T-Mobile on Monday said its new coverage map is based on ”customer usage data points” rather than theoretical coverage. I call bullshit.

I’ve had T-Mobile service for about two years now. I became a T-Mobile customer after a brief dalliance with Straight Talk Wireless, back in 2013. The company had just brought the iPhone 5 online — its first iPhone.

At the time, T-Mobile was still managing a transition to 4G LTE coverage from what it had before and things were rough. I went a long time before I saw any data speeds or coverage close to what I was accustomed to as an AT&T customer.

In all fairness to T-Mobile, they’ve improved leaps and bounds in the surrounding area since then. They’ve really improved data speeds and coverage, and plan to continue to do so. When I go up to Boston, about an hour and a half from where I live, I get really good service (at least when I’m outside; go into buildings and things still go pear-shaped quickly).

But in my local area, about 60 miles as the crow flies from Boston, there are still lots of areas where I’ll watch my coverage go down to one or two bars, or my iPhone 6 will tell me I’m now on GPRS or EDGE.

So it was with curiosity that I read T-Mobile’s press release on Monday. The company claims it is a ”more transparent and accurate map showing, for example, where to expect 4G LTE, 4G, 3G or other levels of coverage.”

Here’s what the map looks like where I live.

I live in almost the center of this map. which is almost edge-to-edge magenta: Indicative of 4G LTE coverage. When I zoomed in closer I found plenty of points on the map to show the actual customer data they’re talking about. But that’s not a realistic portrayal of T-Mobile’s coverage in my area at all.

The area at the top of the Mac – Sandwich, MA — has a downtown area that’s almost a total dead zone for T-Mobile. I can barely make a phone call in some area, let alone get anything close to 4G LTE data speeds. It’s not unusual to see ”No Carrier” appear on the iPhone 6.

Driving home, I’ll watch my phone jump from three or four bars of LTE — in close proximity to Route 6, what we locally call the ”Mid-Cape Highway,” one of the main thoroughfares tourists use to get to their vacation destinations in my area — down to GPRS in the space of less two miles. Most of the ride from there may indeed be LTE, but it’s only one bar, and pretty close to useless. And that’s another problem I have with this map: It doesn’t tell the whole story. Just because a phone registers LTE doesn’t mean that LTE actually does anything.

I understand full well that any customer-facing content a company like T-Mobile is going to put on its own web site is going to be heavily skewed to favor its own marketing message, but this announcement that the map is more accurate rubs me the wrong way.

As a tech reporter, I’ve gotten accustomed to getting regular PR and marketing updates from T-Mobile in my in-box. They’re continuing to sink a lot of money into getting the word out about their network, and they’re making a lot of noise. I truly believe that T-Mobile is causing some beneficial disruption in the American wireless market, too — some of their efforts have caused Verizon, AT&T and Sprint to change the way they do business. I hope they keep it up. Just based on my own experience, however I remain skeptical of T-Mobile’s claims about the overall speed and reliability of their network. They have a long way to go before they have anything as robust as their leading competitors’ networks, at least where I use them.

Despite all of my ranting about T-Mobile lying, I still remain a customer. I like their position as scrappy upstart; I admire their plain-talking (often profane) CEO John Legere, I like the perks, like using my iPhone as a hotspot, rollover data (or whatever they call it), no data charge against streaming music services like iTunes Music and more, and I still appreciate the considerably lower monthly bills my family pays for coverage through T-Mobile compared to the competition.

But I don’t like being lied to. And this new map lies. T-Mobile, quit lying. It insults us both.

Apple sells only one external monitor: The Thunderbolt Display. Is it worth $1,000?

Given that the Mac can work with just about any display using the right adapter, what exactly do you get with the Thunderbolt Display, anyway? That’s the question I’m trying to help a reader with this week.

M.J. writes:

What is your opinion of the Apple Thunderbolt Display? I want it as a second screen for my 2014 13″ MacBook Pro.

I’m a fan of the Thunderbolt Display. It has a beautiful color gamut, looks like a Mac peripheral and sports oodles of screen real estate with its 2560 x 1440 pixel resolution.

What’s more, it hooks up to the Mac using a single built-in Thunderbolt cable (hence the name), but provides three powered USB 2.0 ports, a FireWire 800 port, Gigabit Ethernet, and additional Thunderbolt port for you. There’s also built-charging cable for MacBooks old and new alike (it’s a MagSafe charger which works with older MacBook Air and MacBook Pro models, but Apple includes a MagSafe 2 adapter to connect to all the newer MacBooks too — except for the MacBook — the new MacBook, which uses USB-C.

If you’re looking for the best-integrated display that looks and acts like a proper Apple product, you won’t find anything that works, looks and sports the same features as the Thunderbolt Display.

Having said that, it’s pretty ferociously expensive compared to other 2560 x 1440 resolution 27-inch displays. You can find displays for less than $300 with the same resolution and the same screen size. And connecting them to a Mac with Thunderbolt is trivial: You usually just need a Thunderbolt to DVI or HDMI adapter to make it happen.

These dramatically less-expensive displays are not going to be calibrated the same way as the Thunderbolt Display and they’re not going to look the same as the Thunderbolt Display. But if you’re on a budget and you just want to see more stuff on the screen, such displays are the way to go.

There are a few things that make me pause when considering the Thunderbolt Display. Its design is one of them. It was created before Apple moved to the thinner design used by the iMac in 2012, which means it still has a thick black bezel, it’s heavy and awkward to move. Customers in the store I work in often confuse our demo model, connected to a new Mac Pro for an older iMac. Also, it has three USB 2.0 ports: Fine for mice, keyboards and slower storage peripherals. But much of the USB peripheral world, especially hard drive makers, has moved to faster USB 3.0. Those devices will work with the older USB 2.0 interface, they just won’t work at optimal speed.

I’d like to see Apple update it, but I don’t think that’ll happen right away. Apple’s newest hotness is the 5K iMac, which came out in late 2014. That device uses a screen with such high resolution that there isn’t a Mac that has an external interface that can handle it.

That won’t happen until Apple updates Macs with Intel Skylake processors, which aren’t expected to go into distribution until later this year. There’s no guarantee that Apple’s going to be early with Skylake-equipped Macs, either.

Bottom line: If you want a display for your Mac that looks and acts like a Mac display should, Apple’s Thunderbolt Display is a good choice. Especially if someone else like an employer is paying the bill. But if you want to get more for your money, shop around and accept that the display you’re looking at won’t have an Apple logo on it.