Calling all Sprint 4G users (esp. Chicagoans)

[dparm]

Folks,

My VZW contract is up and I am very tempted to move to an Epic 4G Touch (Galaxy S2) on Sprint. I can't find much information on how their 4G coverage is in general except for the occasional 'explosion' where people flip out over a service outage.

All the tests I've seen show about 3-6Mbps on the downlink, perhaps faster at times. Haven't seen anything about latencies versus 3G (EVDO Rev.A, HSPA+, etc). I know that Verizon's LTE is stupid-fast (15Mbps+ with latencies
Although I live in downtown Chicago, my job is 100% travel within the US so I'd like something that can get me good speeds pretty much everywhere. Wimax is easier on battery than LTE hence my interest in that, even if the downlink/uplink is lower. I know Sprint is deploying LTE but those phones are at least 6 months away and the coverage is not widespread...and it 's reasonable to assume the battery life will be just as sucky.

If anyone in downtown and suburban Chicago can comment on 4G coverage and speeds, that's great too. Call quality and battery life and my two primary concerns, with data speeds coming in a close third.

 

[dparm]

So I walked about a mile to the nearest Sprint store to check things out. I actually installed the Ookla Speed Test app onto the Epic 4G Touch. Although it was only showing speeds of about 3Mbps and latency around 80ms, the web browsing was very quick on "non-mobile" sites. I'd say the perceived speed was easily double or three times what the bandwidth test showed. Having browsed on a Verizon LTE device that shows 15Mbps+ on the same speed test app (same Android web browser), I'd say the speed difference was negligible.

That's still not 100% indicative of the phone's actual performance, but for being indoors within a reasonable distance of my apartment, it was good.

If anyone else can comment on the national 4G coverage, would appreciate it.