Ever wonder where in the United States your mobile device would work best? According to RootMetrics’ most recent network performance test, Knoxville, Tennessee, takes the number one spot for mobile performance out of the 125 major metropolitan areas tested. Trailing closely behind in second place is St. Louis, while Minneapolis takes third.
RootMetrics’ recent findings dive deeper into the mobile experience within metropolitan areas across the country. Each area was ranked from highest to lowest across six mobile performance categories — overall, reliability, speed, data, call performance, and text.
Knoxville ranked first in three out of the six performance categories — overall, network reliability, and call performance. It also earned top-5 rankings in five different categories (all except for text).
In RootMetrics’ previous round of testing, Knoxville didn’t finish in the top five in any category. The report attributes its success to fast median download speeds, along with its high scores in call and data reliability which come in at 99.7 and 96.9, respectively.
When it comes to the mobile performance in the 10 largest U.S. cities, Chicago ranked highest in network speed and data performance. New York City and the Tri-state area ranked low in all six categories and placed at number 54 overall.
But the report notes that NYC did improve in all performance categories during this test period — most notably, network speed. After finishing 74th in the second-half of 2017, NYC ranked 37th this time around. Regardless, the findings do highlight one interesting thing — a larger city does not necessarily have better mobile networks.
As for the lowest-performing metropolitan markets in the U.S., Springfield, Massachusetts, finished within the bottom five in four out of six categories — overall, reliability, call, and text. The low rankings were attributed to poor blocked call results from all four carriers, along with slow speeds from Sprint. But in the network speed and data performance, it managed to rank higher than the bottom five.
Of the 125 areas, Santa Rosa, California, placed last for not only overall performance but also network reliability and data performance. While its speeds and reliability results can be considered satisfactory for most users, it was poor in comparison to results in other cities.
All of the rankings are based on the average of the RootScores for the four major U.S. carriers — AT&T, T-Mobile, Sprint, and Verizon. Each ranking is weighted by the estimated national percentage of subscribers for each network — meaning a performance from a carrier that has more customers is weighted heavier than scores from carriers with fewer subscribers.
Are you tired of paying for streaming services you never watch just to get a phone plan feature you actually want? T-Mobile has good news for you! The carrier is rolling out new plans, called T-Mix, in early November to replace its old Experience lineup with a build-your-own perks system called Picks.
The benefits you choose vary from streaming and gaming to food delivery, AI, satellite service, and phone discounts. But if you are satisfied with your existing plan, you can keep it.
Merely days after the iPhone Duo hit the shelves, images of broken screens on the phone started popping up across social media. Until now, it’s been unclear what’s causing the line of defective pixels that appears vertically along the crease, as well as horizontally, on the phone’s inner display.
Apple has finally acknowledged the issue, which has shown up on iPhone Duo units owned by customers as well as demo units in stores. In a statement shared with Bloomberg, Apple says that not all iPhone Duo units are affected and that those that are tend to show the display fault early on. The company added that users who experience problems with their iPhone Duo display should contact AppleCare for a replacement.
Not long ago, Apple treated independent repair like an act of outright hostility. The Cupertino giant locked down parts with serial-number pairing, while repair tools remained firmly out of reach of anyone outside its authorized repair network. More importantly, the company waged a legal and lobbying battle against right-to-repair legislation.
I've covered enough of these fights over the years to know what a shift looks like. That's why what happened in October 2026 genuinely caught me off guard. The day the iPhone Duo went on sale, what may be the most mechanically complex iPhone to date, Apple pulled off a surprising about-face. It published teardown-style repair manuals for a handful of major components.