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back to article Review: Britain's 4G smartphones

It’s been a good few months since the first 4G LTE network fired up in the UK, and wiser men than I have already tossed their orbs about the what and the how of EE’s monopoly 4G network. Time then to consider the 4G handsets now available for use in Blighty, and in the process cast a beady eye on speeds and coverage outside the …

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  1. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Pricing is still screwed - I pay about £15 for 10Gb/month on a 30 day rolling contract with Three.

    EE want £15.99 for 3Gb and to tie in for 18 months - sometimes I may get 4G speeds but Three and HSPA+ / DC-HSPA is already pretty fast - to the point of not really making a difference on normal use.

    EE want £25.99 for 8Gb (so still not as much data) - which is their nearest plan but still almost 2x the price.

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  2. 1Rafayal

    I am actually considering EE at the moment, not for 4g speeds but for the fact they seem to be the only provider in the UK who offer (almost) unlimited roaming in Europe.

    I cant seem to find another provider who offers this service, I dont care about 4g at all really.

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  3. Tim 69
    Facepalm

    Of course the biggest issue if you have a Windows phone is that you can't receive calls....

    That's right, if you are on a 4G network, Windows Phone doesn't hand over from 4G to 3G properly, so the other party can't actually call you. It's a bit of an issue for something that is supposed to be a phone and happens rather more than anyone would like you to believe.

    Apparently EE have raised it with Microsoft, Nokia and HTC, but still, I have a 4G phone on a 4G price plan that I can't do more than 3G+ on because the phone software is crap.

    To be fair, one of the fixes in iOs 6.1 was because iPhone5 also had this problem, but still, six months later and the Lumias haven't been fixed. I could rant for ages, but frankly right now, I'm a little fed up and subdued and there is little point. I await the reduction in Tariff I get from EE for the remainder of my contract thanks to this...

    And I know there are people out there who will say "Serves you right for buying a WinPhone"...

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    1. Al Taylor
      Reply Icon
      Alert

      Re: Of course the biggest issue if you have a Windows phone is that you can't receive calls....

      "Windows Phone doesn't hand over from 4G to 3G properly, so the other party can't actually call you"

      I didn't experience any such problems with the Lumia 920 that Nokia provided though of course I can't speak for other 4G WP8 devices.

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    2. Anonymous Coward
      Reply Icon
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Of course the biggest issue if you have a Windows phone is that you can't receive calls....

      Hmmm. Not an issue with me. Perhaps you are being a computer user (non technical)?

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    3. Anonymous Coward
      Reply Icon
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Of course the biggest issue if you have a Windows phone is that you can't receive calls....

      A friend of mine has a 920 on EE, as does his wife, they've had no problems of this nature.

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  4. Matt Bryant Silver badge
    Flame

    Once bitten, twice shy.

    Long ago in the days of contracting, I talked myself into buying an Orange "high speed" card for my laptop (this was in the days before neat 3G USB dongles). What a mistake! Performance was scorching, just about everywhere I didn't need to use it, with Orange's "coverage map" turned out to be as big a work of fiction as the average politician's manifesto. Ten feet outside of central London it was down to a very ropey GPRS signal. Calls to Orange's customer support, whilst polite and as helpful as the staff could be, proved fruitless, and I decided i was being ripped off given the awful coverage. Looking at the coverage map for EE, which is WORSE than the old Orange map, and even without taking into account the "optimistic" picture it shows, there is no way I'm paying out for 4G any time soon!

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  5. Lars Silver badge
    Linux

    And some people

    Think it's hard to choose a Linux distro.

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  6. Lusty
    FAIL

    On the same page...

    Come on, seriously?

    Apple:

    "I’m never happy with less than 4.3 inches in my hand"

    Rim:

    "BlackBerry also deserves credit for kicking off the new range with a sensible 4.2-inch"

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    1. Al Taylor
      Reply Icon
      Happy

      Re: On the same page...

      what's a tenth of an inch between friends?

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  7. Andrew Barratt
    Angel

    Random

    Didn't realise el-reg had staff in Swinetown! How did the coverage go if you moved out towards the deep, dark Walkden area?

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    1. Al Taylor
      Reply Icon
      Thumb Down

      Re: Random

      There was no 4G at all in central Walkden (around the big new Tesco store). Picked up a signal once I got down to the East Lancs but still only talking one or two bars.

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  8. jibberjabber

    Use case?

    I'm still at a loss for a use case when I seem to get ~9Mbit on 3G.

    I guess... for gaming, or swapping large multimedia files - postproduction maybe? Keeping Debian distributions up to date?

    Can't think of many other applications.I can stream HD-quality Netflix films on my Three account, and there's no official fair usage cap.

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  9. FanniM

    I was very impressed with my friend's Blackberry Z10. It transmitted the entirety of Jump Street 21 via DLNA at 720p to our BluRay player using only battery.

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  10. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    <3 my Note II

    Note II for £40 on a 2 year contract from T-Mobile (including Employee Friends & Family Discount), and the 3GB £46 package with 40% off when I moved over to EE.

    Without a discount, I wouldn't have touched the contract with a barge pole - and agree that the 3GB package is basically the 'minimum' package.

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  11. Hans 1
    FAIL

    £31-a-month deal with 500MB

    What do you want to do with 500mb? With those "theoretical" download speeds, your monthly allowance will only last a couple of minutes! Ridiculous.

    NB: Theoretical in the sense of "In theory, there is no difference between practice and theory; in practice there is."

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    1. illiad
      Reply Icon

      Re: £31-a-month deal with 500MB

      so are you one of those crazy guys that wants to d/l a distro with your phone????

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