The Samsung Galaxy S II Skyrocket and the new HTC Vivid are AT&T’s first 4G LTE smartphones, not to be confused with HSPA+ “4G” devices they’ve launched in the past. AT&T’s 4G LTE just went live back in September and so far they only have 5 markets currently with 4G LTE although 4 more are coming this weekend. We decided to give their relatively small 4G LTE footprint a run for its money and see how she performed. Details and speedtest results are available after the break.

Sadly we had to take a short road trip to even get access to a 4G LTE network as it’s currently only available in San Antonio, Dallas-Fort Worth, Houston, Atlanta and Chicago today and they’ll be adding Boston, Washington D.C., and a few others come tomorrow and Monday. Below are the results we found down here in Texas, both smartphones were next to each other and were ran one after another for a fair fight. This isn’t really Skyrocket vs Vivid — but more just an overall test of AT&T’s 4G LTE on two completely different devices.

The tests were performed later in the evening so might not have been fully loaded, if that matters to anyone. Our recent DROID Bionic review unit 4G LTE tested around 10-12 Mbps down in our tests, and T-Mobiles “4G” Amaze 4G received around 9-10 Mbps down on average for a small comparison. From initial tests AT&T 4G LTE was blistering fast, although not many users currently take advantage of it so that might also be taken into consideration. The HTC Vivid averaged well over 17 Mbps down and peaked at over 20 — impressive to say the least.

One thing to note on both the image above and below is the upload speeds we achieved with AT&T LTE. They are extremely fast and the Vivid (above) averaged around 9.4 Mbps Up, something Verizon nor T-Mobile even come close to. Our Bionic was getting around 2-3 Mbps upload speeds if it was lucky. Again, AT&T’s network is new and not under duress but these are some mighty fine results if I don’t say so myself. Next, we have the Samsung Galaxy S II Skyrocket. The tests were performed in the exact same location for as close to accurate results as possible and it held its own quite well too. The Skyrocket averaged around 16 Mbps download speeds while peaking around 19, and it also had exceptional upload speeds approaching 8.5-9 Mbps.

Now, obviously speedtest results don’t necessarily show us real world results for daily tasks such as web browsing and downloading games or applications but we experienced great speeds there too. Streaming Netflix movies or even 1080p video from YouTube was basically instant, and loading up web pages we saw a noticeable improvement over standard AT&T HSPA+ devices with load times. As usual, these results will vary from location, time, and user but so far we are pretty impressed with the small, but stable AT&T 4G LTE network.

4G LTE data plans you ask? They’re exactly the same as AT&T’s current 3G and “4G” HSPA+ plans. That means that you’re still limited to a maximum of 200MB, 2GB or 4GB of download and upload before getting charges for overages, unless you’re lucky enough to be grandfathered in on an unlimited plan or are paying that premium. Obviously being on the new 4G LTE these devices require a new LTE sim card, but did in fact work with older regular SIM cards under AT&T’s normal 3G and HSPA+ operating frequencies. These phones will come with new LTE sim cards so this shouldn’t be an issue but was worth mentioning.

We have handled and unboxed both the Samsung Skyrocket and the HTC Vivid this week (links at the top) and you can expect the usual full, in-depth review of both coming soon and maybe even this weekend if you’re lucky. Be sure and check back soon as the reviews will be live shortly.

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15 COMMENTS

  1. Looks like the Vivid is the one for me.  I’ve been sitting on an upgrade for a couple of months waiting for this phone to come out.  Now, if Otterbox would just get a case for it, I would be most happy.

  3. wow, you got 20Mb/s on an almost entirely unused network? thats astounding. It’s not like phones on verizon in the early days were pulling down over 30mb/s before people started using the network regularly…. Oh wait, yes they were.

  4. I’m happy with my 9 to 12 mbs average unlimited data on sprint, the uploads on the slow side but it’s fast enough for anything I’d upload *1.5 mbs*… fastest d.l. I get is 14.5 mbs…unlimited is what matters even if it would be capped at 6 mbs it’d still be worth it because when watching netflix you won’t, in my case don’t need to worry of overage fees.or any data usage at all, plus you can hotspot 8 devices without being charged any fees with sprints permission, just ber nice & one day a nice customer rep will hook it up for you 😉 … thats how I got mines

  5. FYI,

    I asked my cousin who is software engineer for AT&T, he said NO ONE YET USING THEIR LTE TOWER… So this speedtest is SLOW for a tower with NO ONE is there

    UNLIKE TMOBILE THAT ALL millions 3G/4G users are using all their HSPA+ tower 24 hours/day…
    IF NO ONE IS IN THEIR TOWER, TMOBILE 42MBPS HSPA+ EASILY CAN HIT 22-35mbps…

    Verizon LTE has thousands not yet millions user of their LTE…

    AT&T ALWAYS PATHETIC…

  7. F u c k u, AT&T…

    In my tmobile bill, I’m just paying ONLY $122-$125/month (includes taxes, fees & discounts) with 4 lines of 1000 minutes (unlimited nights,weekends & mobile to mobile) , 2 lines with 5gb Internet-super fast data with htc amaze and SAMSUNG galaxy s2 & unlimited international messaging (txt, pictures & videos).

    I asked AT&T online and in their stores, they cannot give unlimited 5gb Internet ONLY they have that will give me is 2gb for $25 then they don’t have unlimited worldwide (international) messaging, just per message sent charging. They don’t have wifi calling like tmobile that wherever I am and there is wifi, I can call anybody without using my minutes.

    We add up everything with employee discounts, and we totaled $175-$185/month with just SLOW INTERNET (cap to 2gb) then horrible customer service…

    So whoever will say that AT&T-tmobile merger is good are moron, stupid and retarded…

      • Dont make me laugh…
        In downtown Houston, weve n 22-28mbPS speed on amaze and galaxy s2 in super crowded tower vs no other user tower of at&t and still slow…
        What a pathetic carrier AT&T is…

  11. Stop trolling, and discuss the phones not the various carriers of your flavor.  Its ridiculous that you cant read comment boards and get anything useful nowadays, other than how to NOT spell words(sir1jaguar) and others.  

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