Database Info

Antennagate on the Captivate

When i had my blackberry, i had full bars at my place, with this phone, i only get 2-3 bars. I also managed to reproduce signal strength issue while holding the bottom back of the phone with the CASE ON. The bar goes down 2-3 bars. Although calls didn't drop, data slowed down. I hope it's just poor calculation on the signal and a fix is on the way. Were you guys able to reproduce this issue or at least have less bars than your previous phone?
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I897 using XDA App

My Captivate holds calls through areas that my BB Bold 9700 always dropped. Bars are not relevant, it's holding up the call that counts.

I did notice that I get fewer bars shown on this phone than my old iphone. My old iphone would show 1-2 bars in my living room. This phone shows no bars and if I leave the living room it goes to no signal icon. But I did a speedtest with no bars being shown and I got 1.2Mbps down speed and 148kbps up speed, so thats pretty decent. But you're right, I dont think the antenna in this phone is as good as in some other phones. Even sitting at my desk at work I barely get a signal, showing only one bar, where my old phone got 5.

derek4484 said:
I did notice that I get fewer bars shown on this phone than my old iphone. My old iphone would show 1-2 bars in my living room. This phone shows no bars and if I leave the living room it goes to no signal icon. But I did a speedtest with no bars being shown and I got 1.2Mbps down speed and 148kbps up speed, so thats pretty decent. But you're right, I dont think the antenna in this phone is as good as in some other phones. Even sitting at my desk at work I barely get a signal, showing only one bar, where my old phone got 5.
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Just wandering around XDA today -- thought I'd offer my 0.02c.
Remember if you compare against an iPhone that the recent adjustment to the display of the signal bars will show less bars than before. Also, AFAIK every mfr displays them differently anyway...

aikeru said:
Just wandering around XDA today -- thought I'd offer my 0.02c.
Remember if you compare against an iPhone that the recent adjustment to the display of the signal bars will show less bars than before. Also, AFAIK every mfr displays them differently anyway...
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Click to collapse
Yes, especially since Apple said they "were completely wrong in calculating signal strength and the number bars to display". Seems they can make the bars whatever they feel like. I would go by the dBm before any bars.

cellgeek said:
My Captivate holds calls through areas that my BB Bold 9700 always dropped. Bars are not relevant, it's holding up the call that counts.
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This^ Unless you're dropping calls, I wouldn't worry about it.

derek4484 said:
I did notice that I get fewer bars shown on this phone than my old iphone. My old iphone would show 1-2 bars in my living room. This phone shows no bars and if I leave the living room it goes to no signal icon. But I did a speedtest with no bars being shown and I got 1.2Mbps down speed and 148kbps up speed, so thats pretty decent. But you're right, I dont think the antenna in this phone is as good as in some other phones. Even sitting at my desk at work I barely get a signal, showing only one bar, where my old phone got 5.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The iphone had vastly inflated bars to hide its poor reception. Thats what made the iphones antenna problems appear to be even worse.

k2snowboards88 said:
The iphone had vastly inflated bars to hide its poor reception. Thats what made the iphones antenna problems appear to be even worse.
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QFT. Apple faked bars... Enough so to where it showed as many as 2 bars more than what it should have.
Everyone does this to some extent, and being the open platform that Android is, I'd suspect they're probably going to be the most accurate as far as bar representation.
I wish carriers would just start putting the signal level there instead.

The signal strength reporting on this phone isn't very granular. It's basically the same as the bar indicator. 5 bars is -51 dBm, 4 is -81 dBm and 3 is -97 dBm. My tests with all signal strengths so far in terms of download speeds in 3 locations in Manhattan are identical. I'm getting ~3mps down and ~300 kbps up (AT&T please fix this!).
Is anyone reporting dropped calls or data slowdowns due to signal loss?

This phone updates the single faster then anyphone I have ever owned. I *think* most phones a buffered a little but this phone, My girlfriend was driving the other day and I was watching the bars change constantly.

