WP7 phones on Sprint

[Edd]

I want a WP7 phone and Sprint is weak on them, only offering the Arrive which I understand is good but not quite what I want. I went to Spint's website to ask about upcoming releases and had the following chat session copied and pasted below for your entertainment:

Session Started with Agent (Rocky B.)

System: "Thank you for contacting Sprint. My name is Rocky B.."

Edd: "WP7 phones....you only offer the Arrive. When are you getting more WP7 phones and what will they be?"

Agent (Rocky B.): "Hello"

Edd: "Is this working? I dont see my words"

Edd: "Oh, see them now."

Agent (Rocky B.): "ok"

Edd: "Do you see my question above?"

Agent (Rocky B.): "yes."

Agent (Rocky B.): "Not able to understand it"

Agent (Rocky B.): "Please elaborate"

Edd: "Do you know what a WP7 phone is?"

Agent (Rocky B.): "Let me check"

Agent (Rocky B.): "one moment"

Agent (Rocky B.): "I am sorry, there is no update so far regarding WP7 phone on the Sprint network."

Edd: "Disappointing customer service."

Agent (Rocky B.): "There is no update as off now regarding WP7 phone."

Edd: "Thanks Rocky, good luck boxing Mr T"

Session Ended

 

[Glenn]

The Mr T comment is gold. :lol:

 

[ctenidae]

Priceless. Too bad Rocky is a bot.
Which would have made fighting Ivan Drago easier.

 

[Edd]

Priceless. Too bad Rocky is a bot.
Which would have made fighting Ivan Drago easier.

You know I honestly didn't know that. I assumed I was talking to some dude in India. How did Drago's wife end up with Flava Flav? She was smokin. This world is insane.

 

[o3jeff]

Not a wp7 phone, but rumor has it Sprint will be getting the new iPhone next month and will offer their unlimited plans with it.

 

[mondeo]

I'd expect some flavor of the HTC Titan or Radar to show up on Sprint within the next month. It will be interesting to see if they'll have 4G there, though, as so far they only have been revealed to have HSPA+.

And Mango! http://mango.microsoft.com/windowsphone/en-us/features/update-schedule-usa.aspx

(Shows the Arrive still in testing, but Sprint's web page shows it as being the current version. New phones should have it in any case.)

Hopefully I get an update notification before I get home today.

 

[Geoff]

I'd expect some flavor of the HTC Titan or Radar to show up on Sprint within the next month. It will be interesting to see if they'll have 4G there, though, as so far they only have been revealed to have HSPA+.

And Mango! http://mango.microsoft.com/windowsphone/en-us/features/update-schedule-usa.aspx

(Shows the Arrive still in testing, but Sprint's web page shows it as being the current version. New phones should have it in any case.)

Hopefully I get an update notification before I get home today.

So what does "4G" mean on a Sprint phone now that Clearwire is dumping WiMax for LTE? It's going to be pretty useless to have a CDMA+WiMAX chip in your phone when there's no WiMAX in the network.

 

[mondeo]

So what does "4G" mean on a Sprint phone now that Clearwire is dumping WiMax for LTE? It's going to be pretty useless to have a CDMA+WiMAX chip in your phone when there's no WiMAX in the network.

Good question. But they'd have to add either a LTE or WiMax chip and WP7 would have to support the hardware stack in either case, and right now there's no firm evidence of either. As useless as WiMax will be once it's dropped, a Sprint LTE is equally useless right now.

Best bet is don't bother with Sprint 4G until things are figured out or the phone supports both.

 

[Edd]

I don't think Sprint provides 4G around seacoast NH. If I understand the pricing correctly, if the phone is capable of 4G then you get charged for it regardless of whether the service exists in your area.

 

[Geoff]

Good question. But they'd have to add either a LTE or WiMax chip and WP7 would have to support the hardware stack in either case, and right now there's no firm evidence of either. As useless as WiMax will be once it's dropped, a Sprint LTE is equally useless right now.

Best bet is don't bother with Sprint 4G until things are figured out or the phone supports both.

This is all about availability of chipsets that speak your technology. Today or on the 12 month roadmap from the semiconductor companies, there are a plethora of system-on-a-chip solutions that do GSM + LTE. There are many that will do CDMA + GSM + LTE. If you have to build a smartphone with adunct circuitry to support WiMAX, you're at a big cost, power, and space disadvantage. Nobody is likely to invest in a new smartphone that does WiMAX for a low volume customer like Sprint so what Sprint has now is pretty much it.

 

[mondeo]

And Mango!

And it's tasty...

 

[Edd]

You got the update? No issues yet?

 

[mondeo]

You got the update? No issues yet?

I, uh, forced the update. There's a trick where searching for the update through Zune on a connected computer and turning off the internet connection during the search triggers the update, scheduled or not. No issues yet, and I like what I see. Unfortunately no one's updated their apps yet, so I can't effectively multitask yet (though I can play around with it some - some of the MS things act as multitasking apps, like Zune.) And Slacker doesn't run in the background yet.

But IE9 is sweet, the few things I wished were different about the Zune player are (SmartDJ and save as playlist, for example,) you can save camera settings, ring tones added, etc. I likey.