Droid and Verizon LTE or 4G pending upgrades

[REARless]

My apologies if this has been discussed. (A cursory search came up with nothing.)

Is the Droid 4G (LTE) ready when Verizon upgrades?
(Or will I be bumming in late 2010 - early 2011.)

 

[wuyanks]

My apologies if this has been discussed. (A cursory search came up with nothing.)

Is the Droid 4G (LTE) ready when Verizon upgrades?
(Or will I be bumming in late 2010 - early 2011.)

probably not compatible, but by then there will be Droid v2

 

[hazydave]

"Verizon upgrades" is a process, not an event. They're rolling out LTE test sites next year, and if all goes well, it gets deployed on a larger scale, and gradually, the average person may have some change of being near it.

Look at how Sprint did this with their WiMax (they're the only major telecom company going to WiMax rather than LTE for 4G).. they were in Baltimore last year. Now they're in five additional cities, including Philadelphia (where I work), partnered with Clear. But the Clear people were having trouble setting up demos, due to spotty coverage.

I work in communications these days (digital radio design, optimized for robotics), so I have been following this for awhile now. I had no problem buying the DROID at this point. If Verizon is very, very aggressive (and they're likely to be, given their win of the big 700MHz band chunk), it'll still be some time before LTE is a regularly seen thing. I'm fairly sure I'll be able to wait until 2012 and the DROID 2 or 4G or whatever. Just as important... that 4GB of internal memory, 1.6GHz Cortex CPU, and microSDXC slot (come with 32GB card).... and increased run time.

At least, let's hope that DROID is a big success, but unlike Apple, Motorola really boosts the capabilities from rev to rev, rather than just tiny little tweaks. They'll have to.. there's real competition in the Android market. As with the PC, we users benefit from this.

 

[moosc]

Rolls out first for data cards then phones. The phone most likely will b 2011-2012. As for sprint and 4g claims it is a mix of 3G and wimax. And no the Droid is not able to run it.No 4G radio.

 

[JhankG]

The Moto Droid will be an afterthought by the time LTE is available nationwide.

 

[New2u]

The Moto Droid will be an afterthought by the time LTE is available nationwide.

The droid 2 or better will be out by then. No worries for those who bought a phone and are wishing they waited for the 4g.

 

[LordKastle]

The Droid was Motorola's last stand. The reason why this product has the quality it does is because Motorola went all in. It took a risk. It wanted to produce a product rivaling anything else currently on the market. Their products had not been doing well and the company was going down...slowly but surely.

Who knows about the future generation of phones. Sometimes a company will get stagnant and content. This Droid was released when Motorola had its back against the wall and the odds were against them. They won. But who knows if Motorola will have that sense of urgency in early, middle, or late 2012 (OR WHENEVER) when there could be a Droid v2 like phone.

 

[wuyanks]

The Droid was Motorola's last stand. The reason why this product has the quality it does is because Motorola went all in. It took a risk. It wanted to produce a product rivaling anything else currently on the market. Their products had not been doing well and the company was going down...slowly but surely.

Who knows about the future generation of phones. Sometimes a company will get stagnant and content. This Droid was released when Motorola had its back against the wall and the odds were against them. They won. But who knows if Motorola will have that sense of urgency in 2012 when there could be a Droid v2 like phone.

this is very off topic, but i'd like to chime in anyway

i always hated Motorola because of their crappy phones (can't think of a better word)... every model of the Razer was a disaster, and the rest of their phones were average at best. when the Droid first surfaced, i didn't know it was by Moto, and got excited that VZN decided to move toward open-development. then i found out it was by Moto, and i almost decided not to get the phone altogether. but Moto proved us all wrong, i hope this is the first of many quality phones by them, why not?

i still hope HTC makes a dent in the US markets, they are such an impressive company, and would be a sad waste of talent if they continue to be ignored...

 

[LordKastle]

We cannot predict the future, like I said. You'd hope they don't get content and become a one hit wonder. The Droid was a legitimate attack by Motorola on the cell phone field. If the quality of the phone did not match the hype, their grave would have been dug.

 

[Stigy]

I actually spoke to a few techs at Verizon, one of which I am friends with.

He said the radio in the DROID will work with the 4G LTE network and they are planning for a Q2 or Q3 2010 rollout of the network.

I am not 100% sure if he is correct or not, but it sure would be nice.