Sprint Airave Review

Well, for the most part it was better. Battery life on the Palm Centro about doubled, from 3 hours to 6 hours on a charge. Not as good as it should be, but definately an improvement. I have a lot of poll based services (check email every 15 mintues) so I disabled them and waited another day. Now the battery life shot up to around 9 hours, enough for a day no problem.

One thing I could not figure out was why the Centro kept looking for an alternate cell, even though the Airave is right here and usually at full signal. Often, right as the phone hops online to get something, like a website or an email, it will suddenly switch cells to the one with one bar, time out, and then die. I suspect it has something to do with the speed restrictions on the Airave – the Airave’s signal is only 2G 1xRTT whereas the one bar of Sprint signal I could have gotten is EVDO 3G. The phone is preferring the 3G signal over the 2G signal from the Airave, even though the Airave signal is stronger. This can probably be fixed in the phone’s firmware, and I’ve been told the Samsung Airave could also be upgraded to 3G speeds with a firmware upgrade. Overall, I’m pretty happy with it, well worth the $5/month for the service!

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2 Comments

  1. How far can you go outside your place and still get signal? Can you at least take a call while walking out to get the mail?

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