[Nexus 6  General] arunsharma7:
Received the KIT yesterday (Customary pic below) the setup and number transfer from ATT was breeze (Took about 1 Min) and no surprises or rocket science there, immediately after that there was an update waiting for me “LYZ28E” which is a T-Mobile image.

There was no visible change after the update and I started to receive call in an hour (Outgoing was instantaneous)

Find below my experience, issues and Observation of first 24 Hours of Fi use:

To start, I was up and running in an hour except for the receiving call when the phone is only on Wi-Fi, outgoing was working well, called Fi support but like most 1st level support they were not helpful asking me to follow some FAQ (Even after I told them that I did all those restarts, checking wifi call setting etc. etc. ) later on the support rep said that this feature (Wi-Fi call receiving ) is a hit or miss for now and so on…. defying the very fundamental on which Project Fi was launched on seamless transition between Wi-Fi and cell phone tower and the ability to work on any of the available avenue, after me raising my frustration level, rep agreed to get me connected with a specialist within an hour (Which never happened and also wasn’t needed at the end though), In the meantime I posted the issue on Fi official community and have to say that the community is best part of fi, I got immediate response with possible solutions and links to other posts having similar issues and it was just a matter of clearing caches (phone/fi/app) and I was back in business with all the mentioned functionalities of fi, I have to say the private Fi community is super responsive and Moderator/Owner reply to almost each and every question within 30 Min. My recommendation would be check over there for all your Fi related issues. In my opinion Google should rather have an updated FAQ for issues getting reported and the link to that community instead of 1st level support and if the problem is not solved just connect the customer to a specialist as most of Nexus 6 owner are capable and would have done quite a bit troubleshooting themselves before contacting support.

Next I saw a post about the Google Fi specific firmware 5.1.1 available (LVY48C, See the Screenshots ) available for download officially so went over to https://developers.google.com/android/nexus/images and downloaded and flashed that image to make sure I am update with software, although didn’t notice any change but it was satisfying to know I am running the latest version.

Inside my home (Greater Madison, WI) T-Mobile is almost non-existence and Sprint has some spots with LTE else 1x connection. I knew this before switching from ATT and I still feel T-Mobile and Sprint combined can’t beat Verizon or ATT in their coverage but when you throw in Wi-Fi into the mix the situation changes.. So mostly outgoing from home was over my secured Wi-Fi which I was anyway expecting so no surprise there.

Next thing I noticed is Fi’s liking or to say super high-affinity towards T-Mobile even though I know (I tested this by forcing it to switch using developers code found on XDA) that Sprint network coverage is better compared to T-Mobile in most part of Madison but Fi still latches onto T-Mobile most of the time till it dies or loose the signal completely which is disappointing and a great concern for me, as I am sitting in my office and see that suddenly it switched to T-Mobile from Sprint even though the T-Mobile has only 2 bars and Spring had 4-5 LTE. Speed test on Sprint showed 30/10 and now T-Mobile is at 4/2, not sure the reason behind it could be a sweeter deal from John L or could be CDMA cell connection consume more battery but the signal strength is defiantly not the only priority here what I found in this one day of my experience. VERY Disappointed on this functionality but I am optimistic as it goes out of beta will have much better algorithm for switching/priority.

Now for the transition/handover between Wi-Fi and Cell tower – I just tested once as I started my call at home which was over Wi-Fi and move out, even though right outside the house Sprint has better coverage but it seems like the Fi was giving preference to T-Mobile and trying to acquire the signal which is very week for 1-2 blocks from my house and wasn’t successful (I assume and know this as at the end it got T-Mobile tower with 1-2 bars whereas the sprint phone I carry as a backup had 4-5 bars right outside my house) and at a point where Wi-Fi became dead and Fi still wasn’t able to lock into any cell tower I had dropped call and poor experience , I will test again to see if the Fi next time transition to Sprint network rather than keep trying to catch T-Mobile based on self/Machine learning

Few people have reported issue with registering WhatsApp messenger with Fi number and Short code, but I didn’t face any issue and my number was registered with no delay or issue

I will keep updating my experience as and when I see things changes for good or bad but for now for a BETA product I am optimistic and going with it.

Note: I am using “phono” app to check which provider I am connected to, it has a cool feature of displaying the logo in your status bar so you don’t have to open the app to know which operator you are connected to. (See the Screenshots)

Don’t get me wrong on my little rant on T-Mobile I am actually a big fan of John L / T-Mobile and their Un-Carrie move but feel that they have a lot more to do on their coverage still and so does Sprint.

I have posted the same on Google plus coomunity

https://goo.gl/photos/iuHhNWGU9zsNbDsd9