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Comment by mullingitover | Hacker News Reader

It's cheaper to buy the 5S off contract at $650 and take it to Straight Talk ($45 a month AYCE data/minutes) than to buy the 5C and pay $100 a month at AT&T for two years.

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with no LTE and no MMS Text Messaging.

LTE is overrated and not worth it since I spent about 98% of my life on wifi, and I haven't missed MMS because of iMessages.

> LTE is overrated and not worth it since I spent about 98% of my life on wifi

Not worth it for you

Fair enough, I imagine there are some edge cases where paying half as much for cell service doesn't justify the marginally lower internet speeds during the occasions when wifi isn't around. It's definitely working out fantastically in my case.

WiFi works great for me at home and work since I control those networks. But finding & connecting to public hotspots is often a pain and my effort's frequently rewarded with a slow, unstable connection (even for paid ones). In my area, LTE isn't marginally faster, it's way faster than 3G. For me, it's absolutely worth the extra money.

I really don't think having fast, hassle-free internet access on the go is an edge case. Isn't that one of the main reasons people buy smartphones?

For the most part, when I'm out, I'm getting around 6Mbps. The difference between 6Mbps and my friend's (on LTE) 14Mbps isn't exactly staggering when you're reading HN or downloading a photo here and there, and even streaming audio or watching youtube. Mobile sites are already very stripped-down in terms of data usage. If I were, on a daily basis, uploading 100MB videos or whatnot it might make a difference, but for my purposes HSPA+ is plenty.

LTE is overrated

ha - I had 6mb dl on 4g w/ AT&T iPhone 4S and moving to the iPhone 5 w/ LTE made it 24mb dl. Overrated? Maybe for you but, whenever a company triples my service and doesn't charge me more money, I'm happy to take that deal.

Sure, the speed is faster, but that just means you'll be hitting your cap all the quicker. I'm much happier not having to worry about running out of internets in the middle of my billing cycle.

Or, it might depend on how you use it. I love LTE, and I instantly miss it when I travel to somewhere without it.

Travelling through the SE US recently, moving in and out of LTE, 3G, EDGE and no network areas with Maps as my guide, I really missed both LTE and 3G when I was stuck in EDGE territory. Where I live now, my apartment is not a fun place to spend time, I'm not always able to be on a wi-fi network, so having fast data service when I'm out and about is also fantastic.

Correction: with no MMS text messaging (I think? I've never had anyone try to send me an MMS in the year I've had it). LTE is a go, for the same $45 a month[1].

[1] http://reviews.cnet.com/8301-19736_7-57602923-251/straight-t...

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