Fido/Rogers going LTE and the Motorola RAZR MAXX??
My Fido contract is expiring as we speak, and while they're continuing to offer me a nice retention plan, the days of stacked discounts are gone and it looks like I'll be paying $50/mo minimum for anything with data (2+ gb). As a result, I may as well let them give me a phone ... usually I like to leverage signing a contract for discounts and just buy my own from here or Craigslist.
That said, my recent discovery of the RAZR MAXX and it's 3+ day battery life has made it the only phone I want to own. There are several other phones I'm interested from a features point of view, but given that someone has finally woken up and solved the battery life problem, this is the only phone I want to own.
Unfortunately, the RAZR MAXX is Verizon only, which is an LTE provider (although the regular RAZR and RAZR MAXX both seem to have GSM/HSPA tech specs). Fortunately, there exist battery kits to modify the standard RAZR to a RAZR MAXX - and Fido offers the regular RAZR. You can probably see what I'm getting at: Get the standard RAZR from Fido, get the kit, and have an HSPA/GSM Razr MAXX for under $200 (approx cost of the mod kit all said and done).
But, I recently saw a thread (also some info in this thread further down) where it looks like Fido might actually be rolling out LTE in the near future... Does that mean I should wait? I ask for various reasons, including new phone options, but also the fact that I could just get a factory Verizon MAXX or even a MAXX from Fido if they offer it.
Finally, anyone that has gotten a Fido Android phone, do they pack them with bloatware? Are options (such as tethering) disabled/locked? I know i can flash a ROM onto the phone to get around most of that but if it's sleek and light out of the box, I would be much more inclined to go get one.
Any other thoughts on Fido phones, the possibility or date of an LTE switch, and/or the RAZR or RAZR MAXX?
Procrastination is Like Masturbation, It's Fun While You're Doing it, But in The End You're Just ******* Yourself.
Verizon LTE phones are not compatible with Rogers LTE and eventually Fido LTE because Verizon still relies on CDMA to make voice calls, LTE is purely for data only. If you really want the Razr Maxx, I believe, folks on XDA have figured out how to hack the radio in the Razr Maxx. Both the Verizon Razr and Razr Maxx have HSPA/GSM radios on board, but they are just disabled by the software. I'm just not sure if anyone has been able to hack it yet, but if they have, you can purchase a Verizon Razr Maxx and hack the radios and use it on Fido HSPA/GSM.
Fido android phones come with some bloatware such as the Fido My Account App. Tethering features are not blocked. I also don't see Fido coming out with the Razr Maxx, sales of the Razr model in Canada have been particularly slow, so I'm not sure if they're too keen to release another iteration of it that is almost identical.
It looks like I'll be getting a Fido phone with the contract renewal either way, so it's just a matter of choosing one. I like the HTC One S more than the Razr in terms of specs (and because it definitely has ICS 4.0) but I just can't get over the battery life... The Razr I can drop the MAXX battery into, but then it's old tech... I feel like Fido will release something new in the next few weeks and I'll feel like a sucker for not waiting.
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