Web browsing with GPRS

[GT14]

Hi all.
Now that T-mobile have reduced the price in the UK to a £30 package I'm very close to buying.
I'm currently using a Vario 2 and the primary purpose is to use the internet on the phone.
Unfortunately because there is no 3G coverage I'm stuck with GPRS however I quickly found that ditching Internet explorer in favour of Opera Mini sped things up massively, through the way opera processes a smaller version of the page you're looking at.
Now my concerns is how the G1 displays web pages and it's use on GPRS. Does it download the full page like Internet explorer in which case an ebay page may be over 300k for example or does it work like opera mini where the same page may only be around 30k? (approx examples)
A second question although off topic, I read a while back that t-mobile and 3 were sharing 3G coverage in which case why is it that I'm still stuck with GPRS when my wife on 3 gets 3G in the same location?
Any help is greatly appreciated.
Regards,
Paul.

[f4phantomii]

Do you not get EDGE (2G)?

That's typically what I get in my area as we don't yet have T-Mobile 3G coverage. A co-worker brought over his iPhone 3G and we did a side-by-side comparison of page loading directly from eBay.

My co-worker noted that the G1 browser was as fast or faster loading the page over EDGE than his iPhone was on 3G.

Now having said that, if you are really stuck with GPRS, you are going to be highly disappointed. I've had my G1 drop back to GPRS coverage a few times and it was very unpleasant, if not almost unusable. The page loads in the browser were excruciatingly slow....usually 2-3 minutes for even simple mobile browser-optimized pages.

In summary, you should find that 3G is almost as good as wifi. EDGE is not too bad, and GPRS is terrible.

[GT14]

Hi thanks for your reply. I thought 2G was GPRS, my mistake. I've checked the T-mobile coverage checker and it only shows 2G and 3G, it says 2G coverage is excellent so that must be what I'm using. The little sign that shows on my vario is a 'G' it shows '3' when in 3G areas. However if I click on that it only says GPRS so I'm confused now.


Right I've done a little research before posting my above reply and it seems to me that EDGE is also known as 2.5G and looks like I can not get this so am stuck with gprs.

Like I say though on my Vario with opera mini it's fast enough for my purposes so I guess the question is is the g1 browser as fast as opera mini, does it work in the same way?

Open to more opinions and experiences.

Paul