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Samsung gets Galaxy phone on all 4 carriers... WTF Google why not the N1?!

Just saw on Engadget how Samsung accomplished the goal that Google failed at: Getting its Galaxy phone line on all 4 carriers
Why again didnt Google just play nice and be flexible to the carriers demands?
Why not allow Verizon and Sprint to have a little control over their versions of the N1 in order to ensure the N1 becomes a national success?
If Samsung can accomplish this, why couldnt Google?
Seems like such a waste of a perfect opportunity
Verizon ropes in Samsung Fascinate, US Cellular gets a Galaxy S too -- Engadget

Because the entire point of the Nexus One was to prove that customers wanted a phone that was not bound by "carrier demands" thats why all the Droids have the pay for tethering, while the Nexus One supports it freely.

Why not just be flexible?
Let the T-Mobile and Att versions be completely free of carrier control and be flexible with the Verizon/Sprint versions. I'd much rather have a non-tethering N1 on Sprint and Verizon as options than nothing at all...
If Samsung could do it, why not Google?

Because each version of the Galaxy is a totally different version, because this carrier didnt like this option on the phone, they took it out and renamed the phone. There are 4 versions of this phone each one less of a total package then the one before it. The Nexus One didn't want to be "flexible" it wanted to be allowed at the party as it designed to be. Plus the Nexus One was originally planned to be on Sprint and Version, it was the carriers who then dropped support for it. Also i was just throwing tehtering out there as an example there are many other things that the Nexus One can do that other phones have had stripped because of carrier control.

Those phones are gonna be hindered by carrier approval for updates.
The main thing that will be gimped is the native tethering option of android.
Samsung is in the game for $$$ with a guaranteed business plan.
Google was attempting to change the typical business plan. It was always an gamble.

Blueman101 said:
Because each version of the Galaxy is a totally different version, because this carrier didnt like this option on the phone, they took it out and renamed the phone. There are 4 versions of this phone each one less of a total package then the one before it. The Nexus One didn't want to be "flexible" it wanted to be allowed at the party as it designed to be. Plus the Nexus One was originally planned to be on Sprint and Version, it was the carriers who then dropped support for it. Also i was just throwing tehtering out there as an example there are many other things that the Nexus One can do that other phones have had stripped because of carrier control.
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Verizon publicly came out and said they wanted the nexus but it was Google that did not come thru for unknown reasons. Who are we to believe, I agree I don't trust any of them. But its definitely weird that Verizon went on record saying that. Why would they lie? And the next question is if that was the truth, why would Google have backed out?

RogerPodacter said:
Verizon publicly came out and said they wanted the nexus but it was Google that did not come thru for unknown reasons. Who are we to believe, I agree I don't trust any of them. But its definitely weird that Verizon went on record saying that. Why would they lie? And the next question is if that was the truth, why would Google have backed out?
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Thats true, no one really knows who was at fault. Google isnt know for their Dev phones coming to CDMA. Its also possible that Google turned it down when the CDMA carriers refused to offer the Nexus One full freedom.

ap3604 said:
Just saw on Engadget how Samsung accomplished the goal that Google failed at: Getting its Galaxy phone line on all 4 carriers
Why again didnt Google just play nice and be flexible to the carriers demands?
Why not allow Verizon and Sprint to have a little control over their versions of the N1 in order to ensure the N1 becomes a national success?
If Samsung can accomplish this, why couldnt Google?
Seems like such a waste of a perfect opportunity
Samsung is not the first! The touch pro 2s for example existed on all 4 networks!
Verizon ropes in Samsung Fascinate, US Cellular gets a Galaxy S too -- Engadget
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Click to collapse
Most of the normal customers will have no idea the phones are related directly. They are all a little different and have different names. Each carrier has say with software unlike the n1. That means no tethering etc. I dont see why US carries like to cripple phones and brand them... I get that they want their own image or to not look like just a network provider but customized phones blow... My htc pure has no front facing cam and all the td2s tp2s needed different skins/cases and that also means more expensive repairs and ****. Carriers around the world just stamp their logo and inject some crapware (sometimes) and leave everything else the same!

