DPReview's most-clicked

For years, I've seen a list of DPReview's most clicked cameras.  They have always included some mix of Canon and Nikon equipment, as though each faction will not let the other win.

On occasion, you will see Pentax or Olympus or Fuji or Sony sneak into the top list, and then, promptly be forced to the bottom and then, off the list entirely for a while.  Sometime, they return, as when a preview turns into a review.

Amusingly, the Olympus OM-D E-M5 ended up their camera of the year in 2012, as to say to the Canikon crowd, "We've had enough of you!"  Still, the most-clicked list has continued to have both Canon and Nikon equipment, until November 6th, when I saw this:

I'm not saying that it means a lot, but it is a surprising departure, and the list has not had a single Canon camera on it for several days.  You have to wonder if the whole lot of them are at some Canon-sponsored event and can't be bothered to visit DPReview now.

Update: the whole situation is slowly going back to normal with a few Canon products on the list.  I wonder if they somehow stopped counting the Canon products or banned them from the list due to "stuffing the ballot box" type of behaviour.

I bought an iPhone 5c (over the LG G2) and stayed with my carrier, Sprint

There is always hope, but sometime, it's almost minimal.  That's how things are today.

Friday, I went back to the local Sprint store and traded my iPhone 4S for an iPhone 5c.  Everyone working at the store was wearing an LG G2 t-shirt.  I really thought about buying a G2 or the Google Nexus 5.  I wasn't 100% sure about either for various reasons.  They're both big.  The Nexus 5 didn't have Otterbox or similar brand cases, and it only came in a 16 GB capacity.  The G2 had 32 GB capacity but I was uncertain about operating system updates and the various complaints against the interface, even though it has the Sprint ID crap on top of the Sprint version--something I know that didn't get in the way too much.

You can call me cheap but the iPhone 5c fits my conservative feeling about technology.  I've already read too much about weirdness with the iPhone 5s, as I read about troubles with the iPhone 5 when it was new, and I generally don't go for the first of Apple's trial runs because I've paid painfully for being first.

The iPhone 5c is slightly more technically than the iPhone 5, in a newer design.  It has 2 bands for LTE, rather than 1.  If Sprint were deploying all 3 bands soon, and LTE was my main goal, then the G2 or Nexus 5 would have been better choices.  However, the 1900 MHz and 2500 MHz bands will do, with the 800 MHz band coming later.  The Sierra Wireless/Netgear mobile hotspot I have only does 1900 MHz for LTE and 2500 MHz for WiMAX, and only 1900 MHz for EVDO.  By the time I get my next phone, everything will be settled.

Still, US199.99 for the 32 GB iPhone 5c and a trade-in value of $143 for my iPhone 4S, made a difference of $56.99, which is a cheap price to switch a generation (or two, if you look at the timing).  Of course, I had to buy another AppleCare+ plan for $99.00 but that's not bad, and then, a cable with a Lightning connector.  It wasn't cheap, but for the quality, it wasn't expensive really.  Monoprice would have a better deal, but I didn't order it ahead of time and deals at Target or Best Buy were worse than Sprint.  I ended up giving all of my extra iPhone 4S accessories to a friend who still has his.  At some point, Lightning cables and accessories will become common, and therefore, inexpensive.

The only thing that doesn't seem a great deal is the Ottberbox Defender case for US$49.99.  Of course, it's changed for the new form.  What seemed sloppy in the iPhone 4S case is taut and what was taut in that case is now loose.  The screen protector is no longer hard plastic and there is a gap, so you must press the plastic against the display.  Does this protect it better?  I don't think so because dust can enter through the opening for the Home button and the speaker/front camera opening.  Oddly, the porthole for the Apple logo is not correctly placed.

The fit of the case is so much better overall and the Lighning port cover doesn't close accidentally as did the cover for the 30 pin connector.  The case is gray and white, so that seems a bit more appealing (at the moment) than the older, black-only case.  In fact, Otterbox has several color combinations available by special order.  I doubt retailers will carry them all.  (Update 2014.01.05: I've changed to the Ballistic SG MAXX, which has apparently been renamed Hard Jacket Maxx or something like that, plus added an Invisible Shield screen protector because the Defender screen protector made it difficult to work the phone.)

