GSM coverage in my area, I would have a Nexus 4. Here in Phoenix we have T-Mobile but the 4G coverage is still hit & miss. (Although T-Mobile is doing a big build-out here which is more than I can say for Sprint) I've been trying to get more information about the HSPA+/GSM coverage in North West Phoenix & Peoria specifically.

To be honest, in my situation, I'd be happy to just be getting true 3G speeds. I get 95 kb/s with Sprint on 3G when I am at home... and I am in the city, not on the outskirts. This weekend when I was out I lost 3G even & had no data connection at all. It was the last straw for me. I am searching for alternatives.

~ ArmyX
 
NeXuS4 said:
Last time I checked HPSA+ was fast enough to stream HD Content no question and it's easier on your battery.

So why are there so many begging for LTE? Why do reviewers lower the phones score for not having it?
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AT&T does not support DC-HSPA+. So their speeds are slower in general than T-Mobile. Also, at least around me, their HSPA network sucks. Even on my GNex (which also can't do DC-HSPA+) it is significantly slower than T-Mobile. So having LTE on AT&T is probably a big plus.

And if you are currently on Sprint or Verizon, your impression of non-LTE speeds is probably pretty low.

Reviewers knock all the Nexus phones. They knocked the GSM GNex all the time for not having what the carrier ones had (LTE, 32GB internal storage). Then they knock the carrier ones for not having the updates the GSM one has.

The phone is selling like crazy, so obviously some people are interested in spite of the reviews. I've never read a phone review that seemed reasonable to me. I only read them for the specs and to see any videos of the features in action. The conclusions reviewers draw are usually pretty off-the-wall.
 
NeXuS4 said:
The point of the thread is what's the difference in 20mbps and 200mbps? If I can stream HD video there is literally nothing else I need. That's all.
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Listen I relate to what your saying, and I've read a lot of your posts, however knocking LTE is a moot argument. Just because you don't need it or have it available doesn't mean other people feel the same way. You asked a question and I was more then happy to answer within your thread based on my experience and findings. I've used just about every high end android phone since the original Nexus One...And let me tell you, true LTE speeds on a vanilla Android device that would be left alone by the carriers and running without interruption would basically be absolutely HUGE in in US, I mean big as in Apple big if Google really promoted it the right way. I know lots of people that really want a vanilla Android LTE device and would toss their iPhone 5's in the garbage if available right now with the nexus 4's specs.

It's a matter of time before Goggle will really make a run and challenge Apple for the Crown... Look for big things from Google in 2013.
 
I'm sure LTE is great but here in the UK it's still really expensive and, even if you're prepared to pay, it's only available in a very few locations. Consequently, having a phone that doesn't do LTE is no real sacrifice.
 
The LTE service here in Atlanta is faster than the WiFi in my house - no kidding. It rocks. Posting a picture to FB from my phone even out of the city on the golf course - you click and BOOM, it's done. It takes like a second to upload. Updates to apps, same thing. They just fly. I love it.
 
My other phone has AT&T LTE, but I don't miss it at all on my nexus 4. Here's why:

13+-+1
 
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