A few orders for the Galaxy Nexus on Sprint started to arrive yesterday and one thing in particular stood out to us – it’s running Android 4.0.4. Yes, that would be a newer build of Android than your Verizon Galaxy Nexus is “officially” running. As you are all aware, we are almost through April, which means that the Nexus on Big Red has not seen an update in almost 5 months. No, sir. On launch day, it received a bump to 4.0.2, which introduced mic dropping during calls, s****y reception, rebooting, slow rotation speeds, poor battery life, and other bugs upon other bugs. Yeah, I’m basically calling the update a pile of junk, yet here we are almost 5 months later with no fix in sight.

But! The Sprint version, which is identical to the Verizon version in that it runs on CDMA and LTE networks has a newer version of Android that squashes many of them and improves performance immensely. How do I know? Well, I have been running the leaked 4.0.4 on my VZW Nexus for over 2 months now and have not had any of those problems. 

If you were of that mindset that you would own a device with NVIDIA’s quad-core Tegra 3 inside and be able to attach to a 4G LTE network in the next few months, you should change that mindset immediately. We have noted this a few times now, but the Tegra 3 does not currently work with LTE. According to NVIDIA’s general manager, Mike Rayfield, we may not see any T3 devices with LTE until Q3 of this year. Speaking at the HTC Frequencies conference in Seattle this week, Rayfield mentioned the T3 is capable of working with LTE, but that “the guy with who has LTE isn’t all that excited about working with me [NVIDIA].” For those not familiar, he is referring to Qualcomm, one of their biggest competitors and also the company leading the LTE modem charge. Fortunately for all of us, NVIDIA acquired a company called Icera to help them build out their own LTE modems.

On a related note, a new version of the Tegra 3 which is currently called the Tegra 3+ (T3+) will arrive some time towards the end of the year. This processor will be “high performance” and a “significant boost” over the current T3. Specific details one what NVIDIA has done to pump up an already powerful processor was not revealed, but we’re excited. We assume it’ll have even better power consumption techniques while remaining crazy fast.

So no LTE in T3 devices for a while still. Like we said earlier in the week, get ready for a wave of dual-core Snapdragon S4 devices on all U.S. carriers. Unless of course the newly leaked Galaxy SIII and its quad-core chip have found a way to get in bed with LTE modems.

Via:  PCMag

We just got done gathering up all of the new April 19 4G LTE markets that Verizon was blasting off this morning when this press release arrived in our inbox. It is worthy of it’s own post as the numbers are pretty astounding for their new network rollout. This Thursday, Big Red’s 4G LTE network will cover more than 2/3 of the U.S. population. With these new markets that takes the total up to 230, but let’s go further than that. By the end of 2012, they expect to be in over 400 markets, covering some 260 million people.

AT&T has 32 active markets as of today.

Solid work, Verizon. 

Verizon started rattling off their next wave of 4G LTE markets that are either going live or expanding their reach on April 19. The list is pretty massive, many of which we covered a week or so ago. Today’s list expands on that list though, showing Big Red’s never-ending quest to take LTE to every area that already has access to their 3G.

We have a feeling that this list may continue to grow over the next couple of hours, so be sure to check back for updates. For now, jump past the break and see if you town is listed. And yes, I said “town” since VZW is working hard to cover the smaller markets as well. 

There is no slowing the Verizon 4G LTE train. After announcing 44 new markets and expansions less than two weeks ago, another list of has been released. This time, California (and Reno, NV) is the main target, with expansions taking coverage into new neighborhoods and areas that had yet to enjoy the incredible wireless speeds. For many of you in the Golden State, 3G logos will forever be a thing of the past. Well, unless you want your phone to last for more than 6 hours.

The list:

• Stockton
• San Luis Obispo
• Fresno
• Bakersfield
• Salinas
• Monterey
• San Francisco
• Sacramento
• Modesto
• Reno, NV

We also heard from a handful of readers this week that Kokomo, IN has been lit up. Are you noticing coverage in your area that was previously 3G only?

If you follow us on Twitter (why aren’t you?), then you probably saw the surgical procedure that went down last night between me and my Galaxy Nexus. You see, since Samsung and Google decided to release a grey or metallic version initially and then  a white version months later, I wasn’t interested in purchasing a brand new Nexus, just to get the white color scheme. So as white housings for the device started popping up on random German eBay stores, I jumped on one to see if I could perform the switcheroo myself. After picking up a set of cheap tools from iFixit a month or so prior in preparation for this day, and the housing arriving yesterday afternoon, it was game time.

Was it difficult? Again, if you saw on Twitter, it took me all of 13 minutes. I spent roughly $40 on tools (but you may not need to buy any, I just wanted fancy ones), another $70 for the housing and back, and in under 15 minutes, I had a brand spanking new white Galaxy Nexus. Quite a bit cheaper than paying $450-$650 for a new one, right?

So how did I do it? Jump past the break to find out.  

Back in early February when Google decided that officially supporting CDMA Nexus devices under AOSP was going to be a challenge, owners of the Galaxy Nexus LTE and Nexus S 4G all let out one giant simultaneous grown. There were plenty of questions to be answered, many of which never were. One that was left semi-up-in-the-air though, was whether or not Google would still release factory images to these two CDMA devices when they receive updates going forward. That answer appears to be “yes” at least for the Sprint Nexus S 4G. At the end of last week, the NS4G received its official 4.0.4 update and by the end of the weekend, the factory images for it had been posted “for reference only.”

Now this is not a guarantee that when we see a new update for the LTE Nexus that we will also be given the factory images for it, but it certainly seems like there is a pretty good chance of it happening. Maybe we haven’t been abandoned after all?

More info for NS4G owners over at AL.

Via:  Google Code