JCopernicus said:
Those phones are gonna be hindered by carrier approval for updates.
The main thing that will be gimped is the native tethering option of android.
Samsung is in the game for $$$ with a guaranteed business plan.
Google was attempting to change the typical business plan. It was always an gamble.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Maybe someone will figure how to make a vanilla android rom for it.

I think the problem with the N1 is that the only carrier that subsidized it is T-Mobile. The two largest carriers are At&t and Verizon. Verizon doesn't carry it. For At&t, how many ppl are gonna shell out $529 for a phone, when you can get an iphone for like $199. All of us in this forum would, but for others it's too big of a difference.

well especially these days with this economy, $530 is a lot to swallow.

When did "US Cellular" become one of "the 4" carriers??? They're #7 according to here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mobile_network_operators_of_the_Americas#United_States

Verizon got the HTC Desire
Sprint got the HTC EVO
If they got those phones, why would they want the N1 for? Those HTC phones are, in the carrier's eyes, better than the N1 and they aren't restricted to the plans that Google made T-Mobile customers switch over to in order to get the N1 for a lower price.
If those two phones came to Tmobile, I wouldn't have a N1 to be honest.

Blueman101 said:
well especially these days with this economy, $530 is a lot to swallow.
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Quite ironically that's only true in western developed countries. And the major reason is that people are just too dependent on the whole contract and credit system. In India, we always pay for unlocked phone. There are no contracts. Therefore if we buy a smartphone we know what we are buying and how much that is worth. And in return we get cheap phone service (2 cents per minute). US carriers will give you "free" cheap phone and then charge you $45 for 450 minutes. That is $36 extra per month or $864 extra for the two year contract period.
$530 for a phone seems to be a reasonable price for us... even if we are still a developing country.

This is just the announcement right? In mid March 2010, Sprint and Verizon announced they were getting the N1, until they changed their mind. Like you guys said earlier something about the "Evo" and the "Moto shadow". Shadow is pretty sweet, 4.3 inch display plus QWERTY!
Wikipedia that **** "nexus one"

arkavat said:
Quite ironically that's only true in western developed countries. And the major reason is that people are just too dependent on the whole contract and credit system. In India, we always pay for unlocked phone. Their are no contracts. Therefore if we buy a smartphone we know what we are buying and how much that is worth. And in return we get cheap phone service (2 cents per minute). US carriers will give you "free" cheap phone and then charge you $45 for 450 minutes. That is $36 extra per month or $864 extra for the two year contract period.
$530 for a phone seems to be a reasonable price for us... even if we are still a developing country.
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Excellent point. I much prefer that system to ours.
Sent from my Sexy Nexy, courtesy of the fine developers of Tapatalk

let me finance that sammich for you ...
Blueman101 said:
well especially these days with this economy, $530 is a lot to swallow.
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Click to collapse
$530 is too much? ok buy a g1 for 279. or a flip phone for 35 at a pawn shop. remember, this is something you OWN, not something that you lease with heavily financed contracts and etc s to mess with.
a potato chip is rediculously expensive if you compare it to the price of potatoes. cmon, find a logical argument folks or would you rather a company NOT profit, fail and leave you with no. support?

ohgood said:
$530 is too much? ok buy a g1 for 279. or a flip phone for 35 at a pawn shop. remember, this is something you OWN, not something that you lease with heavily financed contracts and etc s to mess with.
a potato chip is rediculously expensive if you compare it to the price of potatoes. cmon, find a logical argument folks or would you rather a company NOT profit, fail and leave you with no. support?
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I think you missed his point a bit.
Google was attempting to do a few things with the N1. First, they wanted to offer a completely raw phone, free of all carrier branding and bloatware and crippling. To do so meant selling it themselves, or in stores like Best Buy or whatever. This would push the second item: showing those in the states how a lot of other countries operate, buying unlocked phones without a carrier subsidy and contract. I love this idea. Both ideas.
However, the timing was rather unfortunate. $530 in this economy is rough for a lot of people. Doesn't mean the idea is horrible, doesn't mean anyone is blaming Google. It simply means that there are a lot of people that won't buy the N1 (or any brand new completely unlocked phone) right now because of the economy. I personally have several friends that love my N1. They wish they could buy one but are either unemployed or under-employed (took jobs making much less than they're used to, simply to get a check coming in).
I love Google's approach on this. I think it's great that they (supposedly) told Verizon and Sprint go suck an egg, and that the N1 was not to be messed with. This is my first truly unlocked, unbranded phone and I don't think I'll ever go back to buying them from the carrier.

