LG Revolution: LTE for the Masses
by Vivek Gowri & Brian Klug on June 21, 2011 5:55 AM EST- Posted in
- Smartphones
- Verizon
- LTE
- Mobile
- LG Revolution
The best way to describe my reaction to LTE is this. Replace "Sparta" with LTE, and Gerard Butler's face with a Verizon logo, and you have the right idea.
It was madness, really. The Revolution arrived on my doorstep the day after I moved to a new apartment, and before Comcast had a chance to give me service. As a tech writer, the prospect of not having decent internet was terrifying. Boom. 4G wireless hotspot. It was like a godsend. I didn’t die from lack of broadband, Comcast came five days later, and I didn’t actually notice a speed difference when I switched over. The entire time I had it, I was running speed tests over LTE, and got graphs looking like this for downstream, upstream, and latency.
LTE is serious fast. T-Mobile, in Seattle at least, still has the fastest 3G network, but even the fastest HSPA+ networks can’t match the outright speed of Verizon’s LTE. In Phoenix, Brian saw LTE speeds clustered around 10 Mbps down and 2-3 Mbps up. In Seattle, I basically saw 10-12 down and 6-7 up. The closer I got to downtown, the faster speeds I saw. About a mile west of my house, I saw speeds of just under 17 Mbps down and 11 up. The downstream speed is close to matching my Comcast connection, and I’d kill for even the 6 Mbps upstream I averaged, much less the peak 10+ Mbps.
Right after we made the graphs above, I started seeing 17-18 Mbps downstream and up to 12 Mbps upstream in my apartment (which has notoriously bad signal). Blazing. Not quite “I’m standing next to the tower” level of blazing that I’ve seen Brian get with his LTE MiFi, but damn good for a real world speed test.
Brian said that his worst case scenario with LTE was at the high end of Verizon’s EVDO, but my experience was rather different. My worst case with LTE was on the higher end of all 3G speeds; even T-Mobile’s HSPA+ doesn’t top 9 Mbps very often, and that’s probably the fastest I’ve seen a 3G network go in practice.
Honestly, day to day, LTE wasn’t mindblowing - with single core SoCs, you’re mostly limited by how fast the pages can be rendered after maybe 8 or 10 Mbps down. I didn’t notice too much of a difference between my standard 802.11n home network, Verizon’s LTE, and T-Mobile’s HSPA+ in smartphone browsing. Where it really makes a difference is in hotspot mode.
As far as signal strength goes, the antenna diversity means that you see roughly similar signal attenuation numbers to the Thunderbolt. The numbers were slightly worse than the TB, but much better than the rest of the smartphone class.
| Signal Attenuation Comparison in dB - Lower is Better | ||||||||
| Cupping Tightly | Holding Naturally | Holding in Case | On an Open Palm | |||||
| LG Revolution - LTE | 7.0 | 4.4 | - | 5.4 | ||||
| HTC Thunderbolt - LTE | 5.3 | 2.5 | - | 4.4 | ||||
| HTC Thunderbolt - EVDO | 6.5 | 0.8 | - | 7.2 | ||||
| Verizon iPhone 4 | 16.5 | 15.5 | 9.0 | 7.9 | ||||
| LG Optimus 2X | 13.7 | 9.3 | - | 5.9 | ||||
| Nexus S | 13.3 | 6.1 | - | 4.3 | ||||
| Droid 2 | 11.5 | 5.1 | - | 4.5 | ||||
| BlackBerry Torch | 15.9 | 7.1 | - | 3.7 | ||||
| Dell Streak | 14.0 | 8.7 | - | 4.0 | ||||
| Droid X | 15.0 | 5.1 | - | 4.5 | ||||
| AT&T iPhone 4 | 24.6 | 19.8 | 7.2 | 9.2 | ||||
| iPhone 3GS | 14.3 | 1.9 | 3.2 | 0.2 | ||||
| HTC Nexus One | 17.7 | 10.7 | 7.7 |
6.7 |
||||
Like I mentioned earlier, I used the Revolution for the better part of a week as my primary source of internet, and it came through with flying colours. It handled streaming HD video, large-scale file downloads, combinations of the two, and anything else I threw at it with ease. I’m not much of an online gamer, so I didn’t try Starcraft II or CS:S like Brian did, but as he showed, it’s definitely possible. The latency, while not as good as a 802.11 or direct LAN connection, is still well under 100 ms, so it’s never an issue. From a speed perspective, LTE is fantastic, the kind of thing that changes how we use mobile broadband. But when you take power consumption into account, some serious concerns emerge.
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antef - Tuesday, June 21, 2011 - link
I believe even streaming video will not make use of anything > 5 Mbps or even less. HD Netflix on a PC only requires about 5-6 and I don't think you're getting that same 1080 resolution from the Netflix app on the phone. So I really don't see what good > 5 Mbps is on a phone unless you're tethering to a computer and doing downloads on that.name99 - Wednesday, June 22, 2011 - link
I don't want to be cruel but, good god, you are stupid.What these devices enable is
(a) substantially more CONSISTENT performance across a cell. Instead of the maddening variability of the current system, you should, much more often, get decent performance even at the edge of a cell.
