Most of the leaks leading up to today had already given away pretty much all the specs, I think, so I'm not really let down. Especially since I'm using an "old" LG G3 that's been driving me nuts for the past year or so. Trying to decide between the Note and an S7 and then decide if I'm going to stay with AT&T or switch over to Verizon.
I asked for one for my birthday (11th). Not sure if my wife gets it for me, but I need a new phone, and the Axon is what I'll get eventually.
CDMA voice quality and the lack of simultaneous voice and data over CDMA are what ruin Verizon for me. Yes, you can call over VoLTE to fix that but CDMA doesn't allow for call handoffs when your LTE signal quality falls while GSM standards make it possible for a call to fallback to UMTS. Plus Verizon compresses the hell out of their calls over 1x which result in easily the worst call quality of the four carriers. Even Sprint doesn't do what Verizon does with compression. Sprint actually took the time to deploy 1x advanced while Verizon stuck with their original 1x network.
Im not sure if I agree with your assessment on this. I understand your disgust in 1x, but how often does one use this network? Verizon is shuttering their 1x in the next 3-4 years. Pretty much all the rankings and reviews have Verizon on top for everything except for pricing and Sprint at the bottom. I've had Verizon for years and I can pretty much agree with industry experts have also stated. Cell phone voice quality sucks in general, but ATT and VZW are the best. Sprints is so terrible I have gotten to the point where I do not talk to people on Sprint if they are driving. ATT and Verizon are neck and neck. The one thing I absolutely love about Verizon and what keeps me from leaving is their customer service and simplicity. Their plans and promotions are very cut and dry and their customer service is always consistent. ATT's customer service is average, but my experience places them in the gutter. Ive had to deal with them for my mom and it seems they can never get it done right the first time.
There is no way you can say Verizon's call quality is the best. Absolutely no way. They have fantastic coverage but they have relatively tiny 1x carriers handling the largest number of calls for any US carrier (excluding VoLTE calls which represent a small minority). Their call compression is bad. It's awful talking to Verizon customers on 1x, particularly in rural communities that are almost entirely dominated by Verizon. You end up with crazy congested 1x carriers that are forced to compress the hell out of everything just to maintain the integrity of the network. They've even acknowledged this in the past. TMobile runs AMR-WB for voice on both UMTS and LTE. No one else does that. Sprint runs an upgraded codec over its 1x advanced network which puts it leaps and bounds ahead of Verizon when it comes to call quality. Even AT&T has significantly more spectrum available for voice (since it can be done on any GSM technology). And Sprint doesn't do the type of compression that Verizon does because they actually took the time to dedicate more spectrum for voice. Verizon loses on voice quality hands down every time. Verizon has a great network but when it comes to call quality they will always lose. They claim 3-4 years to shut down 1x but that's a load of garbage. They need 600 mhz spectrum to clean up LTE dead zones before they can even consider removing 1x. They'll certainly finish refarming 3G spectrum to LTE in a few years but 1x has a several years to go. If you remember, Verizon promised to stop selling phones with CDMA voice 2 years ago and they quickly backtracked on that because VoLTE isn't reliable enough to warrant shutting down CDMA voice. Verizon doesn't get VoLTE handoffs like the GSM carriers so their LTE network can't have deadzones or they'll lose customers. In Houston, there might be enough density to manage this but in rural areas around me, Verizon has work to do to create continuous LTE coverage. Not having handoffs will make sunsetting CDMA really hard.
What kind of stand by battery drain are you guys getting with your Axon 7 or other android phones? Android's high stand by battery drain overnight is driving me crazy (10% overnight for my Axon 7 & Nexus 6 compared to 1-2% for iPhone 6s Plus)
i have google fi, uses sprint/tmobile and they just added USCellular. Its been working fine with for me. Have not noticed any loss of coverage since coming from tmobile. Its good if you are around wifi a lot. I spend most of my time at work or home where I have wifi so its ideal for me. I like that for any data unused on your plan, you get credit for it on your bill. But If you are a data w**** or just not around wifi a lot, you might be better off with an unlimited plan from the major networks.
funny you mention this, Ricksmith having same issue with his 6P where it would drain like 20-30% with wifi/LTE off, I experienced the same issue last week with my 6P. I about to hard reset it sometime this week and see if it still does the same.
