As much as I am excited to see that the Nexus 4 is coming to T-Mobile, I am probably going to wait for something better. Main reason…no LTE support. T-Mobile is planning on launching and LTE network next year, so it would only be smart to wait until they start launching phones with LTE radios. One of the biggest tech gripes about the Galaxy Nexus, was the fact that it was considered a “hybrid device”. Hybrid in the sense that it had to be equipped with two radios to support both GSM and LTE. This caused higher prices for the phone, as well as not so great battery life.
So with all that, Google and LG decided to leave out LTE support for the Nexus 4. That can be a huge deal breaker for those on Verizon and AT&T. Andy Rubin chimed in about the situation, and here is what he had to say:
We certainly have a desire to offer devices on every carrier on the planet,†Rubin said. “The tactical issue is GSM vs. LTE. A lot of the networks that have deployed LTE haven’t scaled completely yet — they’re hybrid networks. They’ll do their old thing and they’ll do LTE, which means the devices need both radios built into them.
For now we’re gonna sit back and watch those networks evolve. Two radios in a device right now certainly raises the cost, and diminishes battery life. When we did the Galaxy Nexus with LTE we had to do just that, and it just wasn’t a great user experience. It’s possible to do it right, but that’s not where we’ll put our resources initially. Tactically, we want to make sure the devices are available for every network on the planet.
There you have it. Straight from the head cheese himself. This is why I am going to hold out for hopefully another OEM Nexus phone (HTC Nexus?) and I am hoping by that time it will have some necessary hardware to support LTE. Let us know what you guys think.
Source: Droid-Life