Plain and simple most carriers were not thrilled with the idea of a totally unbranded/un-carrier approved handset being activated on their network.
With the GSM variant, there is little that any carrier can do, but CDMA is a different animal and I am really not surprised that VZW/SPRINT said heck no.
Dan

arkavat said:
Quite ironically that's only true in western developed countries. And the major reason is that people are just too dependent on the whole contract and credit system. In India, we always pay for unlocked phone. There are no contracts. Therefore if we buy a smartphone we know what we are buying and how much that is worth. And in return we get cheap phone service (2 cents per minute). US carriers will give you "free" cheap phone and then charge you $45 for 450 minutes. That is $36 extra per month or $864 extra for the two year contract period.
$530 for a phone seems to be a reasonable price for us... even if we are still a developing country.
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Click to collapse
Same as in the UK, I have a cheap sim-only with unlimited data and just buy phones unlocked sim-free (no carrier restrictions) from the hundreds of stores (Play, Amazon etc). The money I save over the normal 18 months is enough to buy a Nexus One and have money left over.
But still some people in UK see the 'free phone' and sign up to a stupid long-term contract.

Data Caps - It's Only Going to Get Worse

For all you folks complaining about AT&T capping your download speeds, it appears it's only going to get worse. The federal government so far has not made any progress toward getting additional spectrum available, forcing carriers to make do with what they've got. As the article in the link below notes, "Ultimately, carriers will have to get more creative about how they use their existing spectrum, which will likely result in stricter caps on usage. Consumers who use more data will likely be charged higher prices for that data."
http://news.cnet.com/8301-30686_3-57379526-266/how-politics-inflame-the-spectrum-crisis/?tag=nl.e404
In the short run, you might jump to another carrier, but in the long run, it could get worse for everyone. Lightsquare has been effectively stopped (for now) from building a new wireless network because of the potential for interfering with GPS signals. AT&T has been stopped from acquiring T-Mobile which would have given AT&T more spectrum.
So, as bad as things seem now, this may be the best that they will be.
PS: Also see this article:
http://news.cnet.com/8301-1035_3-57...-suffer/?part=rss&subj=news&tag=2547-1_3-0-20

The FCC really needs to figure out how they are going to auction off the spectrum. Also, the whole ATT/T-mobile merger should have gone through. ATT is the only company that is compatible with T-mobile's equipment and can afford them.

rft3ch said:
The FCC really needs to figure out how they are going to auction off the spectrum. Also, the whole ATT/T-mobile merger should have gone through. ATT is the only company that is compatible with T-mobile's equipment and can afford them.
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it was cited that the decrees in competition would hurt every one and the loss of high paying jobs was to great

Aww that's bull does the fed gov have contract with Verizon or somethin? Coz a merger like that would surely put them out of commission
Sent from my HTC Raider X710e using xda premium

Cingular. Aka ma bell was broken up before for having a monopoly. Monopolies are bad for consumers, if any of you have graduated high school you should know this. Cingular has thus bought all tel, at&t, and now wants t-mobile. Creating another monopoly would not net us any better prices.
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I727 using Tapatalk

Verizon bought alltel

So your saying Verizon is At&ts only competition ??? Lol
Sent from my HTC Raider X710e using xda premium

colonel187 said:
Cingular. Aka ma bell was broken up before for having a monopoly. Monopolies are bad for consumers, if any of you have graduated high school you should know this. Cingular has thus bought all tel, at&t, and now wants t-mobile. Creating another monopoly would not net us any better prices.
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I727 using Tapatalk
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Cingular was not Ma Bell, it was a seperate company that purchased the failing wireless portion of At&t. Which was then purchased back by att, which wad really a rebranded SBC
Also Verizon purchased Alltel.
Good story though.
Sent from my HTC Raider X710e using xda premium

How does the merger or buy out of T-Mobile from AT&T help the consumer in any sense? Less companies out there competing, the higher your prices are gonna be, simple as that. If verizon goes, all those consumers have to go somewhere....