As far as usage goes, the phone feels faster, as it should stepping from the A5 processor to the A6 processor.  It would have been nice to get the A6x but it probably generates too much heat in a small package.  Besides, the cost was likely too much to add it and price the phone were it is.

I had a chance on Saturday to gauge LTE, when I was at a Panasonic photo/video workshop at a camera store in downtown Indianapolis, Indiana.  I was recently at that store for a product introduction for Olympus, and LTE wasn't healthy.  At 0.75 Mbps, I found it mostly useless.  Sprintcare advised me that two towers were down and putting strain on single tower.  Saturday, a couple of months later, I got 1.0 Mbps, which certainly doesn't even look like 5 Mbps or 10, 15, 20, or 25 Mbps that this technology is supposed to allow.  Obviously, the buildout is still in its infancy.

Further into the suburbs, I got not quite 3 Mbps, and there were gaps in coverage along the way.  When I was in Greenwood Park mall, one end switched all the way down to 1xRTT (thankfully not the circle since iOS 7 but it's labeled 1x), but near the Sprint kiosk, there was LTE available, not that it worked very well, but it was present.

I was told to expect LTE here in 6 months.  Given my 60+ mile drive home, I have no doubt that it will be deployed along I-70, as it went quite a way, covering several small towns along the interstate highway.  It stopped in the middle of nowhere, not at an intersection along the highway, which seemed odd to me, but I'm not a communications planner.  With about 38 more miles to get to the town where I am now, it looks like progress is actually happening in a very backward area that only got 3G service in early 2009.

When I was outside Cincinnati today, in the Springdale area, I noticed the LTE indicator on the phone.  Cincinnati is not an announced area, as far as I know, and the WiMAX there is more overloaded than the 3G service, so it was surprising to see the results.

As for the increased resolution, there is room for an extra row of icons and using my backup from the iPhone 4S, it looks a bit lonely toward the bottom.  I wish that they would let me expand the favorite apps at the bottom into two rows.  It's not as though it's a hardship, but it could be more convenient.  Apple is learning, but learning so slowly that the rest of us need a class on patience.

I'm sure someone out there thinks that I'm ridiculously stupid for staying with a CDMA phone.  Here is my reasoning: There was a demonstration of how you could use a $15 phone and a little bit of knowledge to fake a GSM tower and listen to conversations.  It's not that I make a lot of conversations, secretive or otherwise, but it's ridiculous to open yourself up when you give that credit card number over the phone and a third party is listening.

They call CDMA old, but GSM goes back to the 1980s--further than CDMA really.  I'm excited about VoLTE--voice over LTE technology, where we can give up both GSM and CDMA but it's going to be later in the decade.

Update 2013.11.26: Two weeks have passed already?  The phone has proven itself.  LTE, where available, works well.  I don't see that the phone can fix communications problems but at least, it's not making them worse, as it seemed to be with the iPhone 4S or the LG Optimus S.  Perhaps, Qualcomm is better now or it's just that the antenna configuration is much better.  I'm holding the phone the same way as always.  For a moment yesterday, I was thinking of my Sanyo PM-8200 with the pull-out antenna.  That phone had amazing sound but flip phones could be thicker then.  Having a phone that sounded better than a landline phone was incredible at that time.  It was only when I got to the premium Samsung A900 that my expectations went down.

I was going to say that my problem with compass interference had completely gone away, but I can only say that it's minimized.  I haven't seen the actual message about compass interference, but I find that the map is looking the wrong way occasionally.

I haven't seen anything terrible, which is both great and expected of what is mostly a 1 year old phone with some enhancements.  When iOS 7 is more mature, I expect that it will be as good as a phone can be.

My 2013 Google Nexus 7 tablet will fill my need for Android.