Since I got this phone on Saturday, I have rarely had full bars even when driving through town. But I haven't had any problems with performance so far. Still, it bothers me because I want to be sure that I don't have a lemon as other people I know have been getting full bars.

I can hold my samsung captivate between my butt cheeks and i get full bars, i just had to say it, cause now that the icrap4 has the anntennaassgape, everyone thinks there device will have it to, its not the smartphone scene's fault that apple doesn't know how to design high end smartphones...

adamandro12 said:
Since I got this phone on Saturday, I have rarely had full bars even when driving through town. But I haven't had any problems with performance so far. Still, it bothers me because I want to be sure that I don't have a lemon as other people I know have been getting full bars.
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That just means this is the only phone you've owned that displays bars correctly...
I went from 5 bars (3GS) down to 2 bars (on the Android).
Simple fact is that Android's representation of bars is closer to what it should be.

rafyvitto said:
I can hold my samsung captivate between my butt cheeks and i get full bars, i just had to say it, cause now that the icrap4 has the anntennaassgape, everyone thinks there device will have it to, its not the smartphone scene's fault that apple doesn't know how to design high end smartphones...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hahahaha. I couldn't agree with you more.

I'm referring to other captivate owners who have told me they get full bars.
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I897 using XDA App

adamandro12 said:
I'm referring to other captivate owners who have told me they get full bars.
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I897 using XDA App
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Only way I'd trust something like that, testing if you've got reception issues, is having them side by side.

Oh good, I thought I was the only one with this problem just got the mine and I notice the signal would change constantly thinking of returning it .

are cases necessary ?

I was messing around with my captivate and i was noticing it wasnt getting same amount of service that my old iphone 3g did. When i was in an area where service was quite sketchy , i would put it down and get two or three bars. When I picked it up in my hands it would drop for one bar or no service.
So the question is do we have to buy cases for these phones since service drops so much by having direct contact with the phone ?

no, cases are not necessary for reception.
If you are completely losing signal when its in your hands, you need to go to att and get a new sim card. If that doesnt work, have them replace your phone.
Note: if you are holding the phone by the bottom and losing bars but your signal is not dropping, this is perfectly normal. All phones do this to an extent since the antenna is located at the bottom. If you completely lose signal or drop calls because of it, you have a serious problem.

what i have noticed thats not just 3g reception its wifi too which is weird, i pick it up in my hand i lose a bar of wifi when i am in the same room as the cablemodem/router that doesnt seem right.
Usually when i pick up the phone it drops the three bars i hold it in my left hand usually. Another issue is i bought this phone thru amazon since it was 30 bucks cheaper for upgrade price, will att still allow for trade in or do i have to send back to amazon ?

I too have noticed this with my phone. Never really noticed until this iPhone 4 shiz came out. Guessing its par for the course.

areas where i used to get full bars i am not getting full anymore when i pick up the phone, it also happens with wifi which is really problematic.
Sitting in same room as router and cable modem and dropping below full wifi connection, and if i walk out of the room drops to one bar of wifi guess i will have to call att tomorrow and return my phone
Kind of off topic how thorougly do they check thier phones am i going to have to find an rom that has all the att bloatware stuff on it ?

This is a sad day really liked this phone , but appears i am going to have to return it , since this issue is a known issue so getting a new phone wont make these problems go away.
I was reading on another forum site that a lot of people having this same issue oh well i guess

wifi doesnt drop for me... thats really strange. in any case if you are only losing about 2 bars its normal and will happen with most phones. If you lose signal completly then its abnormal and ur phone/hardware is faulty.

