Do you use/care about LTE?

[Blueknight7]

I decided to replace an aged Nexus 6P with a Pocophone F1. You've probably aware of the good (flagship specs at budget price) and the bad (VERY limited US Band support). I'm in the US and on ATT and nowhere near a supported LTE band (San Francisco Bay Area).

That said, I've decided to take the plunge anyway. I'm sort of old-school - my mobile data is mostly podcast/song streaming (if I didn't download prior), light internet browsing, and maps. The family's not on an unlimited plan yet, because our metered plans is still 20% cheaper, and we wait for wifi before video streaming.

I tested my SIM today and it looks like I get HSPA+ (because of the fake LTE badge), with 3-4 mbps down. Honestly, it looks good from my view. 3G was and is still good enough for me.

Is there something I'm missing? Do you guys care about LTE speeds? I suppose someone could be on an unlimited plan and using their phone as a hotspot, but short of videos, or tons of instagram - I'm not sure what the marketing fuss is about.

 

[Oyeve]

I could never go back to 3g. I thought SF had great LTE, or at least Tmobile, coverage there. In NYC I use tmo and basically stay on wifi 90% of the time, but the 10% or so I use LTE I am still amazed at how fast it is usually 25 up and down, and that's in a pre-war solid cement building in SOHO.

 

[Muadib]

I couldn't go back to 3G either. I'm in NC, and was shocked that at&t finally turned on LTE at my house here. 5G can't get here fast enough though.

 

[Puffnstuff]

I live in Jacksonville, FL so we have a ton of ISP hotspots all over town. Since I'm on Xfinity I can use these Comcast hotspots as I move around town so mobile data isn't as relevant to me here. Otherwise I use AT&T LTE and I have no problems with it.

 

[Blueknight7]

I could never go back to 3g. I thought SF had great LTE, or at least Tmobile, coverage there.

To be clear, we do have great LTE coverage, but the Pocophone F1 isn't a US release. The global version has LTE bands that have limited compatibility with US providers, which means more no than yes. Therefore, it's going to run on the old 3G network.

To be fair, in more testing, I'm getting 3G HSPA+ in city areas (10mbps). AT&T marketed that as "the first provider of 4G" at one point, though technically it's not. The phone also labels that 4G. We've had this for awhile - maybe that's why I don't notice a difference.

I'm all for more speed, but in actual use, I don't really notice a difference, as I don't do heavy downloads on my phone. I'm sure others have other use cases. That said, I'm pretty happy with the modern spec of a new phone. The snappiness is heavenly.....

What do you guys do where you notice the speed difference?

 

[pete6032]

I could never go back to 3G. In fact I find that Sprint's 4G without carrier aggregation is even frustratingly slow. Fortunately I have CA on my current phone.

 

[s44]

It's not the max speed that makes LTE really important but the latency. Plus most carriers are squeezing the 3G band allocation big time to make more room for LTE.

Plus, enjoy your Chinese spyware on top of the Google spy stuff.

 

[Zaap]

I love my AT&T 5G...

... kidding, its really just 4G, but AT&T thinks just calling it 5G makes it faster, sooo... sure.

To the OP: if 3G works for you, then just enjoy it.

My own recollection of 3G (and slower phones at the time) is that I didn't rely on my phone much for the web. It was just passible in a pinch. Stream something? Forget it.

Since 4G my phones feel like full use internet devices anywhere. I wouldn't want to go back.

 

[podspi]

I think it really depends on your carrier, too. I don't care about 4G on any of the GSM networks (tbh) but for Verizon or Sprint, 3G is unbearable (and isn't even close to 1mbps).

 

[killster1]

the only thing it depends on for me is what plan am i using anyway?

for 20 a month mnvo att i use has a cap on the speed to 6 or 8mps with 5gb of data after that its 2g and super slow.
When im at my other house i have 80gb a month for 8$ and i use it with speeds up to 50/50 best condition and 2/4mbps during busy times or towers browned out? i have no idea but LTE is def needed if im going to use more than 5gb a month. With 5gb i dont mind loading times of anything im doing and when i want faster or doing heavy uploads of video backup to cloud i use my nighthawk m1 wifi hotspot with ATT sim (gets 40/40 at best) with unlimited data (got up to 800gb so far)

whats most important to me is a constant signal in every area and that wont happen without using all the bands. (the m1 even uses band 14 / 4x4 mimo CA)

 

[Raduque]

Yes. HSPA+ ("3G") is dog-slow.

 

[Red Squirrel]

The caps on cell are so low, I don't really care what speed I get, it's not like I can really take advantage of it. I use data in short spurts only when I'm in an area that has no wifi, and it's usually for regular internet browsing, like looking up something at a store. If I wanted to do anything bandwidth intensive like streaming I'd want to be sure I'm on wifi or I'll blow the cap in a matter of 10 minutes.

They are starting to implement 5G here, will be interesting to see if they finally start offering better plans with like 100GB or more, or even unlimited data. I think the plan is to just have 5G replace land line internet in areas that can't get fibre. (under ground cable plant) but if it's capped it will be useless for most people. Even grandma will go over that playing flash games.

 

[Raduque]

The caps on cell are so low, I don't really care what speed I get, it's not like I can really take advantage of it.

What cheap pre-paid garbage plan are you using? I get unlimited with T-Mobile and it's deprioritized when I hit 50+gb. I never see it because I never use more than 30gb a month across two lines and a tablet.

 

[Ichinisan]

Yes/yes.

 

[darkswordsman17]

What cheap pre-paid garbage plan are you using? I get unlimited with T-Mobile and it's deprioritized when I hit 50+gb. I never see it because I never use more than 30gb a month across two lines and a tablet.

He's in Canada, and I believe they have ridiculously low data caps.

 

[killster1]

mine is deproritized and still get 90mbit in some spots of SF on Tuesday. most of the city was 50+mbit at all times. no cap but att unlimited data plan with a m1 nighthawk hotspot im able to pull 750+gb a month.

My capped 5gb and 2gb plans yea who cares if they are 5g //// 1.4gbps+. tmobile didnt have good enough coverage unless i never travel outside of a city (i actually use both att and verizon to get best coverage)

 

[WelshBloke]

Mines not great but theres no way I'm going back to 3G!

 

[Trader05]

I think it all depends on the area. Where I live(Central NJ) AT&T's HSPA+ is basically regular 3G speeds so i'd rather much have LTE. Now if it was at my last job in PA, the HSPA+ speeds are at least 3x better, so it's tolerable if you had to use it.

 

[KentState]

After using 5G at work, I can’t imagine taking two steps back.