Update 2013.12.06: My pro rata bill came and that's always a time for panic as it is big.  The bill was almost exactly the same, except for the US$36.00 activation fee and AppleCare+ for US$99.00, and of course, there was additional tax because of those two.  It's a bit more (~US$60+) than my bill from two years ago when I got the iPhone 4s when they started charging the smart phone premium data fee but I don't recall much about the changes.

Service has been unhappy and great in alternating cycles.  LTE is still months away, though it works in the small town of Eaton in Ohio about 12 miles away, though no longer in the Cincinnati area.  It would be great to have a really good response from the devices, although the iPhone 5c generally works better than the mobile hotspot.  How any carrier buys products to work with their supplied connections, and they don't really work together well, I will never understand.  All the carriers seem to have the same problems and it's never their fault, just like the cable company.

Update 2014.01.05: I am definitely not pleased with service lately.  It's likely because of holiday shopping and ongoing upgrade work, but service at  home is unusable at times.  I don't mean that it's pathetically slow.  I mean that it's time to shut off the phone slow because nothing is getting data.  The mobile hotspot is worse for whatever reason.  Checking the network.sprint.com website shows me that cows and horses about 6 miles east of here have LTE service and it's arriving from all sides, but when tiny towns have the service and a town of 35,000 doesn't, it makes me wonder what the priorities are.  The phone is great however and hasn't disappointed at all.

Update 2014.03.26: After spending several months with the latest version of Android (4.4.2) and recently updating the iPhone 5c to iOS 7.1, I couldn't be more pleased that I didn't get an Android-based phone.  There is always something just a little bit off about Android.  Thankfully, the tablet isn't bad as its 2012 counterpart was.  I like the 2013 Nexus 7, and it's a much better piece of hardware than the iPad mini but it would be good if Google fixed the operating system, so it wasn't a pig and the battery wasn't half depleted if I leave it off the charger all night.

The iPhone 5c has recently taken up mobile hotspot duties and it works well enough, but there seem to be some flaws in the functionality in iOS 7.1.  Otherwise, the phone is quite good, which should be expected since it is a warmed-over iPhone 5 with dual band LTE.  LTE works quite well, and I've seen over 12 Mbps with it.  However, at home, I'm still struggling with service.  I suspect the technician is the same one who couldn't get 3G/EVDO working on schedule, and can't keep the network working consistently either.

I'm no longer using the Otterbox Defender case.  I switched to a Ballistic SG MAXX case, tossed the screen protector, and bought an Invisible Shield screen protector.   It was a lot of money, but not wasted.

Update 2014.11.26: It's been over a year with the iPhone 5c and it's still a good phone.  Thankfully, the rather broken iOS 7.x has been replaced with the somewhat broken iOS 8.1.1 finally.  I think Sprint is still my biggest hurdle, but I don't see good alternatives.  My service is only really bad at home.

Given that I'm using the SG MAXX case (and they've changed the name of that model), there have been no destructive drops.  I'm pleased that the case is both strong and that I can remove it easily.

If there is one odd problem with the phone, it's something that seems to have happened recently.  Syncing with the computer has become flaky.  I switched from the long, Sprint-supplied cable to the original, short Apple-supplied cable and it is more reliable, but not 100%.

However, part of the problem could be that I upgraded to OS X 10.9.5 about the same time as I upgraded the phone to iOS 8.1.  It could also be that my MacBook Pro is often in the backpack with me, but that shouldn't loosen just the USB ports.  I'd expect that it would loosen practically everything.

32GB seems not to be quite enough, possibly because the apps are arriving in 32-bit/64-bit combos with enhanced artwork for the upgraded resolutions for the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus.  I have a little bit over 16 GB of music (256 Kbps mp3 encoding), so the rest of the storage is related to apps.  Asphalt 8 and Galaxy on Fire 2 (HD) take a lot of storage for data.

In any case, I'm still pleased with the iPhone 5c.

vampirestat and 7secretsearch re-directing traffic to me?