yeah was reading about antennae issue on back part of phone where the battery cover is you cant touch it apparently. well i am going from 2 or 3 bars to zero bars pretty much.
An good example would be when i went into apple store which has 3g microcell tower in the store to hide the antennae problem with iphone 4 , i dont get full service and the iphones get full no matter how hard you grip them.
Going to give both samsung and att a call tomorrow morning to see what i can do i really dont think its fair to have to eat the upgrade and restock fee when phone cant perform normal functions

mongstradamus said:
yeah was reading about antennae issue on back part of phone where the battery cover is you cant touch it apparently. well i am going from 2 or 3 bars to zero bars pretty much.
An good example would be when i went into apple store which has 3g microcell tower in the store to hide the antennae problem with iphone 4 , i dont get full service and the iphones get full no matter how hard you grip them.
Going to give both samsung and att a call tomorrow morning to see what i can do i really dont think its fair to have to eat the upgrade and restock fee when phone cant perform normal functions
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If you got the phone from amazon and are returning it, then it is free to return with no restocking fee. At least thats what they told me. All you gotta do is call the number for returns so u can get a return shipping label from them. Did you ask if you could exchange for another captivate at a local At&t Warranty Center?

I will be calling att and samsung tomorrow when i wake up to see what they have to say. As far as returning it to att, if its a known issue then an replacement phone will have the same possible issues.
So i did an little experiment to test 3g and wifi. I walked across the room, which has the modem and router, and stood by the door. got no 3g service in my hand, and the wifi dropped from full bars to just 1 bar of wifi in the same room.

I don't know what you guys are talking about. I can touch the phone any which way and the bar fluctuates by a single bar, if even that. I get more fluctuation walking around in my house then I do holding it. The only time I've ever noticed a significant drop in reception has been literally covering the phone front and back with both hands. Maybe you guys are just in poor reception areas. Before you completely discount the phone and send it back, instead of relying on the bars, look at the actual db signal in the settings.

I have looked at those i get an big fat zero. the other issue i have is my wifi goes from full to 1 bar by just moving to other side of the room thats not good at all.
I have been to areas of my town where i know there is full 3g service, and i get maybe two or three bars. i was thinking maybe an case would mask that particular issue since i am not directly touching the phone. The fact that i really like this phone i would just do the case thing if that were a solution

asrrin29 said:
I don't know what you guys are talking about. I can touch the phone any which way and the bar fluctuates by a single bar, if even that. I get more fluctuation walking around in my house then I do holding it. The only time I've ever noticed a significant drop in reception has been literally covering the phone front and back with both hands. Maybe you guys are just in poor reception areas. Before you completely discount the phone and send it back, instead of relying on the bars, look at the actual db signal in the settings.
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I will admit the area where i live doesn't have the best reception in the world, but when i place the phone on an table or sofa, i get -105 dbm and 4 asu. once i pick it up drops to 0 dbm and 0 asu quite odd.

Just to make sure, I removed my phone from it's case, and plastered my hands all over it. With a solid 3 bars, I touched sides, with two fingers all the way to a two handed deathgrip. Not only did I not get a degradation of bars, at one point I got a bar increase! I palmed the back, front, cradled it my hands, held it to my body. I didn't get any change in bars.
Maybe it's the band of cell phone signal in your area. I know that either the 1900mhz or 850mhz is better than the other in terms of penetrating power, so if your signal is going over the weaker one, that may be the issue.

I am just going to give samsung a call , when i actually use phone i am not touching the back of the phone. I have taken it into area where usually you should get full service and i dont get it if i hold it in my hand.
I also did an comparison with my old 3g iphone and the 3g was getting two to three more bars...
The other major issue is my wifi signal dropping from full to one bar in the same room of the router that shouldnt be happening

well its like i said, this signal issue that you few are having isnt that wide spread. go get a replacement sim, if that doesnt work then simply have ur carrier replace your phone. you should be within the 30 day trial period anyway... dont bother talking directly with samsung, getting a phone replacement from att would be quicker.

well the only issue with returning the phone i dindt buy it directly from att , got it thru amazon so returning to get a new one may be a bit problematic i think.

