[Guaner]

A few reviews have come out on the upcoming HTC EVO saying that the 4G speeds are phenomenal. Yet, there are various other reports that indicate the 4G speeds are not as fast as advertised. Take this report for instance:

On Day One of my Pacific Northwest EVO 4G Tour last Thursday (May 27), I checked out the performance of Sprint’s new EVO 4G phone running on Clearwire’s 4G WiMax networks in the Washington cities of Bellingham, Seattle, Snohomish, and Tacoma.

The EVO 4G phone is the first phone designed to run on a U.S. 4G network. The phone has been receiving great reviews; but to get a feel for the phone's capabilities, I wanted to see it in action on a 4G connection, which is said to offer data speeds up to ten times faster than those a 3G wireless data service can deliver.

I didn't find this kind of performance in Washington; in fact, I saw only flashes of the EVO’s potential in 4G mode. So on Day Two (Friday, May 28), I sampled the 4G service in two Oregon cities: Portland and Salem. Here are my impressions.

Source

Also:

Download: During daytime testing, the Sprint EVO on 4G produced the fastest download speeds at the most locations (3). However, the 4G download speeds topped out around 2 Mbps and fell short of the advertised 3-6 Mbps. Surprisingly, the fastest download speeds of the day were achieved over Sprint 3G at my final location, where I was able to hit an average of 2.14 Mbps.

Upload: The Sprint EVO on 4G also produced the fastest upload speeds at the most locations (3). Sprint has capped 4G uploads at 1 Mbps and that is exactly what we found during our testing.

Ping: I’m not sure how important latency is to the average smartphone owner, but we included the results anyways. Sprint 4G offered the highest ping times of any network we tested during the daytime. Sprint 3G had faster ping times at every location I checked.

Daytime conclusion: Overall, the Sprint EVO on 4G offered the fastest download and upload speeds at the most locations. It was not quite as fast as I had hoped for, but Sprint 4G still came out on top

Source


Is 4G overrated at this point??

[knytphal]

Man, I wish that I could complain about 2.3mbps downloads on my phone.

Would I say that 4G is over rated? Hard to tell at this point. With pretty much nobody on a 4G network you would (or rather, Sprint would) really hope that the speeds would be phenomenally fast....which doesn't appear to be the situation right now. At least according to this review. I haven't read much on Clearwire lately, so I don't know what speeds people are getting.

I am a little concerned that the author had to "tweak" or fiddle with the network connection settings on the EVO to get it to connect to the 4G network at times....is a "normal" user going to want to mess with that just for a speedier connection? Probably not. Though hopefully that's something that could be fixed in firmware. Maybe it was fixed in the patch released not to long ago? I'm not sure....

[Guaner]

Sprint is already in the works for another 4G device, http://www.sprintusers.com/samsung-g...ro-leaked-pic/

4G seems to be picking up now I guess...

[tzsm98]

The 4G like speeds I'm receiving from the upgraded T-Mobile network in Oklahoma City are running ~.6Mbps upload or 60% of the Sprint 4G reported in the review quoted by the OP. My 4.50Mbps is about 100% better than Sprint's "superfast 4G" network.

Those who have read my previous posts about T-Mobile 3G know that I was anticipating 2 Mbps when the new system rolled out.

I've been quite pleased until I had lunch in El Reno, OK today. I had to adjust the settings on my Nokia N900 from 3G to dual mode to get a signal. My wife's Nokia 5230 was happily showing 5 bars while I was trying to find the T-Mobile network amongst all the wifi networks in the area. Where the enhanced service exists it is great but once you drive 25 minutes it is gone!

I don't think 4G is over rated. I've noticed how much snappier page loads are on my device. I use my mobile device as a search tool much more than as a phone so quicker returns are genuine value added event for me. I don't think T-Mobile is calling their enhanced network a 4G service, I haven't seen the advertisement if it is. But if it is supposed to be similar in throughput to the Sprint 4G network I'd say it is a step up.

[Guaner]

I wonder how long it will take for other carriers to make the switch to 4G.

[angelinalove]

Well I think 4G is not launched in all the area, i have recently buy an mobile from AT&T with data plan and its working fine. i am getting good speed.