Oh, dear.  I don't know who these people are, and I probably don't want to ask too many questions.  It looks as though my blog is meeting success with about 800 more pageviews in the monthly period, but of course, people aren't reading that much.  Still, it's amusing that the monthly pageviews only two weeks ago were threatening to fall below 1000 and now, they're hovering around 2100.  They've recently exceeded 2600.  However, it's sad to see the daily page views at nearly 200 and yet, there are probably only 10 people actually reading something.

Sorry for the inconvenience, but maybe you'll find something interesting, unless of course, you were looking for pornography since my blog isn't about that.

To everyone else: I hope that my words help you make better decisions on the equipment I'm discussing (amongst myself, ha!).  I think a lot of things over and over, trying to find the truth out of the bias toward something or the other.  Yes, I am a bit biased, but only toward getting the right thing.  I do not want to spend money in the wrong places.

I was always amused by someone advising a person by first telling them that their last decision was completely wrong.  It really sets someone up to believe that their next decision could be wrong also, even though that's what the person advising wants you to buy.

Life continues.  Find success!

14 days until end of mobile phone contract (solved and switched)

It's been a very long time since I wasn't on a contract with my mobile phone provider.  At that time, I had a Motorola StarTac, which served me really well, and I got the phone at a huge discount, considering it cost me $9.99.  These phones had been something like US$3000 when they first arrived on the scene.

Since then, I've gone through a number of phones, as technology changed, especially with the 3G data access.  I ended up wanting a fast phone, and then, I wanted to be able to tether it to the computer, so I would have internet access anywhere.  As I progressed and started to send text messages, I wanted a full keyboard.  Lastly, I wanted a smart phone, and then, I wanted one that worked well.

That brings me to today, 14 days away from the end of my contract.

While there is not much wrong with my current phone, I would prefer to have dual-band LTE (compared to 3G only) capabilities, and some extra performance wouldn't hurt.

The choices are:

• Apple iPhone 5c
• Apple iPhone 5s
• LG G2
• Google Nexus 5

I was told yesterday that Sprint should have LTE capabilities in town in 6 months, as was told to this person by the network technician who services the towers.  Considering that it took the company over 2 years from when I was using 3G elsewhere, that's not bad, if it turns out to be true.

Apple only support two bands at this time.  I'm not fully versed in LTE bands, but I gather than the phones support 1900 MHz and 2500 MHz, since those are the earlier bands Sprint will have everywhere they have LTE.  They started with 1900 MHz, but Clearwire (which they acquired) has held the 2500 MHz frequency and has outfitted for LTE there.  As Sprint de-commissions iDEN at 800 MHz, LTE penetration into buildings will become much easier.

The LG G2 and Google Nexus 5 support all three bands.  I'm a bit skeptical about any Android-based phones, given the developers' abilities to support so many different configurations.  I've seen loads of requests from users wanting a certain game or application to run on their phones, which isn't unreasonable.  That makes me nervous, though.  Google is supposedly addressing the problem with fragmentation through their software design, but it's not there yet.  As I've said in the past, Android version 4.0 was a good place to start a production operating system.

The Nexus 5 would be the easy choice.  It will get the latest, greatest version of Android and related apps.  However, the Sprint version is 16 GB only, and as Android has been increasingly porky, it might seem constrained at some point.  Certainly, anyone who used the 8 GB version of the 2012 Nexus 7 tablet can confirm that it didn't have enough storage to be entirely useful.  That leaves the LG G2, which is rather big, but has the 32 GB of storage and 17 hour battery.

I've had three LG phones, an LG TV, and an LG 3D Blu-Ray player.  They seem to leave a lot undone, although the feature phones were less buggy than Samsung's.  The Blu-Ray player freezes far too often, and the TV isn't always working correctly.  Now, they weren't premium devices, and I don't expect them to give the highest resolution output or the best sound but I expect them to work without having to be unplugged.  Still, the LG G2 is hardly an economical device, and I would expect that it will work well, as long as they've worked out their touch screen threshold.  I really don't feel like stabbing the display to get it to respond.  However, the full HD display may be worth it.

