Android: We're Here and We're…
I’ve been battling some major disagreements I’ve had with Sprint for over a year now and I finally came to terms with everything.
Problem 1: 4G means $G
Seriously, you pay for “premium” data even if you don’t have
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4G in your area. For a company that spends as much as they do on NASCAR you’d think they could reinvest that in to the network and not put the burden on their customers. Now I’m not saying the network sucks, I’m a volunteer Sprint fanboy, but I am generally conservative when it comes to costs. I had conversed with many a Sprint employee over this and everyone of them kept telling me that some how the 4G phones are so much faster even if 4G isn’t available. Really now, this only fueled my annoyance. I finally spoke to someone who said this about the premium data plan: most all other carriers have dropped unlimited data as even an option but Sprint wanted to keep this for their users thus they increased the price of data by 10$/mo and included 4G in to the price. At the time this
didn’t really reduce my annoyances about it and I know some people probably won’t accept this line of reason. In the end, if I don’t think too much about it, I am accepting of this policy.
Problem 2: Premium phones and their premium oversights
The HTC Evo 4G was a technological marvel at the time and it is still a major competitor in the cellular phone market. It’s amazing, it has dual cameras, a large display screen and even HDMI out! What’s missing? The directional pad and hardware camera button. The average user may never concern themselves over this, but the average Unix systems administrator will rue the day. The arrow keys are generally displayed on the virtual keyboard, but the camera button is often used as the control key in terminal apps. ConnectBot is
my terminal app of choice and Better Keyboard 8 is my on screen keyboard of choice. You can fortunately use control and arrow keys, but to use them you must switch back and forth between keyboard layouts of the ConnectBot display window (as control is provided under the virtual keyboard.) The solution here is to provide the control key above the keyboard but that isn’t an option, at least not right now. Other choices exist, but the phone hardware isn’t as amazing as the Evo. The Nexus has promiss, but never made it to the Sprint market.
Problem 3: Rebates, rebates, rebates…?
If you buy your phone from Sprint you get an instant discount off the phone, when you’re eligible for an update, and you get a rebate you have to mail in. When you move constantly it’s hard to keep up on the rebate status. Needless to say I didn’t keep on Sprint to make sure the rebates were received and too much time has elapsed. They did work with me on this and offered me incentives instead. When I decided to renew and upgrade I found that Best Buy is an amazing location to buy your phone. Their prices appeared identical or better on each phone model and you don’t have to be hassled with rebates. Bottom line is, check your options. I was able to get in to an Evo for less out of pocket money than I could have if I bought my phone from a Sprint Store.
In summary I have forgiven Sprint for its current short comings. I have made the choice to stick with them for another 2 years, so we’ll see how things go!
