[Moto Maxx General] ChazzMatt:
Well, ZTE made an effort with their Axon 7 phone to include CDMA, because they were making a big push into U.S. market. Verizon VoLTE even works with Axon 7. But CMDA is the dinosaur that will go extinct. For companies wishing to make a quick splash on world markets, they can safely ignore CDMA.

You may not know this, but LTE is actually GSM/HSPA based technology. Which of course is why all LTE phones now have SIM cards. ;)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LTE_(telecommunication)

So, GSM won. CDMA lost. Even Verizon and Sprint has switched to it, by going to LTE and to VoLTE. The problem is they have to keep their "legacy" CDMA towers running -- for now -- for fallback protection. But at some point in time, CDMA will disappear entirely.

Verizon has said they will shut down their 2G CDMA network by end of 2019 and their 3G CDMA network by end of 2021

. This has been long planned by Verizon:

Last year, Verizon announced their 2G CDMA will actually shut down by end of 2019. They have not yet given a firm date for the 3G CMDA shutdown, except for that prediction back in 2012. But they will shut it down. Here's why:

That was a statistic from a year ago. Surely that percentage is even higher now.

In November 2015,

Verizon even made a prediction which has not yet come true:

Well, they haven't done that yet. :rolleyes: But they are aggressively looking to do it! So, with Verizon LTE-only phones, you won't even get CDMA from Verizon! Once they introduce LTE-only phones, then it's just a matter of attrition. Getting customers to upgrade to the newer phones in such number that they can then petition the FCC to shut down even 3G CDMA.

In 4 years, everyone will own different phones than they do now.

2G CDMA is being shut down end of 2019, and 3G CDMA shutdown goal is end of 2021. That 3G CDMA date is not set in stone, but Verizon wants to shut it down. AT&T has already shut down their 2G GSM network end of last year.

In India, there's already an LTE-only carrier called Jio. That's the future -- LTE only.

And for me, if I wish to import phones from other countries like the Moto XT1225 with the easily unlocked bootloader or even the Exynos variant Galaxy S8 with the easily unlocked bootloader, having a GSM/HSPA/LTE carrier like AT&T is fantastic. I'm NOT buying the S8, but I seriously considered it for a few weeks. If I did, it would NOT be the U.S. model which is bootloader locked, but the international Exynos variant. But for Verizon users, they have no choice. The Exynos variant doesn't have CDMA.

Yeah, that was disappointing, that Motorola went with the Moto Z Force instead of Droid Turbo 3/Moto X Force 2. They made the Moto Z Force be Verizon-only (except for reportedly a Chinese model which doesn't have U.S. LTE bands) and then the regular Moto Z was very blah (at least for me) with missing headset jack.

Well, "Nokia" has been reconstituted by former managers of the old Nokia mobile division who have now licensed the name under a new company "HMD" they created. They are getting FoxConn to manufacture their designs --same way Apple gets FoxConn to manufacture their designs for iPhones. They announced the first phones they will release this year, the Nokia 3, 5, 6. They started with "affordable" phones for first batch of releases early this year, and insiders say by end of the year they will release two top-tier phones, reportedly the Nokia 8 and Nokia 9. Yes, those have not been officially announced, but it seems logical with their strategy. Start with the small stuff, build to the big. They are also working with Google to get fast updates over stock Android.

The

bottom tier and mid tier phones will be released to Western markets by end of 2nd quarter

: 720p/1080p and Snapdragon 4XX/MediTek type stuff. Of the three (Nokia 3, Nokia 5, Nokia 6), the

Nokia 6 mid-tier so far is the best -- with stereo speakers and Dolby, 64GB internal memory with 4GB RAM, microSD card, and other stuff.

But it's only running Snapdragon 430. You would think they would at least go Snapdragon 6XX? Otherwise the other hardware specs are impressive for that category. Anyway,

$300, if ordered from UK.

. May also come to U.S. for around $250? But I'm not interested. However, might be something I would buy for my mother!

The top tier models (Nokia 8 and Nokia 9) will be the requisite 1440p and Snapdragon 8XX, of course. But then what other specs besides that? Well, they SAY they want to compete with Apple iPhone and Samsung, and by that time not only has the S8/S8+ been released, but the Note 8 will be coming.