I'm inclined to go with the iPhone 5c, as it's fairly economical, and there are Otterbox (and Ballistic) cases for it, although I would have to order a Ballistic case or anything other than the very standard Otterbox Defender.  Thankfully, the cases are thinner than the case for the iPhone 4S.  The Defender on the iPhone 4S is uncomfortable at times.  The phone itself has the polycarbonate shell over a steel infrastructure, not unlike my 2009 MacBook.  The big question is: How outdated will it be in November 2015?  Will I want a higher resolution display?  ($200 for the phone + $50 for the case + $100 for AppleCare+ and then, there is additional tax and the activation fee, but it's probably still cheaper that way rather than the "helpful" finance the phone plan.

The iPhone 5s has the greater enhancements; unfortunately, they are giving the greater growing pains.  The 64-bit-ness of the processor is apparently causing some problems with the way things work.  I think I'll wait for the next one or two.  I wasn't ready for the iPhone 5 for the same reason--growing pains.

I know that I should just wait to see what happens with the network, but I probably won't do that.  I even looked at going with a prepaid feature phone to save money and then, I would use the current iPhone 4S with the mobile hotspot.  I doubt I'd last long with the inconvenience of that arrangement.  I'd probably find my 12 GB limit limiting.

If I wait until the contract has been finished, will Sprint be more pliable?  Would they offer me the cradle for my mobile hotspot as an incentive to stay?  I know that it sounds selfish, but I've seen people walk away with accounts requiring minimal payments, phone upgrades, and more.  The best I've ever been offered by the company was to buy a phone early at full price, and I'd been a subscriber for 8 years at the time.  They always seemed to appreciate new customers more, even after they introduced their "New for You" campaign.

Update 2013.11.08: 2 years remaining on contract now.  I traded my iPhone 4S for a iPhone 5c, giving me a credit of US$143.  I bought an Otterbox Defender case, which was an extra $49.99 and suffers from a poor design compared to the case for the 4S, which I kept, as they wouldn't give me anything extra.  AppleCare+ is still $99.00 for two years.  I also bought a 6 ft. Lightning cable since they're difficult to find.  I had checked several stores before buying the phone but only Best Buy had short, expensive cables.  $24.99 for 6 feet isn't as good as Monoprice's $12.98 but this seems a bit more sturdy.

It took a while to move 2200+ songs and 130 apps from my computer to the new phone, but it was simple.  iTunes asked if I wanted to use the current backup, so then, it was just a matter of waiting for it to finish, and then, to download the operating system update.

The Otterbox Defender case fits better around the phone but the transparent sheet in the front is not tight or close enough to the display, plus the porthole for the Apple logo, silly as it is, is in the wrong place.  I still don't see the reason to flaunt that you own an Apple product, but whatever.

Nikon Df, more retro in a bigger but smaller package

While I'm not exactly surprised by Nikon's announcement, I'm pleased to see that they've put together a 1970s-style camera body.

When I was selling the Nikon F2, we had a Nikkormat body, which was their less expensive, smaller brand.  It was easily usable without the crane and tripod.  Compared to the Olympus OM-1N, it was still quite heavy.

When I first got a dSLR in 2004, I wondered why they couldn't do something in the same size as the 1970s bodies.  It seemed ridiculous to have a smaller sensor (APS-C or Four-Thirds) in a body larger than 135 format.  Then, I mounted a longer, bigger lens and realized how much more comfortable these dSLRs were.  The grip kept them from being slippery, too.  Using a 4x telephoto zoom, and relaxing and holding everything with only fingertips on the grip says a lot of progress has been made.

So, Nikon brought a camera to market that looks very much like the 1970s, adding a couple of LCDs and a lot of automatic features.  The price is up there, but not outrageous for what you get.  At roughly US$2750, you get their top of the line 135 format/FX sensor.  (If you think higher pixel density leads to better image quality, you need to think again.)  Combine that with the D610's auto focus unit, a single card slot, and all the dials you can handle, and you've got a great casual shooter than wipes Sony's A7/A7R duo right off the camera shop floor, except for size, of course.

