Why I still have unlimited data

         From my first smartphone back on Virgin Mobile USA with the old $25 plan that included 2.5 GB of data and 300 minutes. But here's the catch about that plan. I remembered the TOS saying speeds maybe slowed down. Given that I was 12 with a smartphone, my data usage was never under the 2.5 GB of included data, I believe my lowest point was 3 GB and this usage data actually came from the Virgin Mobile website, not what was reported from my device. Also, I remember having a Virgin Mobile Mifi personal hotspot and with that we hit 17GB. But who is we? Well for a long period of my life our ISP was actually Sprint via Virgin Mobile and we as in my family used this hotspot thinking it was a 4G hotspot. Later after getting my first smartphone and reading up on some things, I found out this was a 3G hotspot and this later began how I started getting into mobile devices besides laptops. But that's a story for another day. 

  

       Now here I am 17 years old, not with the same plan or device but with the same device manufacture. But why do I still have unlimited data? Well, I can never predict my data usage every month. Why not? Every month is never consistent, thus some months being higher than others and some months being lower. Now before you start bashing me about me hogging data, the most amount of data I've ever used was 45 GB and I was staying somewhere else other than home and I had to check into school online. However, since the time of having Virgin Mobile I've learned that having mobile data is a luxury that isn't available everywhere. So whenever I do encounter an area where mobile data is slow or unstable, I think back to my times of having Virgin Mobile and not being able to use it and how network congestion works. With that being said, I don't get angry whenever mobile data is unavailable nor do I feel entitled to use hundreds of gigabytes of data and not feel any consequences arise. 

           

         But after anyone says "bandwidth costs money", I'll say this, "And so does the service I pay for". I acknowledge that EULAs and TOS exist, but I don't break them with excessive P2P connections or use a VPN to avoid consequences. Also, with later network improvements such as LTE-A and LTE carrier aggregation, I hope to see AT&T do better with their diverse spectrum portfolio due to them not having a lot of contiguous spectrum.   

        

Nexus 4: 3 years later (2015)

         Alright, I'll be blunt about this. I love this phone. Even with its 720p display and S4 Pro processor, I found day to day performance to be spot on. Tasks such as watching video streaming, gaming, music streaming, and phone calls were excellent. However, the difference with the Nexus 4 is the Nexus 4 is powered by the Adreno 320 GPU vs the Adreno 220 GPU found in the HTC One X and LTE Samsung Galaxy S3. But what does that mean? Well, over the years Android has grown up to use hardware acceleration and using the GPU for more tasks. So having a powerful mobile GPU is starting to pay off with this phone. Don't believe me? Download your choice of custom ROM on either of the devices I've mentioned and compare them to a Nexus 4 (Or device with S4 Pro chipset) and set the Nexus 4 to use only two of its cores. Notice the difference yet? See, the animations in 5.x.x Lollipop feel a bit heavier than 4.4. Thus, a faster GPU being needed to render these animations. But enough about the GPU. Let's get on to why I still use this phone.

            With this being 2015, cellular networks have changed quite a bit. The Nexus 4 has support for GSM/WCDMA and LTE unofficially. While this maybe appealing, let's actually get into why this phone may not work for you. I've been using this phone in the United States on T-Mobile, while I found no connectivity problems, your usage may actually vary. For LTE the Nexus 4 only offers unofficial connectivity on AWS (Band 4), while this maybe a limitation for AT&T customers outside of AWS who want a slice of LTE pie, it will be more than enough for a T-Mobile user who lives in a AWS LTE covered area. But why didn't I mention UMTS/HSPA? For the most part, UMTS/HSPA seems to be congested in most of the areas I've tested and it isn't better on PCS either. But don't let my mileage stop you! Since I'm using T-Mobile in Columbus, Ohio the spectrum offerings are PCS EDGE 5 Mhz, PCS HSPA 10 Mhz (DC-HSPA), AWS HSPA 5 Mhz (21.1 Megabit downlink), and AWS 15 Mhz of LTE. While 15 Mhz is being used for HSPA, it is still less spectrum efficient than LTE. Enough of this LTE talk. For anyone who wants to use this device on AT&T, you will most likely be restricted to HSPA+, which is enough for most users. Wi-Fi however is a different situation. The Nexus 4 supports A/B/G/N. However, the Nexus 4 only has support for 20 Mhz wide channels. But what does that mean? Simply put the Nexus 4's maximum link speed is limited to 72 Mbps. Let me remind you how different this is to other devices. The HTC One X can have a maximum link speed of 150 Mbps. But to sum of connectivity, I'd personally recommend using T-Mobile if you need LTE. However, this isn't to discount AT&T and their unparalleled coverage to T-Mobile. Also, The Nexus 4 will not be able to have LTE in some areas where T-Mobile is going from 2G-LTE. Quite a few sources say this upgrade entirely skips HSPA+ and uses Band 2 for LTE, which the Nexus 4 does not have.
               For ROM and kernel I've decided to use Franco Kernel and Chroma ROM. With this being a Nexus device, the developer support for it is almost unimaginable. So I needed something to put on it and those were the two I've seen first. Performance is no lose for the Nexus 4. No sort of slow downs ever on this device. Also, given that in Android 5.1 ART has also seen a significant improvement in application launch speeds and performance means this device won't skip a beat. But, this isn't to discredit any other devices, it is with its flaws. For example, navigating in applications mean in settings can be a little irritating dealing with some unsmooth scrolling and long loading times. However, if you previously used a device with a faster chipset, the performance gap will be noticeable. Another thing to consider is the phones LPDRR2 RAM, which is slower than newer devices and consumes more power. But that didn't stop my Nexus 4 from leaping through task switching. So how can it do it? One of the biggest key factors why the Nexus 4 can still be usable in 2015 is the Quad Core processor and 2 GB of RAM. Even if the device isn't using that RAM, it still makes task switching and multitasking possible. Processor wise the Nexus 4's 4 Krait 200 cores seem a bit puny to today's standards in benchmarks. But this is why benchmarks only show how future proof a device is to an extent. See, my philosophy on benchmarks is that they show how long the device can be operable with the latest OS until the performance is unbearable. With that being said, the Nexus 4 is not the strongest in benchmarks, which is fine.
                 As a general synopsis, I love this phone. However, some things I did not mention were the camera and battery life. Both are equally poor. Also, the testing on this device was done with a Nexus 4 Rev 11 model in black. So will I recommend you pick this device up? Maybe, but as a device to give to your kids or to someone who is entering the world of smart phones? Yes. The Nexus 4 3 years later is still an excellent performer and I see that continuing through 2016.