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| it's about damn time!
I've been using the Samsung for about 4 months now and it's not bad. I've heard that the quality of the Nokia is significantly better but I haven't been able to get a hold of one (they're NEVER on ebay). Here's what I think so far:
Handoff: People talk about the handoff between WiFi and cell tower not being perfect. In my experience (even with the mediocre Samsung), it's nearly flawless. However, that assumes that you're in an area with decent cell reception and only using the WiFi to take advantage of the unlimited call plan. In the more likely situation that you're using it because you can't get cell reception, there's an inherent flaw; My apartment has no reception. My WiFi router only has reception to a short distance outside of my place. If the gap between where your WiFi trails off and the cell reception begins, you're stuck with a dead zone.
There are some definite quirks to it when you're using it on a router with a few machines connected to it. Obviously it's using bandwidth like any other device so if you hit a bottleneck, it'll either drop the call or break up. Adding a device to your network (e.g. powering up a laptop and connecting it to your WiFi network) causes the most problems. The Samsung has, on several occasions, dropped the call I was on and then wouldn't reconnect until I power cycled it. This seems like a problem that could easily be fixed by future software upgrades though.
One sort of interesting bonus of using WiFi is that T-Zones works about a million times faster. In my three years of using T-Mobile, I've yet to encounter a use for T-zones so I hesitate to call it a bonus.
I'm pretty psyched to hear that it's finally being released for real. To get my Samsung, I put up a Seattle Craigslist post and paid some guy to buy one and ship it to me. It cost me waaaaay more than this little thing is worth but at least I can make calls in my apartment. I'm dying to get the Nokia and get one for my girlfriend. Hopefully this will become a fairly standard feature on future T-Mo handsets. |