No, it's not likely that the same people are going to be driven to Sony and Nikon bodies, or anything with the retro look.  I suspect a lot of people in their 70s will buy the Nikon Df, if for nothing than nostalgia, as they probably have an old Nikon body in the closet.

Why do I damn the Df with the word "casual"?  You'll see that the first time you mount the 70-200mm f/2.8 lens to it without a tripod handy.  It's the same reason I call most of the micro Four-Thirds bodies casual--you'll need to take more care if you want to work handheld with an unbalanced pairing of body and lens.  Thankfully, Fuji has been thoughtful with their X-series bodies and only provided an adapter for Leica M-mount lenses, which are small lenses.  In the 1970s, it wasn't a huge problem because there weren't so many huge lenses, unless you were using Medium Format.

If you fit into that category where you take the time to take the shot, I suspect that you'll be richly rewarded by some very amazing image quality with the best lenses.  If you dig the bottom of the barrel and come out with a 40 year old Sigma lens, you'll wonder why there was any fuss about the Nikon Df.  Using high quality lenses with it will make you admire the D4 even more.

Thinking back a bit to the D610 announcement, I see where it makes more sense now that the update came about the same time as the Df, especially with the update to the Expeed 3 processor and faster burst rate.

Update 2013.11.11: Saturday, I was at a local camera store for a workshop, and I was discussing something later and I noticed a couple of the film bodies from the 1970s and 1980s, and they brought back a sense of nostalgia, having sold such equipment in my past.  Unfortunately, most who spent US$500 aren't as likely to spend US$2750 for nostalgia, I expect.

Update 2013.11.24: Reading What Digital Camera's impressions made me smile when they said that the camera body was larger than expected, even though it's the smallest Nikon FX body.  Nikon built huge camera bodies way back when.  It was only after Olympus started to take business away that they responded with smaller bodies.  The article was suggesting that the balance wasn't very good with zoom lenses.  They should go back to the 1970s when none of the camera bodies had much of a grip at all.  If you wanted stability, you bought a tripod.

Update 2014.12.18: I wonder if Nikon has sold more than a few thousand of these bodies.  I don't see much about this body any longer.  I suppose Nikon enthusiasts and professional photographers from the 1970s bought quite a few of them and that buying spree was over quickly.  What value can you place on nostalgia?

Android usage shows upgrades, switch; BlackBerry on the ropes

I noticed that this chart still shows quite a few Android users in versions 2.3.3 - 2.3.7 (API 10, was it?) but 2.3 - 2.3.2 are gone.

Just to see the progress, here is the final calendar quarter of 2013.

It makes me think that the LG Optimus One and Optimus 2 are still around in many variants since those had so little storage that they couldn't be updated.  They were also not very powerful, but they were inexpensive and people who could only afford a feature phone could suddenly afford a smart phone.

Notice that Honeycomb, version 3.2 is still there.  Apparently, there were quite a few US$100 tablets that couldn't be upgraded but are still in use.

Update 2013.11.27: I've read recently that they re-worked Kit Kat to be less demanding of resources, i.e. to get rid of the reason phones are still using Gingerbread/version 2.3.x.  It isn't likely to put Kit Kat on LG Optimus One variants but possibly the Optimus 2, which is still being sold.

I also saw today where the deal for BlackBerry/RIM fell apart and there doesn't seem to be a saviour of the company.  That drove a sell-off of the stock, sending the price down about 20% lower.  They also replaced the CEO.  (I suspect that they'll be saying that choosing him was an error in Heinsight.  Yes, that's mine, and stop groaning.)

I would think that Apple, Google, and Microsoft are looking to buy the remains of the company when it's too far gone to save.

Google doesn't care about real-time execution since it chose a Java-related runtime architecture, but Apple could really use something a bit better and BlackBerry owns the QNX operating system, which was always quite a stunner with its fast (operating system) message passing system.  Anything to fix the performance issues in the Darwin/(Mac) OS X kernel would be good.  (Sure, it's easy to make the slop less apparent with faster processing but it's still sloppy.)