The iPhone's issue is different - it has an external antenna, and one finger in the wrong place rendered no signal - one finger bridging the gap between antennas - creating an electrical conductive circuit.
The Captivate (and all other phones) have internal antennas covered with plastic (the phone's case) - so the antenna is already covered.
Apple tried to deflect criticism by talking about "The grip of death" killing signal on other phones. While this is true, it is not what plagues the iphone - although it can. All phones will show signal drop if you wrap your hand (or some other signal blocking material) around the phone.
The Problem with trying to measure the signal drop, is that signal bars are not very accurate - you need to be in the phone menus where it shows you actual signal strength in DB - I don't think you will get this for WiFi though. Then of course there are all kinds of external interference issues - Microwave ovens, cordless phones, etc.
So, unless you measure this stuff in a controlled environment, like consumer reports did, where you can control the transmitter and all eliminate all external influences, then most observations are not including all environmental factors.
My phone works great, regardless of what the bars say.

well i have seen my phones service go from -105 dbm 4 asu to nothing when i picked up the phone. and then i would get the nice blue circle with line thru it.
I did an speed test also with phone while holding it and when putting it on an table , the times i would actually get no bars on my phone while holding i would get 1/3 the dl speed of when it was sitting on a table.
I will have to wait till tues to get an replacement phone and hopefully i wont have the same issues

so are you getting the replacement from att or amazon?

HTC Inspire Atennagate issue?

While not holding the phone I get around -79 - -83 dBm signal strength ... while holding the phone normally from bottom.. my dBm signal goes to around 99-105 dBm and signal drops 2-4 bars. Haven't talked on phone so I'm not sure if this will affect talking. Anyone else having similar issue?

n0kia916 said:
While not holding the phone I get around -79 - -83 dBm signal strength ... while holding the phone normally from bottom.. my dBm signal goes to around 99-105 dBm and signal drops 2-4 bars. Haven't talked on phone so I'm not sure if this will affect talking. Anyone else having similar issue?
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Every phone does that. Captivate did it too.

This, everyone phone does it. When you actually make a call, the radio's power increases so dropping calls shouldn't be a problem (due to your phone at least)

Also if you notice in the SIM card cover, there is a metal piece. It is a part of the antenna

The antenna appears to be in the bottom removable cover so if you cover it with your hand it will be lower though I don't see how you can hold your phone that way while talking as the antenna would be near your cheek.

While I have my issues with AT&T and their data plans, I have to say that after 4 years with them, this has been a (non)issue with all the phones I've used on their network, as well as the phones I had on T-Mobile. This "problem" has been around as long as the cellular phone itself. I can only describe this "problem" as an Urban Legend that has no effect on actual usage.

Thanks for all the comforting words of wisdom.
Sent from my Desire HD using XDA App

n0kia916 said:
Thanks for all the comforting words of wisdom.
Sent from my Desire HD using XDA App
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I'm sorry if I sounded short and dismissing. I should note that I've only had one phone that wasn't an HTC phone (Samsung Captivate). While I have noted a visible signal loss on all of my cell phones (AT&T and T-Mobile), none of them have yeilded an actual drop in signal resulting in a dropped call. Maybe I'm lucky??

n0kia916 said:
Thanks for all the comforting words of wisdom.
Sent from my Desire HD using XDA App
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LOL!
Mine has been ok so far, i can see a drop in signal when covering but has not dropped or reduced call quality yet

Your not holding it right

Sorry to bring up an old topic but i am having this exact same issue. When i'm holding my phone i lose signal and can't surf the internet or get phone calls. This is become very annoying to me and tempted to switch phones because of it.

[Q] found a serious flaw with radio hardware and shipped ROM downloading consistency!