PakAttack1994 said:
How does the merger or buy out of T-Mobile from AT&T help the consumer in any sense? Less companies out there competing, the higher your prices are gonna be, simple as that. If verizon goes, all those consumers have to go somewhere....
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Click to collapse
One reason AT&T wanted to buy T-Mobile was to use its network to more rapidly expand its LTE network. Also, the two systems are compatible in some ways, making a transition easier.
As to competition as a way hold down prices, the major carriers (AT&T and Versizon) already control most of the market with T-Mobile and Sprint dividing a much smaller portion. Price comparisons I've seen usuaally show Verizon higher than AT&T for similar plans.
The main point I was making in the original post was that prices are likely to rise for all carriers in the long run as demand increases faster than the ability of the government and the carriers to provide adequate spectrum. The main concern should not be how many carriers there are, but whether the carriers (2 or 20) can meet the growing demand for high-speed services.

You got me about all tel, its another company I can't quite get off the tip of my tongue. Anyway.
Yes Verizon is the only real completion at&t has, tmo and sprint are too small. AT&T wireless was formed by by AT&T
AT&T wireless was doing so well they split into their own company. Sbc acquired Cingular which. At&t & Cingular were the two major companies in competition with Verizon but norther had the customer base alone to match Verizon.
Cingular bought at&t wireless and sbc bought at&t landline. Owning the rights to the name now Cingular and sbc changed their name to at&t thus gaining the same or a little more customers over Verizon. Sbc and at&t came to be when ma bell was forced to split due to monopoly.
Gobbling up the missing prices of ma bell and some small stragglers is creating another monopoly.
Just like the cable companies in many areas. There is only one and they raise there prices almost every other month. Only competition its satellite that forces you to sign contacts.
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I727 using Tapatalk

This is why I'm glad the Tmobile merger was stopped or else things would've only gotten worse. The Government actually needs to break up Verizon and AT&T now since they are too big as it is and doing price fixing with each other.

NIKKG said:
This is why I'm glad the Tmobile merger was stopped or else things would've only gotten worse. The Government actually needs to break up Verizon and AT&T now since they are too big as it is and doing price fixing with each other.
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However, that does not really address the basic issue here -- as data usage grows with more people using more wireless devices, the available spectrum/band-width (as it exists now) probably will not be able to keep up with the demand.
Economics 101: when demand exceeds supply, prices go up. Increasing the number of companies selling wireless service will not necessarily increase the amount of bandwidth available.
My point, is that the government, which ultimately controls wireless frequencies, has not acted in a timely manner to address the issue (with the exception of stopping a company that wanted to add more bandwidth).

..

Very interesting article

Australia is just as bad with a lazy government. This NBN (National Broadband Network) appears to be nothing more than a spin from the Labor government, which can be an example of people who use lots of data suffering at the hands of lazy morons who really have no excuse for it.
---------- Post added at 02:35 PM ---------- Previous post was at 02:31 PM ----------
I feel sorry for those on AT&T's old unlimited plan who are getting throttled.
Capping plans appears to only benefit the carrier as they make millions off those who go over the capped amount.
I used 2GB in a two days on Telstra's 4G network.

So AT&T tries to buy T-mobile for $35 BILLION, but cant afford to upgrade their network. What a bunch of ****.
How can I see if Im getting throttled? I can do a speed test and get a good speed, but browsing is slow.

Telstra is looking to shaping customer when they go over their limit in a couple of months. This was announced last year. As per existing solution it will Text you when you are near the cap. I beleive that once you are capped you can purchase once off topups.
So examples are:
$49 Plan gives 1G for month, with $450 for Voice SMS
$59 gives 1.5G with $550 for Voice (free SMS /MMS)
etc
Once the shapping solution is deployed you can:
1. Not spend any more and manage to how much data you have for the month.
2. Purchase a once off data top up .
$10 = 1 Gig
$20 = 2 Gig
etc
3. Move to a offer that provide more data each month
Once implemented there will no longer be bill shock. You can then choose eactly how much you spend on data.

so when will they do this for home internet.. haha

In Australia Fixed broadband for Telstra has been capped for several years for consumer plans. So no bill shock possible on Fixed data.
As per previous post need to wait a couple more months until this capping is available for Mobiles. Then bill shock will be removed for fixed.
I don't beleive any smart long term techo believes Bill shock generates revenue it just drives loyal customers away, that might choose to use them for the next 30 years.

