Sprint Upgrade

[olds]

Sprint lets you upgrade after 18 months.
But, will I get better prices if I wait till my two year contract is up?
Want (don't need) the S3 but I don't want to pay $200 and $55 in tax, X 2 as the wife will want one too.

 

[bearxor]

I don't think you'll get a better price than 199, that's the normal on-contract price.

Unless you can get some deal on Amazon or Wirefly. Thats what I would keep an eye out for.

 

[olds]

Didn't know about wifefly. They have it for $180

 

[boomhower]

Just be aware that wirefly and amazon have seperate ETF's. Just read the fine print. They don't run the whole term,I think it's 180 days or six months.

 

[CrystalBay]

Web browsing still sucks at 4.8 oldsie.

 

[olds]

Web browsing still sucks at 4.8 oldsie.

It's .5 inches more than I have now...
that's what she said

 

[Muyoso]

Save the money. Ditch Sprints crappy network and get on prepaid. Just ETF'ed out of Sprint a couple months ago and did this and its fantastic. Unless you are in a LTE area, its kinda pathetic to have a smartphone like the S3 on Sprint's 3g. My friend has the S3 on Sprint and using it on 3g is utterly painful.

 

[olds]

Save the money. Ditch Sprints crappy network and get on prepaid. Just ETF'ed out of Sprint a couple months ago and did this and its fantastic. Unless you are in a LTE area, its kinda pathetic to have a smartphone like the S3 on Sprint's 3g. My friend has the S3 on Sprint and using it on 3g is utterly painful.

I have 4G

 

[dagamer34]

I have 4G

I hope by 4G, you mean LTE, because WiMax doesn't really count. And Sprint's speeds will never live up to AT&Ts or Verizon's due to spectrum allocation (5Mhz links vs 10Mhz).

 

[olds]

I hope by 4G, you mean LTE, because WiMax doesn't really count. And Sprint's speeds will never live up to AT&Ts or Verizon's due to spectrum allocation (5Mhz links vs 10Mhz).

Nope, it's 4G. Not sure if LTE is vailable.

 

[s44]

If you don't have LTE in your area, then the S3 will be stuck on 3G.

In fact, the Epic Touch (S2) will have faster data because it *does* have WiMax.

 

[olds]

Anyone know of a map that shows all carriers LTE coverage?

 

[AkumaX]

Anyone know of a map that shows all carriers LTE coverage?

http://s4gru.com has the latest up-to-date info w/ Sprint rollouts (for LTE and for Network Vision)

Note that you probably won't be getting LTE for a long time. and if you do, it's only Sprint's 1st LTE roll out of 1900Mhz.

Sprint's true/fast LTE (800MHz, taking over iDen's bandwidth) will roll out in 2014, and most sources are pointing to today's LTE phones as to not even supporting that.

In case you were wondering why WiMAX may have sucked, it's because it's on the 2500MHz band. Larger the frequency, the harder it is to penetrate (that's what she said) inside buildings. So even though Sprint's 1900MHz LTE is 'decent', it won't be as good as when Sprint rolls out 800MHz LTE.

Also note that AT&T/Verizon have already rolled out 700MHz LTE over the past year + months (however, they are not compatible with each other)

 

[NutBucket]

Verizon is in every major market. All you need to know about LTE

 

[olds]

Was interested in the S3 for the battery life.

Looked at going to Verizon for the LTE. $140 a month for 2 smartphones and 2 GB data. Plus $400 for phones, $70 for activation.

I pay that monthly charge on Sprint for 2 phones, 4G, unlimited data and free roaming on Verizon.

Not worth the switch to Verizon for my uses. If the S3 worked in 4G I'd get the phones and stay with Sprint.

What's a good phone with great battery life that has 4G?

 

[tbtn]

If you wait until your second year, you'll get a bigger credit towards your trade-in. At 12 months you get X amount to use, and at 24 months you get double that amount. Though, in six months there may be another phone out there that you'll like better. lol

 

[s44]

If you wait until your second year, you'll get a bigger credit towards your trade-in. At 12 months you get X amount to use, and at 24 months you get double that amount. Though, in six months there may be another phone out there that you'll like better. lol

The Epic Touch is going to be the best WiMax option, well, forever. Question is, how long do you have before LTE rolls out to where you are?

 

[Viper GTS]

The best upgrade on Sprint is to get away from Sprint. Trust me, I had WiMax in one of the early rollout cities (Portland, OR), it sucks. I went with an unlocked Nexus on StraightTalk AT&T and am averaging roughly 5-10x the speed I had on Sprint.

The 2 or 3 times Wimax actually did me some good (2-3 mbps) it is still only as fast as my good coverage AT&T.

WiMax is not worth staying for. LTE might be if you're in one of the (very) few cities that have it already.

Viper GTS

 

[olds]

Sprint LTE is not on the map for us. I saw a list that went out to 2014 and we weren't on it.

We do have Verizon LTE. But I don't use a lot of data. But I like the fact that I can. When my phone was rooted, I tethered a lot.
I wonder if I had LTE speeds if I would use more data...

 

[s44]

Only 1gb even at peak!

Switch. Check T-Mo coverage if you want fast and cheap and voluminous. Or, of course, SimpleMobile.

 

[buckshot24]

Sprint lets you upgrade after 18 months.
But, will I get better prices if I wait till my two year contract is up?
Want (don't need) the S3 but I don't want to pay $200 and $55 in tax, X 2 as the wife will want one too.

Sam's has the S3 for $148.

 

[buckshot24]

The best upgrade on Sprint is to get away from Sprint. Trust me, I had WiMax in one of the early rollout cities (Portland, OR), it sucks. I went with an unlocked Nexus on StraightTalk AT&T and am averaging roughly 5-10x the speed I had on Sprint.

The 2 or 3 times Wimax actually did me some good (2-3 mbps) it is still only as fast as my good coverage AT&T.

WiMax is not worth staying for. LTE might be if you're in one of the (very) few cities that have it already.

Viper GTS

If he upgrades his phone then he wouldn't have wimax in any city.

edit: sorry, just noticed the epic touch was being mentioned. Carry on.

 

[olds]

Still thinking about upgrading.
Verizon will give me $36 trade in for each of my Evo 4Gs (Sprint will pay $60). Is there a market for this used phone where I could get more than $36?
Verizon will also waive the activation fee for the two phones.

 

[s44]

EVOs seem to be going for a bit above $100 at Swappa. How's AT&T/Tmo in your area?

 

[I4AT]

I have Sprint as well and I'm more concerned about device selection than 3g vs 4g. Personally I find 3g to be more than adequate, it's basically DSL which I'm sure we've all had in our homes at some point.

Don't you get an upgrade credit with Sprint? Something like $75-100 every couple of years if I recall correctly?

There are rumors about a Galaxy Note successor being unveiled within the next couple of weeks. I'm hoping that makes its way to Sprint since we never got the original Note. If you're not a fan of the form factor of the Note, the S3 is probably the phone to get. There are always gonna be marginal upgrades every quarter, but at least with the S3 you know there'll be a large accessory/battery market.