Cell phone coverage: who do you use and how is your coverage in Minneapolis?

I had sprint. I hated them. Could never use my phone at a place with a large crowd like a concert or the state fair.

Or in maple grove.

Or up at the lake.

Or up on the iron range.

Switched to Verizon. can actually use my phone now. It was tough giving up the unlimited data, but what good is unlimited if you can't ever access it?

 

I also left sprint, I switched to At&t. So far so good, I just don't get to blow through data like I did.

 

I have Sprint and don't mind them. Even have 4g at my house

 

Sprint is slowly getting better. The reason it was bad is cause local goverments were mad when the IDEN network went away (nextel). So they were having hard times getting spots to put towers. It is getting better everyday. No one can touch what I pay so i just stick it out.

 

If they're able to follow Apple's lead, the Nexus 6 won't have any bloatware. The iPhones have always been free of that garbage. If Google doesn't keep it bloat-free, it's their fault. They have the kind of pull necessary to keep it clean.

Oh, and Verizon's fantastic pretty everywhere.

 

We had Sprint, was absolutely terrible, now we've got Tmobile in the EP/Chann/Tonka area and I've only had an issue in the Chann DMV so far.

 

Actually I believe it was released across all carriers. I see people from just about every carrier asking questions now.

I got mine 3 weeks after ordering. Love it.

 

I've always had At&t. I also used to have the unlimited data, until i transferred over to the family share plan. On 7 lines of unlimited text & talk, with 30Gb of data we spend 201 a month. This was with the promotion At&t was offering to double the data. I've never touched that data cap, i stream over 1hr and 30 minutes a day. I seem to only be able to use 6gb a month on data. One thing i suggest with data, is use the wifi around you.

Service wise. While traveling to random usaf bases over the united states. I didn't have trouble with signal. Sometimes when you're in bfe, you'll get signals while others don't and vis versa. Verizon and At&t are the same for me. It's tomato vs. tomata. Same thing... Sprint is crappy, and tmobile is worse. But if you're in an awesome spot and use the unlimited data. 10+gb a month by your self. Then you're lucky. When choosing a new network, i'd suggest looking at verizon and at&t promotions. Which ever is the best, go with them.

 

Quick update: I ended up with Verizon and the S5 and have been on Verizon for a few months now.

Service is significantly better, and data speeds on 4G are MUCH faster. I don't believe I've had a dropped call yet. No data service interruptions either (on Sprint, I used to have to go into airplane mode and back out of it to refresh my connection to get data again sometimes).

I also normally have 4G coverage wherever I go...seeing 3G actually surprises me now. Speeds vary a bit on 4G, but overall still very fast.

For call quality, the quality seems to be better when I talk to anyone, except Sprint users (namely my GF). When we both had Sprint, we had HD voice, which was great. Now that I have Verzion, HD Voice no longer works (HD voice or voice over LTE users have to have the same carrier) and her "regular" crappy Sprint service is very noticeable (fuzzy, muffled, breaks up a lot). All other carries and land lines have great quality when I am calling from my Verizon service though.

Overall, I'm very pleased with Verizon. Very interestingly though, Sprint's ratings on Root Metrics jumped significantly in the 2014 2nd half report, but Verizon is still best overall.

Quick notes on the Galaxy S5 vs the S4 and S3...performance is great, but the real difference is the battery life. The S5 seems to last forever! I easily get a full day out of the battery, even with moderate to heavy use.