I'm on an LG G4 and it is really starting to frustrate me in terms of horsepower and battery performance, so I can't imagine how bad life is on a G3. I really hate what Samsung did to the Note this go-round. In order to get a phone with an AMOLED display and removable battery you have to actually downgrade now. That makes me a sad panda.
Agreed. Verizon voice quality is atrocious if the call is placed on 1X. It has a certain echo tone to it. One of the reasons I switched to AT&T in 2013 is I couldn't stand talking on the phone when I was on Verizon. Plus HD voice sounds incredible and has fallback to "HSPA" if I lose VOLTE. The claims of Verizon having the best coverage is overrated. Geographically, in Texas, it's AT&T. When I was in Los Angeles last month in hilly areas, Verizon didn't even have service over the hills but T-Mobile and AT&T were chugging along.
I'd stay with AT&T. If you get the S7 on it you'll be able to take advantage of Band 29 and Band 30 which aren't present on your current phone, as well as HD voice. Band 30 in some areas has me pulling speed tests in excess of 70Mbps.
The G3 is a hog of a machine. I switched from one to a Moto X Pure and it's night and day as my phone can actually last the entire day with the same amount of usage.
The G3 isn't that horrible in terms of battery and horsepower for me since I'm not a power user or anything. I just hate the thing because for the past 6 months to a year the wireless rarely works and randomly throughout the day it says I don't have a valid SIM card. Rebooting the phone temporarily fixes the latter. I don't think it's just a G3 problem because I see others having similar problems on other phones. Then, for some reason my reception on the phone has gone to hell from home, but that could be caused by whatever's causing the other issues.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/gordonkelly/2016/08/03/apple-iphone7-leak-video/#306640273b3c Apple Leak Confirms Massive New iPhone 7 Just when you thought it wasn’t possible for Apple AAPL +1.05%’s upcoming iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus to leak any more major details, we hit the motherload… Unbox Therapy, one of YouTube’s most popular channels with over 5M subscribers, has obtained a final chassis of the upcoming iPhone 7 Plus (also rumoured to be called the ‘iPhone 7 Pro’). In a detailed hands-on we see all the major hardware changes coming to the larger 5.5-inch model including the radical dual lens camera, the missing headphone jack (a prediction I made two years ago), twin external speakers, the inclusion of a Smart Connector and the widely rumoured new blue colour option for the first time. Using digital calipers Unbox Therapy host Lewis Hilsenteger also found the new iPhone 7 Plus to be fractionally slimmer than the current iPhone 6S Plus. That said at 7.14mm to 7.18mm this is both within a margin of error in the calipers and the construction of the chassis itself so I wouldn’t read much into that. As it stands the iPhone Plus range is still massive and remains the largest 5.5-inch smartphone in the world. As for the source of the chassis, it comes from Besound – a wireless headphone developer which has also been in discussions with me. In turn I have also been in contact with Lewis. Consequently, having done a lot of digging, I’d put a great deal of significance behind this latest leak. The iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus are now at the mass production stage in the run up to their unveiling and release in September (we also know the exact release date) so keeping a lid on a supply chain of this magnitude is virtually impossible. As such I’d argue only two major questions remain about the Apple’s new iPhones, whether they have a surprising name and a mystery third model? <iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/L2o_MUPDRRI" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
Incremental upgrades. I have wondered this for awhile. Are slimmer and lighter smartphones really that important? I would take a 25% increase in thickness for a bigger battery. I find my phone extremely difficult to use w/out the case.