Hi all, please welcome me whom had bought the Optimus 3d just 2 days ago. I love this phone. Please do let me welcome you all to talk about a flaw, which I've found out right away with the new phone since 2 days ago! I've been with some others Android phones, so, I should say I've had good experience with Androids.
I realized that Optimus 3D has some kinda hardware Radio receiver flaw (I really don't know what should I really call it) similar to the famous iPhone 4 dilemma in the beginning. I found out that the "Radio receiver" is located somewhere at the bottom of the phone, where our hands most often holding the phone with. The hand will block out the signals and the signal bar will be reduced by a lot as much as to zero (if the signal strength itself is not strong in the 1st place!) Try find this yourself, have some experience by holding the phone at the bottom and let go and holding the phone and again let go, keep trying this you should see the signal strength that will drop and rise and drop and rise again. Or is this only my phone? But I've never experience this phenomenal with other Android phones!
Also, I don't know this has the directly link to the downloading issue or whenever browsing nets, the network data will drop very very often. I hardly got successful downloads from the market without few retries. Thank god at least at the moment I can temporarily fix it by turning off and on again with the data enabling shortcut in the pull down menu.
Please help me here and advice! Very much appreciated!

Since the famous iPhone 4 drama for a lot of phones these stories pop up once in a while. I know lots of people furiously believed the Samsung Galaxy S had the exact same problem but after a week or so nobody ever talked about it anymore.
I myself have absolutely no problem whatsoever with the signal, not even when I completely cover the entire phone with my hands leaving just a small spot to read the signal it never drops, not by one bar. I've never had a single download dropped with either 3G or wifi and I've downloaded my share of stuff from the market and other places.
I've tested this with my T-Mobile simcard (which has pretty horrible coverage here) and with my Vodafone simcard (which has great reception) and with both simcards the signal strength stays exactly the same according to the bars. Even when I go to the settings the dBm and asu values stay exactly the same, no matter how long and how bad I cover the phone.
So far you're the first and only person I've read about having these issues so I think it just could be an isolated incident, although that would be bad for you as that would mean you could have a defective phone

This problem is not something new and is not related with O3D.
All the phones have the same issue.
It is normal that if put your hand on the antenna the reception will drop.
The radio waves just work like this.
However the atenuation from your hand is most accentuated on higher frequencies like 2100Mhz.
On every phone even on the oldest phone with external antenna you will meet this phenomenon.

The difference between 4 bars and 1 bar is only around 10dBm which really isnt that massive a drop at all. Now that you've pointed this out i do see that the signal strength varies a little depending on how you hold the phone but its not enough to panic about i don't think. The iphone 4 problem was significantly greater in that the iss was that a user's hand would electeically short the mobile network antenna to the bluetooth and wifi antenna causing a total loss of signal. While 10dBm or so is a definite dip in signal strength, it's an acceptable level of attenuation and i dont see it causing any real world day to day network problems that you wouldn't experience with any other high end smartphone.
My workplace is in a giant tin hut of an industrial unit (read: faraday cage) and today while i had this phone there for the first time i saw no noticeable network coverage problems. The behaviour was as far as i can tell exactly tue same as my motorola milestone from which i upgraded.
Sent from my LG-P920 using XDA Premium App

As stated all phones can lose a bit of the reception when it's in your hand depending on how you hold it, the reason Iphone4 was such a big deal was that it was extremly sensitive when it came to left-handed people and they had a real problem with their antenna being totally blocked when holding the phone normally when speaking in it.
Later on media and uninformed people started fueling the flames as soon as they saw a bar drop when picking up the phone, radio waves are not magical rays or tachyons that can move though matter without interacting with it.

thanks for all the replies. Believe me or not, this is the 1st phone I realize this issue and it is so obvious, the bad news is, it is really bad for me that the antenna is located at the bottom, probably most others phones I've owned were at the top as a result i didn't got any problem before.
And another issue, I'm pretty stucked with the shipped rom now, really hope to see custom roms soon. I'm at the moment totally freak out with the inconsistent of data and the wifi, it keeps failing me, this really freak me off, what the hell is happening to me with this phone! I've never ever got any dropped data or wifi connections before. Arggghhhh!!!!!!!!!!!

