I'm not sure how it'll compare to your Mom's Epic, but I've had a great experience with my 4G and with my 3vo so far with data and I've never had a dropped call at all.

 

You're not gonna get great 4G reception in a building, but 3G and voice seem to work fine for me. I'm pretty sure with 4G and wifi you can talk and surf the web at the same time, but not with 3G (on sprint). I surf the web and play on facebook and check emails constantly and they're plenty fast even on 3G.

 

I haven't used it on the 3vo yet, but it was fantastic on the 4G. I'm about to test it out now actually since I have to go deliver some concert tickets. I'll try to get back to you.

 

on 3g it was very good, took only 40 seconds to load phonedog, which to me is quicker then the evo 4g, which took maye closer to a minute, so 3g speeds have been good, I get no 4g in my area

 

My 4G data is considerably faster than it was with my original EVO in the exact same areas. Haven't tested data much in 3G, yet.

 

it is fast!

 

I used google maps on the mytouch 3G before Sprint and the maps loaded fine even when 3G wasn't available.

When I switched to Sprint, I used the 4G prior to getting the Evo 3D. 3G and turn by turn worked flawlessly. The 4G/3G handoff worked fine as well. I experienced no issues in Nav.

I tested out the E3D yesterday. In all three travel destinations, 3G/4G and handoffs between each, no issues were experienced. I have faith in this phone to get me where I need to go and tell me when to turn.

 

The GPS locks on quickly, the 3G signal reception is on par with every other phone sprint offers, and sprint's service is alright. It's not as ggood as big red's (Verizon), but for the massive cut in cost per month, I can't complain missing 3g in extremely isolated areas. As long as I've had sprint, I'd still reccomend them to anyone over other carriers. The service is good, and the price is nice.

As always though, signal is signal. Check maps for around your area in terms of coverage from allthe carriers. Choose first from the carrier that provides btter service to your area, then go from there. The phones are last to choose.

 

Data service will always vary depending on where you are. I have been with Sprint for 11 years. It works great where I am (Southern Illinois) and when I'm on the road traveling. I do get into roaming in rural areas but the phone always works fine.

My brother has an iPhone and is on AT&T. It works great for him in Lousiana but sucks when he comes back to our hometown in So. Illinois. My service isn't all that great when I go visit him in Louisiana. No carrier can cover everything.

Still waiting on 4G here but when I go to St. Louis or Chicago it flies! 8-10 Mbp speeds easy. Your best bet is to talk to people in your area. Go for service first and pick your handset next.

Google Maps turn-by-turn navigation worked great on my original EVO and it works great on the EVO 3D as well.

I use Google Maps navigation daily so I sold my Garmin GPS unit 6 months ago....

 

I'm in St. Louis, MO. Running SpeedTest I find that my 4G speeds are 10 Mb/s down and 1 Mb/s up. 3G speeds are 1.2 Mb/s down, 600 kb/s up. That was on Friday afternoon, with full signal strength for both 3G and 4G (I can see the tower for goodness sakes!). I've seen better 3G speeds in the past, but that's what I saw on Friday.

 

Well, I moved on from the Hero and always argued that it never really had the EvDo rev.A speeds it was supposed to. Anyways...

That said, using the E3D in the same locations as the old phone, I've noticed a much better connection and throughput. The WiFi is awesome (especially that it is "N" class) and that flies as well. The 4G where available is just SICK speed! All in all I'd have to say they've done their homework and it has great connection, speed and throughput capability.

Loving this freakin phone, lol

 

I previously said that sprint was a bad network for being inconsistent with their 4g speeds.abound to the speed test app I get about 3 mbps with 2 bars of 4g but I get 5 mbps with 1 bar in missouri. In ACTUAL download speeds, I hit up to 9 mbps here where I live even though the speed test app says otherwise. Just thought others might want to know.

 

Connection speeds depend on how good the service is where you live, and how many people are using the local network. If you live in a major city you will most likely have a good connection, but if there are a lot of people using the network they will make your connection slower. For example if you go to a local major sporting event you might have trouble uploading pictures to facebook because everyone else in the stadium is using the network.

In contrast if you live in the woods and the closet sprint cell tower is a few miles away your service will be slower because it takes longer for your connection to ping. Ping is the time it takes for you to send information to the cell tower and the time it takes for the cell tower to reply to what you sent it. I live in a Sprint dead zone only get 1-2 bars in analog roam so I called up Sprint and had them send me a free Air Rave (voice over ip) now I get full service at home now.

Speedtest is a good app that I use all the time to test my network connections speeds. I was in Puerto Rico last week and the hotels WiFi was 3 times slower than the local 3g service (1 MBPS download). One a side note, I have been testing my download speed at home on my old EVO 4G and on my EVO 3D, the 3D is 3 times faster than the 4G. 3d gets about 7.5 MBPS and the 4G gets about 2.5 MBPS.

 

Ive been meaning to ask this about sprint 3g for a while. Did sprint slow it down or anything? When I first got the evo 4g the 3g was blazing fast....then the last few months if having the phone and now with the 3d if I dont have a wifi connection forget it...

 

Right when I first got this phone I noticed slower speeds but a profile update resolved it. Here right outside of Nashville TN I have both 3 and 4G and this thing is smokin'!

 

The max I have hit on Sprint's 4G WiMAX (on OG EVO and 3VO) was 13.23 mbps DS. My avg is anywhere around 6-7 mbps DS though. I wish I still had the screenshot of the max speed I received. My SD card decided to go poop on me

 

I'll probably get thrashed soundly for posting this opinion... but for most of the stuff you do on your phone a 3G connection is more than fast enough and 4G is too much of battery hog to be usefull. This is true regardless if you are talking Sprint 4G or Verizon 4G.

For browsing the web, 3G (even at sub 1Mps speeds) is fast enough for mobile sites and for desktop websites the phone is CPU bound. The CPU can't render pages fast enough to make full use of a 3G connection, much less 4G.

For navigation 3G is plenty fast enough to download maps. Again, it's cpu bound.

The one time where a bigger pipe might help is if you are streaming a high bitrate video stream. But with the way 4G kills your battery you are restricted to fairly short video clips anyway.

 

I won't thrash you soundly, but I will note that my web pages render more quickly when in wifi (5 Mbps down) vs 3G (900~1200 kbps down).

I'm using the stock browser, UAString set to Desktop, no mobile view, javascript on, always on embedded content.

Besides actual bits per second - there's latency for the connections, and most web pages have many, many connections.

I'd say take that into account when assessing if 4G is right for you. Everyone's mileage varies a bit on this one.

 

Yeah, I know there is a bit of difference but I guess I'd question if it's a significant amount.

I know going from single core to dual core makes a noticeable difference in web page rendering speed but if you open something like engadget on 3G vs. wifi any idea what the difference is (I don't have an E3D yet so I don't have a way to test)?

I agree that latency of 3G networks is probably a pretty significant factor in the performance (or lack thereof).

 

Ah. Ok, yes depends on source. I don't visit Engadget anymore but I can say without doubt the rendering speed is quite different on this phone vs. a single core (say: 3vo vs. my old Evo) - very noticeably, more so if there's plenty of Flash content.

Ditto on wifi vs. 3G of this forum on the dual-core - I'd say it's VERY easily noticeable - lots of javascripting here.

I'd venture some number differences, but I don't have data in front of me (from my own tests) at the moment to back up anything I'd say.

I'll just say - you don't need to be OCD or use a stopwatch to see the timing differences - they're grotesque.

 

It does depend on the type of site you go to, any site with flash content will really slow things down. Having the phone load 90% of the site and then hang for another minute while it renders the flash content drives me nuts.