The Nokia 8 has enough substantiated "rumors" -- if that's possible? -- it has a listing in GSMArena:

NOKIA 8 RUMORED SPECS

http://www.gsmarena.com/compare.php3?idPhone1=8522

5.7" 1440p LCD, STEREO SPEAKERS, etc.

Where the Nokia 9 differs is 1440p AMOLED. Here's similar listing for the Nokia 9 on competing site PhoneArena:

NOKIA 9 RUMORED SPECS

http://www.phonearena.com/phones/compare/Nokia-9/phones/10486?ft=2

Part of this is actually "knowable". What do other major manufacturer flagship phones (Samsung, LG, Motorola, Sony, HTC, Huawei) have, what's out there on the market right now, who are you trying to compete with?

So, yeah, you're going to have 1440p, Snapdragon 835 (unless Qualcomm releases a newer version by July). You're going to have USB 3.1, Type-C 1.0 reversible connector.

But are you going to be SMART and also put in a headset jack -- or stupid and leave it out? Motorola left it out last year, realized their mistake and are putting it back in. LG and Samsung left it in.

Are you going with the edge-to-edge displays? I think you have to since the LG G6, Samsung S8 and even the new iPhone 8 will have that. If you have any bezels at top or bottom, them put them to use with front-facing stereo speakers!

Are you going with Qi wireless? Or you can't because you have metal unibody? The Nokia phones seem to use metal, unless they change that for their top tier phone?

Point is, it's the mixture of the features and price point that differentiate phones. There's too many "me too" phones. I put ALL the 5.5" 1080p phones into that category including the OnePlus 3 and 3T.

"ME TOO" PHONES

Have you ever heard of the

Sharp Z2 Android phone

? How about the Asus Zenfone 3? or BLU Vivo 6? or LeEco Le S3? Or some of the Xiaomi models? There's a dozen more I could list. All you need to know is they are 2016, 5.5", 1080p phones. :rolleyes:

They all have about the same specs. None have Qi wireless, none have stereo speakers, etc. Is this something you could brag about to your friends? Is this something you would be proud to own? I rag on my friends' iPhones that only have 1080p resolution. I've had 1440p AMOLED since 2014. Why would I downgrade to 1080p? And YES, I can see the difference.

When I went from 720p Galaxy Nexus to 1080p LG Nexus 5, ignorant people were saying "you can't see a difference between 720p and 1080p." Uh, yes you can. And those SAME ignorant people are now saying "You can't see a difference between 1080p and 1440p." Now if someone is telling me they want to buy 1080p because it's a BUDGET PHONE, and they don't care there's a difference in fine details on the display, OK. But don't tell me you can't see a difference. I work in visual media professionally and I easily see a difference, even on my 5.2" AMOLED display.

Back to feature mix and price points...

ZTE Axon 7 excelled by putting in so many available features at such a low price point.

First they made the 64GB/4GB RAM model (initially $400,

now $357

) available in the U.S. and later

the 128GB/6GB RAM ($500) model available in the U.S.

That latter model was not an "updated" model. They were both released in China in May 2016, but ZTE only exported the 64GB model to the U.S. at first.

Where LG messed up this year with the LG G6 was trying to regionalize certain features. Why wouldn't U.S. customers also want better audio and more storage (64GB)? They said it was for "pricing". It's already costing over $600. Like with the 2014 Quark, I want the best or nothing. Put ALL the features in. If you forced me to choose only between an LG G6 or Galaxy S8, I would choose the S8 (Exynos variant) because it has EVERYTHING.

Where the new Nokia will run into problems is if there's enough DEMAND for two top tier 1440p phones at the same time everybody else is releasing their 2ND HALF 2017 1440p AMOLED phones! Yes, Nokia could conceivably cut that back to just one phone.

XDA posted a tear down video where they said YES it seems possible to put a wireless coil on international version. However, it seems a little complicated. It seemed more than just putting the coil on the back cover, which I've done before with LG G3 phones. My attempts with LG G3 phones were mixed for friends' phones. After my trial and errors, I ended up buying back battery covers from where someone else had already done it professionally.

Right now, the Moto Z2 Force with the Qi wireless battery pack seems to be my best bet, IF I get a new phone this year.