[ Off topic ] unlocking your phone - illegal

Here is news that no mobile phone owner will want to hear.
From tomorrow (Jan 26) unlocking your phone will become illegal , in USA ofc..where else...LOL , thanks to the Library of Congress's DMCA and could actually result in jail time!
In fact, this shiny new restriction extends to tablets as well where they can use SIM cards. There has been next to no press coverage that this was coming either, which is strange for something big like this, because digital liberty groups like the EFF normally shout loud about it in order to help promote a pushback. It seems like their efforts didn't pay off in this case, however.
The law was no doubt changed at the behest of the large mobile carriers in order to squeeze every last penny out of their subscribers, while restricting the value those subscribers get from their services, since they're stuck with the service provider that they bought their phone from
edit : i am rly sorry for people who leave in USA . your government is so wrong...so,so evil...

How true is this?
Sent from my Nexus 7 using Tapatalk 2

well.. believe it or not... in USA is everything possible but only a normal thing is impossible... unfortunately
here is link...
http://www.legitreviews.com/news/15028/

Honestly, how the hell would they be able to detect it even if it was illegal?
Are they going to start checking the credit card info of every customer who paid $8 to cellunlocker.net? Are they going to track down everyone who reads a page on how to do a software based unlock for the few phones that support it?
Last time I checked the carriers aren't able to remotely detect if you've SIM unlocked your phone. And even if they could, what's the big deal? People still have to use the carrier service and pay the monthly fee. If they want to switch providers and are on a contract, SIM unlocking won't magically erase the contract - you still have to pay the exorbitant cancellation fee regardless.
The only "loss" to the carriers would be the roaming fees for traveling abroad since unlocked phones can just use local SIMs, but given that a huge cut of the roaming fee goes to the foreign carrier, I doubt that's much of a loss either. Plus, most of the people I know who roam while traveling abroad would still take careful measures to avoid calling and texting, and try to connect to Wifi where possible to use alternatives like Skype and Whatsapp. For example, I cross the US border at least a few times a year, and since it's just a day trip I just roam on my phone even though it's unlocked. I simply connect to the public wifi at the shopping mall, and ignore any incoming calls or SMS - usually people I'm close to would be aware I'm out of the country anyways. Thus, zero roaming charge.
There's honestly no net benefit to the carrier to lock the phones they subsidize. Except for maybe the roaming part, I fail to see what financial losses a carrier would face from people unlocking their subsidized phones.
Whoever proposed this law must be a luddite or just some moron with abysmal knowledge of technology. Fact is, passing the law will do jack s**t. They might as well make it illegal to uninstall bloatware from a laptop you buy off the shelf. That's how superfluous it is.
The only "solution" I could see to the "problem" of unlocked phones, is for carriers to go all-out to disable the hidden menu in smartphones that allows you to enter an unlock code once you insert a non-accepted SIM. But then I'm sure hackers would find a way around that. And I'll bet that if the carriers decide to aggressively look for people to unlock their subsidized phones, the cost of employing the resources to do so would far outweigh any potential extra revenue.
I saw on another site that this "law" might be meant to hurt the sale of used phones - but in America, that's irrelevant. There are only two GSM carriers and they use different 3G frequencies, so most AT&T phones will only work in 2G mode on TMo, and vice versa, unless they're quad or pentaband. Thus most Americans really have only one choice of carrier if they choose to buy a used GSM phone, even unlocked.
icyeye said:
well.. believe it or not... in USA is everything possible but only a normal thing is impossible... unfortunately
here is link...
http://www.legitreviews.com/news/15028/
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Click to collapse
The American government is full of luddites and computer idiots (remember who proposed SOPA?). But then again, so are most governments. Nothing to fear though as long as the people aren't half as dumb and provide sufficient opposition.

Hmm... I guess the only logic behind this would be those people that buy a phone with a contract and just ditch the country altogether... Can you imagine "giving" an S3 for 100 usd with a contract... to someone that just unlocks the phone and goes away? Must be painful...
Anyways, it's been a long way since I bought a phone with a contract.

