posted by David Adams on Tue 12th Jul 2011 17:42 UTC
A recent Retrevo Gadgetology survey suggests that users are unclear on what exactly 4G means, don't know whether their current mobile service is 4G or not, and even if they do know, are unsure of the benefit. It also seems that mobile device owners' loyalty to their chosen platform is more important to them than higher network speeds.Here are some highlights of the (apparently US-based) survey results:
- 34% of iPhone owners mistakenly think they already have 4G.
- 22% of people don't think 4G performance is worth the cost.
- 30% of people think the 4G data plan costs too much.
- 40% of people say they'll buy the next iPhone, even if it doesn't have 4G
You can count me with the 40% of surveyed iPhone users who would probably buy the next iPhone whether it supported 4G or not. I have both an iPhone and an Android, but inertia and a general sense of satisfaction keep me on the iPhone platform. I would not switch to Android full-time just because I could get a 4G phone. I wouldn't mind 4G, but I would probably bristle at having to pay any additional monthly fee for the data service. For my day to day use, I find that 3G speeds are perfectly adequate, and ultimately the latency of mobile broadband networks and the processing power of mobile devices are much more important limiters on overall mobile user experience than raw bandwidth is. Do you agree?
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