iPhone exceeds Sprint's expectations

> "A $200 subsidy means that the 16GB iPhone 4S is $400 off-contract... just not true"

You don't know what Sprint pays for the iPhone--I assure you Sprint does not pay the same price per unit as you pay by walking into the Apple Store and buying it unlocked. Nor does it necessarily need to equal the price Sprint chooses to charge their customer for buying the phone out of contract. So perhaps they do pay the prices you quoted. Keep in mind, they are buying in bulk. $15 Billion will get you a little better deal than you can get buying one or two.

Agreed. It's the difference of 1.4mbps versus 7.2mbps. I just can't make that much of a jump down in speed. Besides, ATT coverage in my area is actually not bad. When I travel, that's when I see why everyone else hates them.

Give them a year. They'll have turned the lights on some of their 2012 LTE build-out right around the time iPhone 5 is announced.

The slow 3G on Sprint is a symptom of the technology used (EVDO RevA) and can't compete with the 3G AT&T employs. I moved from AT&T to Sprint because my bill practically cut in half, and the device is significantly faster. the extra 3 seconds' load time for content is palatable when doing everything smoothly, vs paying through the nose to the Death Star and still waiting for my phone to catch up.

Michael, are you on drugs? You think you'd be better off with LESS competition in the market? Yeah, that'd be real swell. Let AT&T buy T-Mobile and hope Sprint dies. Then Verizon and AT&T can laugh all the way to the bank.

I'm not saying I expect you to choose Sprint if it's not best for your needs (coverage, speeds, phones) but rooting for them to die is retarded. Tens of thousands of jobs would be lost and an insanely greedy duopoly would be entrenched even further.

I spoke with no less than a dozen Sprint reps in the past two weeks, as a consequence of inheriting someone else's Sprint contract before buying the iPhone. The unanimous reply was that this new phone is like nothing they've ever worked with, before. The demand they're facing (and the wrath we often-all-too-entitled iOS crowd often bring) is staggering, and the reps have discovered their future clientele.

Meh. While I cringe at the trash talking it's hardly something unique to Sprint. I've seen it at every carrier. Verizon, T-Mobile, and Sprint reps all had to talk a big game about what they had to sell and downplay the competition. Also keep in mind those stores would tend to attract salesmen who were Android fanbois all those years when they didn't have it.

I know it'd be nice if they were all very level headed and fair and were all "Well, the iPhone that we don't sell might be better for some people's needs, but consider these other benefits Android Phone X can offer you, and also our lower prices on data before you make up your mind..." but the fact is phone salesmen crap on the competition's networks and phones, full stop. They're gonna say that stuff in order to sell phones.

If Apple had really given a crap about that situation, then they should have launched on all 4 carriers simultaneously. Coincidentally, that would also have stunted Android's growth as it was only the absence of a real smartphone for Verizon to offer, that allowed it to prosper, fueled by Verizon marketing dollars.