The 4G Wimax radio in the Nexus S 4G is defective. It is slower than all other 4G devices by a huge margin. I've had a sneaking suspicion the Nexus S 4G was unable to get higher than 3Mb download speed on any type of connection when my speed tests were coming up slow no matter where I was. I went to the Sprint store today and tested an HTC Evo, HTC Evo Shift, Samsung Epic, my personal Nexus S, an employee's Nexus S, a demo Nexus S, and a Motorola Xoom connected to a Overdrive Pro. ALL OF THE DEVICES GOT OVER 5Mb download speed, with the Evo clocking in highest at 7.10Mb. All of the Nexus S 4G phones were in the 1.5Mb range on the same tower, testing to the same location. I changed the location several times to ensure that wasn't the problem, and it didn't matter. Thus far, out of all the Nexus S models I've tested 100% were onlycapable of attaining 3G speed over a 4G connection. Nice!
not surprising, look at att's android phones they needed an update to boost speeds did you think googles first cdma AND wimax device was gunna be perfect?
I buy a product expecting it not to be defective, which at this point seems to be the case. I am going to try another Sprint store. If they got a different lot, results might differ. We'll see.
Today I went to another Sprint store that is 6 miles from the previous store and my home, and I tested my personal Nexus S, and a demo Nexus S sitting right next to an Evo and Epic. I tested all three on the same servers and the Nexus S had 4G download speeds that were 3-4Mb less than the Evo and Epic. What become apparent, is the Evo was always the fastest phone with speeds usually above 6mb consistently. The Epic was typically in the 4.5Mb-5.5Mb range. The Nexus S was always between 1.25Mb-3.2Mb. This is abysmal 4G performance compared to other Sprint 4G phones. Someone recommended I do a factory reset, which I did. The only thing that fixed was my YouTube app issue. Otherwise, everything is the same. I'm going to give Sprint up until the June 3rd to fix this issue. If it is not resolved, I will return the Nexus S 4G and activate a beater phone I have till the HTC Evo3D becomes available. Though, I will be damn sure to check the 4G speed before walking out the store with one. The worst thing is I chose the Nexus S specifically to get away from the bloatware and Sense UI.
at least you get 4g. Ive been all over seattle testing it and the only place it actually got a 4g signal was at the sprint store. I knew the $10 4g charge was a burn.
Upon further evaluation, the issue is not just 4G, but also Wifi speed. I tested 3 devices over wifi, and all clocked in around 6Mb down and 1Mb up. The Nexus S was only able to get 2.98Mb down and .89Mb up. For whatever reason, this phone chokes on high speeds. This issue does not exist on the GSM version.
While I agree that there are 4G issues (I max out at about 4mbit on my nexus S 4G and test the evo 4G right after and it hits ~11mbit) - the wifi works fine hitting ~10mbit. Regardless of the slower 4G speeds, this phone loads most webpages faster than the EVO anyway. I hope sprint will fix it, but either way it's still a huge improvement over the EVO.
Lest we forget.... Sprint HTC EVO 4G software update fixes WiFi performance and Exchange issues | ZDNet The Evo 4G was a disaster the first 3 months it was out, I owned one. 4G issues, same wifi and reception issues of the Nexus, screens falling off, light leak, grounding issues...then the fix Sprint put out as you can see from the link, bricked about half the phones that installed it. Then they had to release another new fix. The Nexus problems are nothing in comparison.
When you buy "version 1" of any technology product, you must expect some problems. That is why the call it being on the "bleeding edge." Just hope that the issues we are seeing can be fixed with software. If it can be fixed, I assume an update will be available. If it is hardware, that's another story.
Okay I can confirm that the wimax radio is definitely not defective (at least from a hardware perspective). When tethered via pdanet I am able to get over 12mbit/sec over 4G on my laptop. That's MUCH MUCH MUCH faster than anything possible on the EVO tethered. So while it seems like there is some sort of software bug in speedtest app, it DOES NOT reflect the actual speeds that are obtainable. Bottom line - the nexus s 4g hauls! I do agree that it is odd that speedtest.net app maxes out at 3.5-4mbit though.
I just got my Nexus 2 days ago. I upgraded from the EVO 4G. I'm getting about the same speeds in Rochester, NY. I've never topped 6mbps on either device but I've ranged between 1.6 and 5.4 mbps. In it's own right, that's kinda sad because vzw 3g will do about 1.5 mbps here. I think there's a lot of variables in the cities where WiMax is rolled out.
After reading up on this thread, i decided to recreate the test here in seattle, and i got almost identical results. Unfortunately the Nexus S is by a wide margin, slower then the rest of the fleet. Nearly half the speed of all other devices, at the same location, on the same tower. Pretty upsetting...
There are mountains of variables in wireless communications, period! Some of the engineering on these networks is a flea's eyelash short of a miracle that it works at all.
That's the truth... interference from other phones, wifi, other networks, weather, terrain, 'death grips,' etc...
It would be nice if you provided details. Using speedtest app is irrelevant and does NOT provide accurate results.
I downloaded the same 10 mb file on each phone, on 4g on each. Each were on the same 4g Tower, and again...Same results. The Nexus was usually about 50-60% slower than the Evo/Evo shift. The Samsung Epic was only slightly slower than the Evo's. Im not tryin to knock on the Nexus or anything, I ended up buying one myself anyways. Its just the truth about the situation.
I'm just Lucky I guess. My nexus works fine and gets speeds in all connections comparable to what my evo got.