Apparently, the BlackBerry Messenger (BBM) has been downloaded quite a lot, but people don't know what to do with it once they have it.  Duh.  You should be able to contact someone on CNBC as they're saying that "You'll have to pry it from my cold, dead hands."  That's CrackBerry, and most of the users have been gone since about 2009 when they realized there were alternatives.

It'll be sad to see them gone from the market.  I wish they had taken Apple's entry into the mobile phone space seriously.  Obviously, Nokia had a similar take on being unbeatable and it cost them plenty.

Sprint is more worried about their executives than their customers

I keep hearing about the wonderful improvements to Sprint's network.  They're happening everywhere, but apparently, where I go.

Sprint made a big deal about having LTE available for the Super Bowl last year.  This summer, I was on Georgia Street in downtown Indianapolis with the Tri-Fi mobile hotspot and my computer trying to do some work before an event.  0.75 Mbps (or 1.0 Mbps on 2013.11.09) on LTE didn't seem quite right, even by pathetic standards.  I was told by the @sprintcare team that two towers were having problems and that the third tower in the area was being stressed more than usual.  It's possible.

As I've said in the past, putting one tower in a town and saying that you have coverage is not the same as having useful coverage, but I know that Verizon does that.  Seeing someone with a phone showing "4G LTE" taking two minutes to switch to 3G (EVDO) to actually do the work is sadly amusing.

No one has really good coverage right now, so it's all about who doesn't have the worst coverage.

I was thinking to myself "Why can't Sprint handle their current customers' needs now?"  I decided to take a look at the network.sprint.com site and check on 3 metropolitan areas.

• Cincinnati, Ohio
• Overland Park, Kansas
• San Jose, California

I'm near Cincinnati and WiMAX (4G) is just as overloaded as EVDO (3G) is.  I've yet to see any LTE (4G LTE)  coverage (that changed with my 2013.11.13 visit), but I don't always take my mobile hotspot with me.

Overland Park is where Sprint's headquarters are.  It's in the Kansas City metro area.  The KC metro area is about the same size (~2.3 million people) as the Cincinnati metro area, so I thought that it would be a good comparison.

San Jose is the third largest city in California with just under 1 million people.  It's in the San Francisco Bay Area, but at the furthest south point.  WiMAX is present and worked reasonably well for the first 6 hours of my 3 day stay there.  It was supposedly repaired before I left, but wasn't working correctly, so perhaps, the problem is that the technicians can't be bothered to test.

I must be confused.  If the KC metro area is no bigger than the Cincinnati metro area (and Overland Park isn't that much of the metro area), why are they receiving roughly 4 times the enhancements?  They're even receiving more than San Jose, California, which has about 4 times the population.

The only thing I can reason is that the executives complain about their inconvenience and plan around themselves.  I can't imagine any other logical explanation because I would think that they would want to convince people who aren't Sprint employees to go with their service, especially when Sprint employees get a discount (100%?) for service, unlike typical customers.  It also seems that with the recent addition of 70 new LTE locations that many were planned as vacation destinations for Sprint executives.

I had learned in the past that they had no way to gauge data performance.  I suspect that they're just not collecting any information, so that they can't be blamed for what they don't know.  Having worked with internal networks at various companies, there are tools for Quality of Service (QoS), so I find it difficult to believe that the major carriers aren't using similar tools on their data networks, except to escape blame.

Oh, and by the way, marketing has created a new boasting area to talk about their plans for tri-band LTE: http://faster.sprint.com/category/spark/?INTCID=TSC:UHP:103013:spark&adSelectData=1:Module_spark_103013

I'm with a lot of the comments that say "I'll believe it when I see it." but they talk about 2014 and 2015.  2014 isn't that far off, but I have a feeling that I won't be seeing LTE at home until 2016 at the rate they're going.  Whether it will be reliable or not is another matter.  I don't consider any data communications technology sufficient if it struggles to get my e-mail, although I've been told several times by Sprint support (not customer service) that if sometime during a 24 hour period the data rates are within their advertised numbers, they are acceptable rates.

