? iPhone beats Droid in Manhattan speed tests

[drbob]

Can't believe this article. Isn't Verizon's service better than ATT? They say that the iPhone was faster than the Droid 2 out of 3 times.

iPhone beats Droid in Manhattan speed tests | VentureBeat

 

[jaysnyder75]

Having been with AT&T when it was Cingular I find that very hard to believe, unless the service has increased significantly since there were many, many dead spots in Manhattan. I guess thats because it's such a small city

 

[Backnblack]

They might of cherry picked the spots....

 

[JessiesGirl]

Can't believe this article. Isn't Verizon's service better than ATT? They say that the iPhone was faster than the Droid 2 out of 3 times.

iPhone beats Droid in Manhattan speed tests | VentureBeat

Working in Manhattan, I can tell you that all cells have some trouble in parts of Manhattan. Service can be highly specific to exactly where you are standing when you try to place or receive a call, for example, whether you are on an old building or a new one, etc.

Philly was the same way when I worked there. One lane of the Ben Franklin bridge--sparkling service. Change to the next lane over--dead spot for 500 ft.

I'd also be curious about who funded this study and how well it was done.

I don't really have a horse in either race. I made my decision already. But the iphone/MAC people tend to be out and out zealots about their choice IME. They are rather defensive about the Droid, probably in part to Verizon's marketing campaign.

 

[garrett]

They might of cherry picked the spots....

true.... i have even done my own droid vs iphone tests with a friends 3GS and the droid won every time.

the droid on 3g was even faster then the iphone on wifi ..... my best friend was pissed about that one....

 

[JayMonster]

This "study" was done by... an investment banking firm... and one that had just put out a buy recommendation on at&t... Yeah... real impartial study... bwahahahahaha. What a joke.

They blur the line (much as at&t does in their commercials) about how fast their network is (and yes it is fast, when you are at or near one of their high speed towers, and no congestion happens to be going on) versus how well the coverage is overall. Note how, while VZW speeds may be lower in the areas it "lost" the speeds were still decent. Now compare that to what happens to at&t's signal in Times Square and other places where it lost.

It is undeniable that HSDPA and HSDPA+ is faster in theory than EV-DO. But the fact remains that you are not getting those ideal speeds everywhere, even in locations such as Manhattan which is supposed to be a solid blue area on that 3G map.

But in the end... are you really going to believe (or care) about results put out by a investment banking firm? Piper-Jaffray has some at&t stock to unload and they want to push the stock back up so they can bail before that iPhone exclusivity period ends.

 

[JessiesGirl]

This "study" was done by... an investment banking firm... and one that had just put out a buy recommendation on at&t... Yeah... real impartial study... bwahahahahaha. What a joke.

They blur the line (much as at&t does in their commercials) about how fast their network is (and yes it is fast, when you are at or near one of their high speed towers, and no congestion happens to be going on) versus how well the coverage is overall. Note how, while VZW speeds may be lower in the areas it "lost" the speeds were still decent. Now compare that to what happens to at&t's signal in Times Square and other places where it lost.

It is undeniable that HSDPA and HSDPA+ is faster in theory than EV-DO. But the fact remains that you are not getting those ideal speeds everywhere, even in locations such as Manhattan which is supposed to be a solid blue area on that 3G map.

But in the end... are you really going to believe (or care) about results put out by a investment banking firm? Piper-Jaffray has some at&t stock to unload and they want to push the stock back up so they can bail before that iPhone exclusivity period ends.

Well there you go! Not a scientific study and not impartial.

My brother, a die-hard Apple lover, tries to give me that argument about AT&T, but even he mentioned that the exemplary service is not available everywhere at this time. He's a techie living in Boston, and he drops calls all the time on his iphone. But you will be hard pressed to get that iphone out of his cold dead hands (I assume it semalessly integrates with the rest of his Apple life, which works for him). His advice to me was if you aren't going to get an iphone, then you HAVE to get a Droid--no other phones worth looking at, period. So even the Appleheads have some respect for it! I think he can't wait until Xmas to get his hands on mine, actually! LOL And I will be curious to see his, too.

 

[Martin030908]

even if, let's say, AT&T is faster every time over VZW.... there's gonna be data caps for the iPhone so let them download there limited data faster... so they'll have more free time the rest of the month once they hit their cap to watch us use our Droids

 

[Olivia]

I have an iPhone 3gs that I'm going to sell for the Droid. I went to a Verizon store and tested the Droid which I really like the way it looked, felt, etc. Anyway I tested the browser there and it does take a little longer than the iPhone to load, but what good is the iPhone if you cannot even get service to load a webpage LOL! That's my biggest issue right now is AT&T service!

 

[kevin1016]

Lets assume this research is valid. Here's a hypothetical question: Would you rather have 1000kbps in 20% of a given area or 700kbps in 95% of the same area? Simple answer IMO.

 

[coolkidd]

Lets assume this research is valid. Here's a hypothetical question: Would you rather have 1000kbps in 20% of a given area or 700kbps in 95% of the same area? Simple answer IMO.

I rest my case!:icon_ banana:

 

[takeshi]

Lets assume this research is valid. Here's a hypothetical question: Would you rather have 1000kbps in 20% of a given area or 700kbps in 95% of the same area? Simple answer IMO.

Are we supposed to assume that your statistics are valid?

 

[darreno1]

I have an iPhone 3gs that I'm going to sell for the Droid. I went to a Verizon store and tested the Droid which I really like the way it looked, felt, etc. Anyway I tested the browser there and it does take a little longer than the iPhone to load, but what good is the iPhone if you cannot even get service to load a webpage LOL! That's my biggest issue right now is AT&T service!

A lot of websites display their mobile versions by default on the iPhone which can make one think the iPhone is faster.

 

[samiusmc]

Next they'll say Obama's healthcare plan saves money.

 

[samsung rogue user]

I challenged my boss's iphone on the web browser bringing up the exact same pages. No matter what the page was, the droid loaded faster...by about 5 or so seconds faster. Youtube videos from the same link ended up with the droid ahead by a large margin. He admits that it loads slower but being that ATnT service sucks nationwide... I wasn't surprised. So the question to all is would you rather have a fast phone that can't even get on the web because of bad service? Or a fast phone that gets on the web almost anywhere? If your choice is #2 ..... then you should own the droid.