Unfortunately, the one place you'd most like to have this is with voice, and it seems that our oh-so-sophisticated cellular overloads can't get their act together enough to move their voice transmission onto 21st century technology. Perhaps if we're lucky, this will happen sometime before 2025.
(b) somewhat better usage of the limited bandwidth available (ie a larger aggregate bandwidth for the entire cell), which in turn means that in places where, right now, data can be so slow as to be useless, data will now perform somewhat better.
Once again, this likewise has implications for voice meaning, for example, that (once the cell companies get their act together) there will be less need to drop to the low bit rate (and really crappy sounding) codecs.
One can understand why the cell companies talk up 4G speeds. The numbers are easily understood as meaning "better than now", and discussing them does not mean having to concede "yes, our current systems are inconsistent, frequently overloaded, and have crappy voice".
There is rather less justification for why ARS obsesses about these peak speeds, rather than discussing the actual issues that 4G technologies improve --- aggregate bandwidth and signal consistency.
Omega215D - Tuesday, June 21, 2011 - link
I have a stock Thunderbolt and I see better battery life than what's indicated here and I live in NYC. Moderate usage gives me 18 hours of life while constant internet pegging brings me down to 5 - 7 hours all on LTE. I've never experienced intermittent LTE signals when here or traveling (to other LTE cities) either.LTE makes sense for quick pull ups of sites when on the road, like restuarants/ eateries, or for my future plans of video calling my friends who are moving overseas while I make my move to the west coast.
Also I am grandfathered into Unlimited Data in which I am happy that I got my T-bolt when I did.
PCTC2 - Tuesday, June 21, 2011 - link
Just letting you know there's a typo. Nothing big."Brian saw LTE speeds clustered around 10 Mbps down and 2-3 Mbps down."
Isn't the second one supposed to say "up"?
As for 4G, I would appreciate the speed even remotely close as I barely get 1 Mbps down, 0.2 Mbps up, but I guess I can't complain because 80% of my day is spent in WiFi coverage anyways.
VivekGowri - Tuesday, June 21, 2011 - link
Fiiiiiixed :)Lolimaster - Tuesday, June 21, 2011 - link
Now Anand, remove sysmark from your cpu benchmark, it's now a useless biased bench. We all know that except "some" sites.http://semiaccurate.com/2011/06/20/nvidia-amd-and-...
bluelite - Tuesday, June 21, 2011 - link
Wait. Isn't this the same engine as the one on my over year old Incredible ? And LTE is nice. IF it is available at your location. It's not available here. Suffolk County Long Island.Omid.M - Tuesday, June 21, 2011 - link
I picked up a used Thunderbolt for $330. That included shipping, 5 batteries, two chargers, case & holster, and screen protector.Why did I do this? I dislike the phone itself but this was the fastest way to secure unlimited 4G before tiered plans come (likely early July). I will use the Bolt until a phone based on Krait comes to market. I hope HTC releases something like the Sensation for Verizon, based on Krait and with a qHD/SLCD display. I want the Galaxy S2 but I doubt it'll have LTE. There's just no way.
Yes, I would buy my next phone off contract to avoid locking myself into a contract with new terms (i.e. tiered data plans).
Mr Perfect - Tuesday, June 21, 2011 - link
Could you test out the camera's macro mode? One of the main things I use my phone's camera for is taking pictures of small parts and labels, things like product and serial numbers, connectors and those little bits that people always manage to break off of devices. My current phone is OK at best, usually requiring some trial and error with things like distance, flash and focus. Thanks!Impulses - Tuesday, June 21, 2011 - link
"this is a huge peeve of mine with the HD7, iPod touch, and anything Samsung makes - bottom-mounted headphone jacks and side-located power buttons are stupid."Wow, I strongly disagree on both counts... I know a lot of people prefer the top mounted headphone jack because it's easier to hold the device this way with headphones plugged in, but I generally listen to music with the phone in my pocket... I also tend to slip it into my pocket upside down so that when I slide my palm over it and take it out the device is already right side up. However that's impossible to do with headphones plugged into a top mounted jack, unless the headphones have an L plug (and even then it's awkward).
It might be a different story for people with thinner phones or pockets (i guess they'd pinch the screen or the sides to slide it out, which always felt precarious with my EVO)... It's a pretty personal thing I guess.
The side power button isn't as personal a matter tho, imo. I've got fairly long fingers and after a year with an EVO I don't see why anyone prefers it up top on any 4.3"phone, no matter how you hold the phone it requires an awkward finger reach to press... Samsung's side mounted lock button seems like the way to go imo. Even better would be a front button that wakes up the device, I like capacitive buttons better but I do miss the ability to easily wake it while it's laying down (without gripping it to press a side button).
Surely there's gotta be an ingenious solution that combines all the pro's and con's... At least most Android devices are coming with notification lights.