Back in October, I reviewed the AT&T edition of the Samsung Galaxy S II. Overall, I loved the hardware, but was not happy with the data connectivity.
While HSPA+ speeds were reached in my New Jersey home, a place where Sprint barely gets a connection at times, I see the exact opposite impact when I hit New York City. While I could always text and call, things like tweets and status updates would have to wait until I had data coverage again. Very annoying to a constant updater like me. It was also next to impossible to check my social networks at work, despite Samsung bundling in the hypothetically useful Social Hub app/widget (like a lighter version of TweetDeck, really, with the downside of needing to manually refresh).
This isn’t the only time I’ve been harsh regarding AT&T. In fact, back when the iPhone first came out, I would tell anyone who would listen how I had no intention on purchasing one as long as it was on AT&T. Imagine my shock when I found that I had been sent the Samsung Galaxy S II Skyrocket. This is an update to the previous Galaxy S II with one major change — instead of using HSPA+, it uses AT&T’s newer LTE network. It’s amazing what a difference three little letters can make. I had a smooth, fast, consistent data coverage, no matter which of my frequent locations I was in. With the combination of the Galaxy S II’s stellar hardware and this suddenly reliable network, AT&T managed to achieve something almost unheard of for me — make me not care that I forgot my old, reliable Pre at work on a Friday before a four-day weekend.
"Papa? Papa can you hear me..."
The only areas I can fault the AT&T Samsung Galaxy S II Skyrocket for would be the insanely long name, lack of Android 4.0 (it’s allegedly on the way “eventually”), and coming out way too close to the previous model. Both this phone and the Verizon RAZR MAXX are guilty of the sin of coming out in practically the same fiscal quarter as the model they update. That’s not exactly a great way to engender happy feelings in your target audience.
AT&T’s LTE network is the star of the show. I know I should enjoy it while I can. Soon, that segment of their wireless network will have a ton more traffic from the new iPad, Galaxy Note, and other upcoming LTE handsets. For now though, I’m strongly considering retiring my AT&T voodoo doll.
Damned if I'm giving up my dartboard though.
[…] Sprint is about to roll out their own version of the Galaxy Nexus and with it, an LTE network. I gushed about AT&T’s LTE network in a previous article, and Verizon’s LTE network has […]