LarsPT said:
Hmm... I guess the only logic behind this would be those people that buy a phone with a contract and just ditch the country altogether... Can you imagine "giving" an S3 for 100 usd with a contract... to someone that just unlocks the phone and goes away? Must be painful...
Anyways, it's been a long way since I bought a phone with a contract.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
But if those people perform the unlocking in the new country they live in, they haven't broken any laws and can't be prosecuted Also anyone who has any long-term plans to return to america after moving out would be foolish to do something like this, since the unpaid bill could be considered a crime!
I think maybe the carriers want to charge a high price to do the unlocking for you, in order to kill "competition" from small businesses like cellunlocker.net.

Hello everyone,
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As such, this thread is now closed.
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Contacting ASUS regarding the VoLTE issue

Hello,
I have been emailing, messaging, and calling ASUS regarding this issue. Today, I spoke with a supervisor over the phone regarding my work ticket for VoLTE.
His words not mine, ASUS is not currently attempting to get VoLTE functioning on this phone in the US. No future plans are being made for this. He was unable to give him specifics regarding a memorandum ASUS put out regarding concern over connectivity in the US, but stated that they (ASUS) are aware of the issue and will not be seeking further solutions.
I did my best to express how Verizon 3G doesnt function, ATT 3G will shortly stop working, and that TMobile is only offering a brief window before their 3G shutdown. I further explained that TMobile 3G is really only good for a small percentage of the US and that the vast majority of US cities will not be able to properly utilize it for voice calling. We went further into details on how those 3 companies are the only options in the US as smaller companies just "rent and borrow" tower bandwidth.
With all this said, it appears they are very aware that this phone will not have functional voice calling in the US very soon and for whatever reason, are unable or unwilling to fix it.
Edward

waynewarrior78 said:
Hello,
I have been emailing, messaging, and calling ASUS regarding this issue. Today, I spoke with a supervisor over the phone regarding my work ticket for VoLTE.
His words not mine, ASUS is not currently attempting to get VoLTE functioning on this phone in the US. No future plans are being made for this. He was unable to give him specifics regarding a memorandum ASUS put out regarding concern over connectivity in the US, but stated that they (ASUS) are aware of the issue and will not be seeking further solutions.
I did my best to express how Verizon 3G doesnt function, ATT 3G will shortly stop working, and that TMobile is only offering a brief window before their 3G shutdown. I further explained that TMobile 3G is really only good for a small percentage of the US and that the vast majority of US cities will not be able to properly utilize it for voice calling. We went further into details on how those 3 companies are the only options in the US as smaller companies just "rent and borrow" tower bandwidth.
With all this said, it appears they are very aware that this phone will not have functional voice calling in the US very soon and for whatever reason, are unable or unwilling to fix it.
Edward
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
This is essentially the same response I received when I contacted them. In my communications, they seemed to blame the North American carriers for the issue since VoLTE works in other countries.
Admittedly I know very little about Band X 123 but Asus's argument is a good point from my laymen's perspective. When I pushed on T-Mobile, they informed me they do not disable features that it's the vendors control (this was my take-away from the FaceBook chat I had with a T-Mobile agent). So now I don't know who to believe.
At this point, I'd just like to know why a particular feature (not necessarily VoLTE) is disabled/enabled to begin with. Is it politics, money, something else?

SavageCat-TX said:
This is essentially the same response I received when I contacted them. In my communications, they seemed to blame the North American carriers for the issue since VoLTE works in other countries.
Admittedly I know very little about Band X 123 but Asus's argument is a good point from my laymen's perspective. When I pushed on T-Mobile, they informed me they do not disable features that it's the vendors control (this was my take-away from the FaceBook chat I had with a T-Mobile agent). So now I don't know who to believe.
At this point, I'd just like to know why a particular feature (not necessarily VoLTE) is disabled/enabled to begin with. Is it politics, money, something else?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It's not TMobile, it's Asus. Volte works on redmagic 3, all xiaomi phones have volte too. Asus are a bunch of dbags. Don't buy the phone.

Considering buying the phone, I have a couple questions.