Update 2013.11.11: I had recent conversations with local Sprint employees and ended up extending my relationship with the company by buying a new iPhone 5c.  They said, according to the local network technician, this area will have LTE about 6 months from now.   Whether it will be working (well) or not is another matter.  Returning from Indianapolis the other day, I noticed that the phone was showing LTE for all but about the last 38 miles of my drive, so it seems they're working their way across the state.

Update 2013.11.13: I was in the Springdale area, just outside Cincinnati and was surprised to find LTE.  Speedtest.net told me that it reached a little over 10 Mbps at the peak, and settled on 7 Mbps.  That's good, but as with my experience with WiMAX being overloaded in the area, they're going to need a lot of capacity.

Springdale, Ohio

Update 2013.11.26: I was in Eaton, Ohio today.  It's a town just big enough by state law to be designated a city.  LTE was working there but has not been officially announced yet.  My previous experience is that the town had 3G data service prior to where I am now, since Sprint had bought the area's wireline business, apparently.  Verizon had bought the service in this town.  In any case, it seems that LTE is closing from all sides and it's going to be pleasant until everyone moves over to LTE.

Eaton, Ohio

 I really love the Sprint Zone app.  It's so precise with the Free Memory figure.  Additionally, the Data Connection is hard-coded to show 3G no matter whether 1xRTT is there (even roaming), or LTE is the current connection.  It doesn't matter how many times I've mentioned it to them.  It's like the Sprint Speedtest.net vanity page saying that connections are in Megabytes per second, rather than Megabits per second.

3G connection while LTE or 1xRTT is active...hmm

Update 2013.12.27: I was able to use Sprint's LTE in the Dayton, Ohio area today.  It was less than spectacular, but the availability hasn't been announced yet.  Since they don't actually provide much coverage when they announce an area, I don't think it will be good for a while anyway.  Indianapolis, Indiana was announced quite a while ago, and it's consistent with what a good EVDO connection should be.

Update 2014.01.21: I got a text message from Sprint today:

I'm actually somewhat hopeful that things are changing, even though bandwidth seems severely constrained at the moment.  On Monday, I was in the small city of Eaton, OH using their LTE, which has yet to be announced.  Instead of the 7 Mbps I was receiving previously, I only got 2.48 Mbps, and there was a hole where 3G/EVDO showed up that wasn't there previously.  It almost looked as if they'd re-deployed equipment already.

LTE is finding its way into every area

Of course, the text message I received says to me that out of 4 towers in town--there should be at least 5 but they've ignored a large area south of town--should be equipped but I'm not exactly convinced.  I was expecting everything from the noted area on the coverage map east to the Ohio state line to be covered, but that may be more hope than reality.

Update 2014.12.02: It's been a bit over a year and the company has made some progress toward their LTE buildout.  That's a good thing, but they're still failing.  They're still far too interested in helping themselves than helping their paying customers.

In the San Francisco Bay Area, my phone usually works on LTE and generally works well.  There are still some really ugly problems but they are fewer than I'd seen in other parts of the country.  Being that I live about 75 miles from San Jose, there are more ugly problems the further away from California's third largest city.  Surprisingly, I had very good service in San Francisco itself, which is a tough city to cover.  Since WiMAX has been decommissioned, along with Nextel's iDEN network, Sprint has two more frequency bands to use.

However, the numbers of the changes to towers--their "upgrades"--still show too much activity around their headquarters, compared to taking care of their paying customers.  I would assume that Sprint employees don't pay a lot for service, so why are the rest of us paying to help them when many of us are still dealing with poor service?

I've noticed that they're not interested in showing us where LTE is being deployed any longer.  The only press releases I've seen lately as concerned with telling the story that they have good service in individual cities.

Why am I on 1xRTT so often if LTE is everywhere?

Where is the roaming zone now?

In my own town, I noticed that they hid a large roaming zone from customers' view, even though service is often unusable.  Apparently, the @sprintcare people were not informed, so they kept telling me about the roaming zone, only stopping when I showed them the coverage map I could see.