At first, I thought the exclusion of LTE was a major downfall of the phone. After I read about HSPA+ (I'd never heard of it prior to the LG Nexus 4 announcement), I didn't really consider it to be that big of a deal. (Note that I'm a Sprint customer and have no clue what LTE speed is like).
Being that inexpensive, and off-contract, is a major bonus in my mind. I have until 2014 until my Sprint contract is up. If I was able to end my contract with Sprint right now, I would. My ETF is around $175 IIRC.
I don't like that there isn't a removable battery though. That's my largest issue with the phone.
LTE speed is great, but HSPA+ is pretty damn good too. The big kicker against HSPA+ is that it's not as pervasive as LTE (or perhaps T-Mobile just isn't as pervasive as Verizon), so while I've gotten really fast speed (+- 60Mbps) on HSPA+, it's usually much more pedestrian.
That said, I'm seldom downloading large files to my phone, and even 1 or 2 Mbps burst is usually fine for the way I use my phone.
Being that inexpensive, and off-contract, is a major bonus in my mind. I have until 2014 until my Sprint contract is up. If I was able to end my contract with Sprint right now, I would. My ETF is around $175 IIRC.
I don't like that there isn't a removable battery though. That's my largest issue with the phone.