I have been using a 3g Samsung smart phone and it has been great....but 4g is available

I am happy with my phone. I have had it for two years and it has been the best phone I have owned. I use it for my high speed modem anywhere I go, it has great gps capability, it has great reception, it has been durable and intuitive in its operations, and although I rarely take pictures it also is great.

My question is has somebody upgraded to the 4g phones and what kind of improvement have you found in your speeds, and would you suggest other people upgrade based on your experience. In percentage of speed improvement......what is a person looking at in real world experience.

I have the 4g phone but Sprint doesn't have 4g service in this area yet..

2seaoat wrote:I am happy with my phone. I have had it for two years and it has been the best phone I have owned. I use it for my high speed modem anywhere I go, it has great gps capability, it has great reception, it has been durable and intuitive in its operations, and although I rarely take pictures it also is great.

My question is has somebody upgraded to the 4g phones and what kind of improvement have you found in your speeds, and would you suggest other people upgrade based on your experience. In percentage of speed improvement......what is a person looking at in real world experience.

I upgraded to a 4G capable phone (Samsung Galaxy S2) and the T-Mobile 4G network. I love the phone but the T-Mobile 4G network is very inconsistent, both in download speed and in 4G connection reliability. Sometimes it's blazing fast (12 mpbs download), sometimes it's blazing slow (less than 1 mpbs), and it won't connect in the fringes of the coverage area as well as AT&T or Verizon.
It's really a case of you get what you pay for. I get unlimited everything with 2 GB of 4g download (which would be plenty enough for me if it was consistent) for only $60/mo on a prepaid plan with no contract (but I had to buy the phone for $400).
If you want more consistent 4G speed and connection reliability you need to go to Verizon or AT&T but be prepared to pay significantly more per month to do so (although your initial investment in the phone will be a lot less with a contract).
There are newer phones which will perform a little better and will have some newer features but regardless of which carrier you use for 4G I can recommend the Galaxy S2 because a version of it is compatible with all three networks and the newer phones will cost you more and I don't see enough improvement to pay the difference.

One other consideration. The newest technology for 4G is "LTE". If you want the fastest connection speeds that appears to be the way to go. It's explained here...

http://mashable.com/2012/06/12/4g-explained-what-is-lte/

i use a droid on verizon and it is excellent... they no longer have unlimited data tho. I'm grandfathered on the old plan for 80 a month... not sure what the pricing is now.

Thanks for the information. I am not inclined to switch if the service is inconsistent at this time. I am very happy with my current phone, but I am often slow to respond to someone who accuses me of not watching a video link when I am using my phone as a modem. I was hoping the 4g would allow video links to be much faster than the 3g.

2seaoat wrote: I was hoping the 4g would allow video links to be much faster than the 3g.

Generally speaking, the upgrade from 3G to 4G does give you very noticeably faster connection speeds. I experienced that going from Sprint 3G to T-Mobile 4G.
BUT that's when the cellular network is at peak performance and in the real-world that is definitely not the case all of the time. It seems to be very dependent on which network you're on and where you're located at the time (how close to that network's closest cell tower) and how busy the network is at the time and etc. etc.
It's not unlike a wired ISP connection. It can be fast at times but not at other times.

Which cellular provider are you on now? And how consistent is your 3G connection on that carrier now? Are you doing speed tests to see what your download speed is now?

2seaoat wrote: I use it for my high speed modem anywhere I go.

Are you talking about turning it on as a mobile hotspot to feed an internet connection to other PC's?
One thing I can tell you is I've done that with several different phones and carriers and I've found a real difference between both how well that works and the price of adding that capability.
If that is working well for you now then feel fortunate because it aint always the case.

I'm using a Samsung 1/2 G clam shell that's probably 5 to 7 years old. Life is good!

Slicef18 wrote:I'm using a Samsung 1/2 G clam shell that's probably 5 to 7 years old. Life is good!

But them videos sure do buffer a lot, don't they (that is if you can even get a video download to work on it). Not to mention that postage stamp size screen is a real eye killer, aint it? lol

The first cellphone I ever had that would do internet (claimed to anyway) had a 1 inch screen and the resolution was about 200 by 150. And the speed was so slow that it took me about five minutes to display a message forum page.
I would click on the page, go make a ham sandwich and a glass of milk, eat the sandwich and drink the milk, and if I was lucky by that time the page would almost be displayed on the 1" screen. But the text was so small that I couldn't even read it anyways.
It was a throwback to trying to do the internet on a Commodore 64 computer with a 4k modem except at least the picture was big on the Commodore. But that was right after Al Gore invented the internet and the graphics were nothing but written text. lol

I'm on 3G now with an iPhone 4S but pre-ordered the iphone 5 and will be on 4G LTE as soon as it arrives. Looking forward to it.

Bob wrote:

Slicef18 wrote:I'm using a Samsung 1/2 G clam shell that's probably 5 to 7 years old. Life is good!

But them videos sure do buffer a lot, don't they (that is if you can even get a video download to work on it). Not to mention that postage stamp size screen is a real eye killer, aint it? lol

You got that right!