By 
So I’ve been playing with the Inspire 4G for the better part of two weeks now, and as AT&T has 4G coverage in my area, I’ve been doing lots of speed tests. LOTS of them. I have been quite pleased with download speed results, but I was a bit irked by the upload speeds I was met with.
I didn’t know if it was just a limitation of AT&T’s network – and I didn’t bother to question them about it, sadly enough – but Android Central noticed the same and got in contact with them: the phone does not have the HSUPA radios required to take advantage of faster upload speeds over HSPA+.
Why this was excluded AT&T didn’t say – you’d better bet your butt we’re going to try and find out – but it’s unfortunate as upload speed in many cases is just as important as download speed. Online gaming practically lives or dies on how fast you’re able to upload packets of data.
Odd indeed, but we’ll be working on trying to get to the bottom of things. In the meantime, why don’t you express your thoughts in the Inspire 4G section at AndroidForums.com and look out for our review of the device coming up sometime in the near future.
Exactly how slow is this upload speed? Online gaming cares more about latency than upload speed, unless we are talking some truly atrocious numbers. My bet is your bottleneck will be latency and not speed when talking online gaming…
I’m more surprised by the fact that:
a) it took all these review sites this long to notice
b) any of you are even remotely surprised by this
The HSPA-capable Captivate also didn’t have HSUPA support, only HSDPA. AT&T claims they ship no phones with HSUPA support (except the iPhone) and HSUPA is limited to their connect cards and mifi devices. I’m fairly certain all of this was true for any other smartphone on their network, just like it will be true of the Atrix. The “4G” moniker is a sham not only because it’s only HSPA+, just like T-Mobile, but they also disable HSUPA by default which screws up your throughput and lowers your overall data connectivity speed.
I would not be surprised if every “4G” AT&T smartphone using HSPA+ and not LTE will have worse speeds than the iPhone which “only” has access to HSPA because it’s allowed to use both parts of the protocol. I have a Captivate and this was brought up when it was released too, yet it got minimal news coverage at best. AT&T won’t change their mind about this just like they won’t change their mind about sideloading apps.
I never got under 400ms as far as latency goes. Speed was in the 1-2mbps range. I didn’t do any testing with online gaming or video/photo uploads, but still quite slow.
It also REALLY depends on where you live. On my Captivate, the latency ranges from 200 to 400 depending on my signal and my download speeds range from 2 mpbs to 4 mbps with just standard HSDPA, NOT HSPA+ and upload speeds range from 1.2 to 1.4 mbs with HSUPA.
Like the Inspire, the Captivate was HSUPA crippled. Many people speculated that the reason behind this was because AT&T was saving its bandwidth for the iPhone 4. Nevertheless, the Captivate eventually got HSUPA through custom kernals and the Inspire will no doubt get the same treatment so don’t let HSUPA be a deciding factor for your purchase.
So how can they get away with calling it a 4g phone? I’m just curious as I am somewhat new to all of this super smartphone stuff and was considering buying this phone. I have a captivate now running a custom rom. So would it be worth buying the inspire or should I wait for something else to come to att?
The phone does have HSUPDA, it just is not activated (and the only way is through root). I heard somewhere that the only AT&T phone which does have it activated out of the box is the lame iPhone.
So how can they call it a 4g phone? I’m new to all of this computer phone stuff. I have a captivate now running a custom rom and was thinking about buying this phone. Should I keep my captivate and wait for something better to come along?
I express att with my mandingo in her mouth!
i can’t believe you’re eating at&t spew. the inspire 4G’s HSUPA is DISABLED not missing. ditto for Captivate and Atrix. root it and upload at high speed.
Well this is no longer worth $399 off contract.
I would love to see a new HTC Android phone on AT&T to at least be comparable to the Thunderbolt. I won’t go Motorola Atrix just for the feature list. I prefer HTC.
AT&T needs to step up truly bring high end Android phones if they want to stay competitive.
Must haves for my next phone (besides the now common features):
HTC
dual core
front and rear camera
HSUPA and HSDPA and LTE
USA and European; 3G and 4G frequencies
NFC
1GB RAM
4.3 inch screen
qHD high resolution
decent size battery
HDMI
Check the XDA-Developer site. People have enabled the HSUPA capability by rooting it and applying an alternate ROM. I’m not sure if that’s worth it to me, since I’m not usually uploading a lot. However, kudos to HTC for not locking the boot-loader, so the option is there if you want it bad enough.
it can be enabled by editing the build.prop in /system
change ril.ro.hsxpa=1 to ro.ril.hsxpa=2 can be done on any phone that can support hspa did it to my htc aria :)
Att+ android = fail. The fact that the carrier has to limit their phones capability to make way for another phone is pathetic. I think I’ll stick with Verizon who has a faster, true 4G network, better phone selection and superior network. What’s funny is now that Verizon got the Iphone the network hasn’t gotten bogged down at all, plus we have all the droids. Go big red!!!
How many people does the upload speed affect? When I need to upload a pic or vid, I start it, shut the screen off and go about my business. Who checks the entire process?
If you are pleased with the download speeds why didn’t you post them? Methinks you would be embarrassed by AT&T’s 4C (crap) network.
4c how clever….you sound like Jarjar Binx Joshua. Metinks you need to go back to school. ATT does suck tho. This phone is such a fail. should have jumped on the wagon when evo was out. now just to little too late.
they call it 4g cauyse the consumers wo have at&t contracts let them get away just like t mobiles there is no 4g it’s hspa+ at&t won’t have true 4g till around the end of the year or mabey even 2012 lmao lying fuckers. hspa+ = 3 – 7 mbps donwload and 1 – 4 mbps upload i guess they call it that cause thats all sprint wimax 4g gets
All, the US cellular market is crippled altogether. Verizon cannot do Voice and Data together, AT&T cripples their phones intentionally, T-Mobile has limted coverage, and Sprint is as finiky as my mother in law ….. There really is no perfect provider for all, it all boils down to who has the best to offer in each of our areas…. for me AT&T is the best for all around use, Verizon has better call quality, but if I cannot email and talk at the same time, it seems pointless to me …. just my two cents worth
Yes, it does, it’s the ROM AT&T loaded on it that is doing this. You can Root it and flash a European Desire HD ROM and get HSUPA back.
Anyone here have a life or even a girlfriend?