You are here: Home / Archives for wimax

List of 4G Phones, Devices, and Smartphones Available

July 13, 2010 By NotLost Leave a Comment

Thought I’d get started on making a list of 4G phones available for each cell phone carrier (U.S. carriers only).

4G is also called LTE or WiMax depending on who you talk to but they all refer to the same thing.

Right now it’s a short list which makes this easy for me.

Sprint 4G Phones (coverage area)

HTC EVO 4G – The one and only 4G phone on the market in the U.S. as I’m writing this.   Coverage is still pretty limited but if you’re in an area with 4G coverage, then get this phone! (It still works on 3G networks of course, it’s just not as fast).   Sprint is having a hard time keeping these phones in stock, but if you want a 4G phone, go down to your local Sprint store or Best Buy (they have the white one) and they’ll hook you up.

Samsung Epic 4G – This phone is scheduled to launch later this year and is slated to become the second 4G phone in Sprint’s lineup.   A specific date and pricing have yet to be released – as far as specs go, so far we know it will have a 4 inch screen, Android, a physical slide out keyboard, a VGA front facing camera,  a 5MP rear camera, and 16GB of storage space

Verizon 4G  Phones (Verizon’s 4G network is called LTE – “Long Term Evolution”)

None – No, not even the ballyhooed Droid X has a 4G/LTE antenna.   Verizon is launching their LTE network in November 2010, expect 4G phones to follow shortly after.

AT&T 4G Phones (AT&T Also uses LTE Technology for 4G)

None – AT&T is planning on launching their LTE network in 2011/2012.  Expect the next iPhone (the real iPhone 4g?) to have an these antennas next June.

T-Mobile 4G Phones

None – Not sure when to expect an LTE network from T-Mobile as they’re lagging behind in this area or if they’ll survive long enough as a phone carrier in the U.S. to even build one.

As you can see, despite a lot of talk about 4G and LTE networks, they’re still a long way from being ubiquitous and widespread and only one carrier in the United States even has 4G technology commercially available.

Expect to see a lot of updates to this list around Christmas 2010 and into 2011, but for now if you want a 4G phone, the HTC EVO 4G Phone is your only choice.

Filed Under: Smartphones Tagged With: 3g, 4g phones, at&t, htc evo 4g, list of 4g phones, long term evolution, lte, samsung epic 4g, sprint, T Mobile, verizon, wimax

HTC EVO 4G Vs Apple iPhone 4

June 11, 2010 By NotLost 1 Comment

Dangerous as it may be to try to make a fair comparison between the HTC EVO 4G exclusive to Sprint and Apple iPhone 4 from exclusive to AT&T, I’m gonna give it a whirl.

Now lets be honest here – these are both impressive phones in their own right.

Display

This comparison seems like the biggest “apples” to oranges comparison.  The EVO 4G has a gigantic 4.3 inch 800 x 480 screen.  That may not sound much bigger than the industry standard 3.5 inch but trust me, once you hold it in your hand and play with it, going back to a regular sized screen seems constrained.   It’s big and pretty.

The iPhone 4 uses their new “retina display” which packs 960 x 640 resolution into a 3.5 inch screen.   It’s a great looking display and everything is ultra crisp.  It is, however ,smaller.

Speed

Both phones boast fast processors.  The EVO 4G has a 1GHZ Snapdragon processor inside whereas the iPhone 4 has Apple’s own 1GHZ A4 Processor.   Having enough power to run all your apps without the OS grinding to a halt shouldn’t be a problem on either phone.

Data

EVO vs iPhone 4

HTC EVO 4G (top left) - iPhone 4 (bottom right)

While many people in the tech community christened the new iPhone, the iPhone 4G, the new model (the iPhone 4) is still a 3G phone which makes sense since AT&T’s 4G network isn’t expected to go live until 2012.

The EVO 4G, on the other hand, is a 4G phone (though some would say not true 4G yet) and while it’s only available in a limited number of cities right now, it’s blazing fast where it is available.  When 4G isn’t available, it uses 3G so in many areas speeds will be comparable.

One thing to note is that AT&T has just changed their data plan from “unlimited” to 2GB whereas the data plan on Sprint is not only cheaper, but still “unlimited.”

Video Conferencing

Both phones have a front facing camera for video conferencing and a back facing camera for taking pictures.     The EVO has a 1.3 megapixel camera for video chat and uses the Qik system.  The iPhone has a VGA (640×480) camera and uses their new FaceTime standard for chat (since Apple has made it an open standard, expect it to be available on Android in the coming months).

I’d say the FaceTime system is a bit more elegant than Qik, but FaceTime is unfortunately Wi-Fi only right now whereas Qik has no such limitations, only requiring you be in a 3G service area.

Camera

While Apple finally added an LED flash to their camera and upgraded it to a 5 megapixel camera, they’re still trailing the EVO 4G which has an 8 megapixel camera with dual LED flash.  Both can record 720p HD video.

Battery

Apple claims to have really stepped up and improved the battery life of the notoriously power hungry iPhone by installing a bigger battery in an ever slimmer phone and now claims 7 hour talk time on 3G or 40 hours of audio playback – if those are even close to accurate, that’s a pretty big step up.

The EVO 4G also has some drabacks in the battery department.  That big Snapdragon processor and huge 4.3 inch display suck up juice pretty quickly as well.

Then again, with the EVO 4G you can simply buy an upgraded battery whereas as you probably know with iPhones, the sealed internal battery is not user replaceable – you’re stuck with what you got.

Operating System

For many, this phone comparison will come down to an Android vs iOS comparison (iOS 4.0 is the new official name for the iPhone OS 4 since the operating system runs on more than just iPhones, namely iPods and iPads).

While both have their advantages, I’d say in many ways, it’s a win/win – either way you’re getting a sweet operating system.

The Apple App store boasts far more apps with at well over 200,000 compared to the 75,000 or so available in the Android Market.  However, you can find apps that do just about everything for BOTH operating systems.

Froyo 2.2 (which will be on the EVO 4G soon – currently it runs 2.1 Eclair) and iOS 4.0 are both very capable of providing an excellent user experience.

Games

One of the new additions the iPhone 4 has that the EVO 4G does not have is a gyroscope.  Gaming on the iPhone is still the best of all cell phones and Apple raised the bar with their new Gyroscope.  Games are certainly available for both, but the iPhone does it better and has more.

Carrier

Even if you’re undecided up to this point, this final comparison may be where you make up your mind.   The iPhone is exclusive to AT&T (in the United States, anyway), and the EVO 4G is exclusive to Sprint.

I won’t claim to know which one is better in all areas, but I can tell you I have been a past customer of both carriers and while I had Sprint for about 5 yrs, I was only an AT&T customer for 6 months before I just couldn’t take it anymore and terminated my contract early due to them having dead spots in my city and where I lived happened to be one of them.

Getting a reliable carrier is critical as these phones aren’t much fun is you can only use them in your house or apt when you have a wi-fi connection.  It’s still a cell phone after all and you’ll probably still make and occasional phone call or two with it.

The decision is up to you.   And just to be fair to AT&T, my brother has an iPhone and where he lives (Minneapolis), he hasn’t told me of any significant problems using his phone as he pleases.

Filed Under: Android, iPhone Tagged With: Android, apple iphone 4, at&t, evo vs iphone, htc evo 4g, ios 4.0, iphone 4, retina display, sprint, wimax