This phone sounds amazing, but theres some conflicting information i've heard on it from multiple different sources.
1. Does the phone work on verizon? My current phone plan is on verizon, and it would be so much easier to just change out phones rather than move my entire wireless company to get this phone. I've heard that it does and it doesn't. Is it the chinese versions that don't? I'm american, so do the versions sold in America work with verizon? I went to my local verizon store, and they said it wouldn't, but the lady had to look it up on her phone but the article she saw might have been talking about the tencent version or something.
2. If it doesn't work on verizon, what other network would work better? I've heard that T-Mobile wouldn't work well for this phone, so maybe AT&T? Again, I would greatly prefer to just stick with Verizon.
PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE answer my questions, I've asked these questions in multiple places but no one has answered a reliable answer in any of them.

JegusChrist said:
This phone sounds amazing, but theres some conflicting information i've heard on it from multiple different sources.
1. Does the phone work on verizon? My current phone plan is on verizon, and it would be so much easier to just change out phones rather than move my entire wireless company to get this phone. I've heard that it does and it doesn't. Is it the chinese versions that don't? I'm american, so do the versions sold in America work with verizon? I went to my local verizon store, and they said it wouldn't, but the lady had to look it up on her phone but the article she saw might have been talking about the tencent version or something.
2. If it doesn't work on verizon, what other network would work better? I've heard that T-Mobile wouldn't work well for this phone, so maybe AT&T? Again, I would greatly prefer to just stick with Verizon.
PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE answer my questions, I've asked these questions in multiple places but no one has answered a reliable answer in any of them.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
No on Verizon. Yes to tmobile and att. Chinese and international versions have different lte band support. Talk to your local tmobile and att reps to see which bands you need and verify on the Asus site for rog phone 2.

A few users here say they got it working on Verizon as a data only device, and it does support their LTE bands. For calls, they mostly use Google Voice but one buys a cheap subscription on an AT&T MVNO for calls.
It doesn't have band 71 support for TMO, which could make coverage an issue. AT&T has the best support from what I've seen.
Something else to note is this is not VoLTE certified in the U.S. It can only make calls on the GSM networks, and those will be shutting over the next few years. If you plan to keep the phone long term, expect to lose the ability to make any phone calls. You could move to Google Voice at that point, but you'd still be left with no 911 access. Asus has so far indicated they have no plans to certify it for VoLTE in the U.S. (even other region versions that do have VoLTE wouldn't be able to use it here).

Mr_Mooncatt said:
A few users here say they got it working on Verizon as a data only device, and it does support their LTE bands. For calls, they mostly use Google Voice but one buys a cheap subscription on an AT&T MVNO for calls.
It doesn't have band 71 support for TMO, which could make coverage an issue. AT&T has the best support from what I've seen.
Something else to note is this is not VoLTE certified in the U.S. It can only make calls on the GSM networks, and those will be shutting over the next few years. If you plan to keep the phone long term, expect to lose the ability to make any phone calls. You could move to Google Voice at that point, but you'd still be left with no 911 access. Asus has so far indicated they have no plans to certify it for VoLTE in the U.S. (even other region versions that do have VoLTE wouldn't be able to use it here).
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I'm not exactly the best at phone lingo, i just stumbled across this website while looking up things about the phone.
That being said, can you tell me whether or not the phone is worth it? It seems like theres wayy too many disadvantages to this phone, and that kinda bugs me. I've been wanting this phone for a while, so I'd much rather get this than anything else.
If it's not really worth it, can you mention any other phones that are similar? mainly one that can emulate games just as good if not better than the ROG 2?

"Is it worth it?"
That is such a loaded question if you're in the U.S. That's something you'll have to decide for yourself based on your needs. If it had VoLTE here, then it would be worth every penny. All I can say is that for me, it isn't worth it. Yes, you get a ton of value for the phone. I'm on Verizon and would've been ok switching calls and texts to Google Voice. I also planned to keep it long term, likely after the GSM network shutdowns. I also drive for a living, hauling hazardous materials. So in my case, the inability to make a 911 call once those networks shut down is a very big concern. For me, that one reason alone is why I've decided to hold off on it.
On the flip side, if you don't have a problem with the 911 issue, or plan to switch phones in a year or two anyway, then this may very well be worth it in your case.
As for other options, I think the Nubia Red Magic 3s is likely the closest in terms of features and performance. It's not quite as bleeding edge as the ROG 2, but it's also a lot cheaper and has VoLTE calling. The Razer Phone 2 is another known option, but it's a generation older too and support may be questionable (rumor has it there may not be a Razer 3). I don't know a ton about either phone other than what I've read on their specs.