Sprint has better service and costs less.
Alas.
We switched because I wanted to buy an iPhone, which I still haven't bought [1]. I wasn't as wise as this writer:
ATPM 14.04 - Bloggable: Shallow Depth of FieldMy friends weren't as forthcoming, but I can personally confirm that in the midwest AT&T drops calls routinely. My phone may show "four bars", but that's just a little AT&T joke. I go from four bars to no carrier in an eye-blink.
...Then, there’s writing about the iPhone. You see, I don’t have one, because I don’t have AT&T service. And until my friends who do aren’t constantly cursing dropped calls, I have no intention of switching carriers and buying an iPhone...
Cost? AT&T costs us about 70% more than Sprint for a similar set of services. I think this huge gap is partly an artifact of our usage patterns (two phones, moderate voice use, frequent calls to Canada, very little roaming on Sprint) but I suspect AT&T would cost most people about 20% more than Sprint.
Contracting trickery? Sprint has a nefarious history of covert contract extensions, but they've been getting better since being sued in Minnesota. AT&T has the rebate scam from Hell.
Sprint wins across the board on voice quality, cost, and contracting. I'm amazed.
The only thing AT&T has is the iPhone, but that's a very big thing. If you aren't going to buy an iPhone immediately, however, don't switch to AT&T.
As a current AT&T customer, I join the world's pleas for a great Google Android phone, and for a future iPhone free of AT&T.
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[1] The timing of the switch was dictated by the impending death of my wife's beloved Samsung i500, I was waiting to see the shape of the SDK before committing to the iPhone. The SDK took so long to be revealed I ran into the pending iPhone 2.0 release!
[2] The contract lock-ins, switching costs, and the pricing costs all promote bad business practices.
I'm in the same spot! i just bought the iphone 2 days ago, and about to sell my BlackBerry 8830 world phone with sprint and switch my number over to AT&T but i'm having SECOND THOUGHTS! the black berry is more of a PHONE than the iphone! i think maybe i should just buy an ipod touch instead and keep my BB phone with sprint, but then again, thats an extra gadget in my pocket! decisions decisions...
ReplyDeleteI need to just figure out what one has a better plan for me. I live in a small town and so its hard to get good service. I need a phone wit good service and unlimited texting but at a cheap price. i dont need very many minutes 200 to 400 would do. I would prefer that the monthly cost be as high as 30 a month but if i cant find any that price a little higher would be fine i guess. Could You Help me?
ReplyDeleteIt all really depends on where you live. I live in the dallas suburbs area and the sprint service is absolutely terrible. They drop calls constantly, that's if i even can connect. In addition, my texts can never send and the quality of the phones is terrible. They tell me i should come in about every two weeks for check ups! That's ridiculous! I'm switching to at&t because down here it's alot more quality, so really, just ask around to people in your area.
ReplyDeleteI have both AT&T and Sprint accounts with land lines and cells on AT&T and cell only on Sprint. I have had both for years and recently began canceling the AT&T accounts and porting all numbers over to Sprint. I do not notice any significant coverage disadvantages with Sprint. The HUGH difference is that Sprint has EXCELLENT customer service while AT&T has virtually NONE. The differnce became so apparent that I was willing to pay the cancellation fees to AT&T at about $175/line to switch!!! I will make up the cost in 2 years from the far better Sprint deals. I will never venture into AT&T territory again unless significant changes occur!!
ReplyDeleteSince I wrote this AT&T's network melted down, at the same time Sprint has survived longer than expected.
ReplyDeleteSprint's problem now is that the Pre is a bit of a fizzle.
So today I'd say Sprint is the better one. I'm not so sure Verizon is better than AT&T though.