I have no signal drop out no matter what hand positioning i use..

I'm in a very poor reception area. I do notice hand over phone a drop from 1 bar to none. Still not a red cross to indicate no signal but a drop of 1 bar all the same.

Just tested it.
Signal drops from 4 bars to 3 (1-2 in awkward positions) when hand-held. Not an real-life-usage impact though...

Thanks for all the test replies to support my findings. OK, now, I've realized that the hand holding issue has no direct impact to data drops. And the data drop is entirely due to the time issue which it does not lock down the data connection when swithcing data modes. And at the moment it can beasily over come to turn off with the data button in the pull down menu. I'm not sure though when in the situation when the signal strenght was so low, by holding with hands will give an direct effect of data drop or not. Will observe that

[Verizon] Did I get a bad S3?

I got a my phone at best buy today and I have 2 complaints, speakerphone call quality is very bad, I can hear like if there is a fan blowing air into the microphone while I'm in a quite room. The other thing I noticed was the signal strength, my wife Samsung Stratosphere has 3-4 bars and my S3 has 1-2 bars. Did I get a bad phone or that's the way the phone works?
TIA!

Vertig0 said:
I got a my phone at best buy today and I have 2 complaints, speakerphone call quality is very bad, I can hear like if there is a fan blowing air into the microphone while I'm in a quite room. The other thing I noticed was the signal strength, my wife Samsung Stratosphere has 3-4 bars and my S3 has 1-2 bars. Did I get a bad phone or that's the way the phone works?
TIA!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Can you elaborate a little on your user experience? Sounds like a faulty phone but please give more info
Sent from the current Heavy Weight champ GALAXY SIII

Vertig0 said:
I got a my phone at best buy today and I have 2 complaints, speakerphone call quality is very bad, I can hear like if there is a fan blowing air into the microphone while I'm in a quite room. The other thing I noticed was the signal strength, my wife Samsung Stratosphere has 3-4 bars and my S3 has 1-2 bars. Did I get a bad phone or that's the way the phone works?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The number of bars displayed is not directly comparable. Phones can be configured to display a certain number of bars at a certain signal strength. Both phones could have the exact same single strength and be calibrated to visually display entirely differently.

Bars mean nothing. Apple once changes the bars to "better reflect network connections" or something... signal strength is important its in the settings menu...
Sent from my AT&T Galaxy SIII (SGH-i747)

ingenious247 said:
Can you elaborate a little on your user experience? Sounds like a faulty phone but please give more info
Sent from the current Heavy Weight champ GALAXY SIII
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
For example, I called my wife omw home and she was complaining that she could not understand me because it was too loud and she could hear everything around me but me. When I got home I tested the phone having her calling my from my phone and when she switched to speakerphone I was able to listen the A/C louder than her.
The signal strength is just that, her phone gets 3-4 bar and mine gets 1-2 bars 1bar must of the time.

Vertig0 said:
For example, I called my wife omw home and she was complaining that she could not understand me because it was too loud and she could hear everything around me but me. When I got home I tested the phone having her calling my from my phone and when she switched to speakerphone I was able to listen the A/C louder than her.
The signal strength is just that, her phone gets 3-4 bar and mine gets 1-2 bars 1bar must of the time.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
From my experience the phone is really good at canceling out background noise. My sister was driving her loud car while talking to me on her S3 and I couldn't even hear it, I used to be able to. I'd see if you could get it replaced.
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I747 using Tapatalk 2

No Probs
I have not had any of the problems you are talking about. I would try to find another one and do a side by side.

ainen said:
From my experience the phone is really good at canceling out background noise. My sister was driving her loud car while talking to me on her S3 and I couldn't even hear it, I used to be able to. I'd see if you could get it replaced.
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I747 using Tapatalk 2
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Click to collapse
Was that using the speakerphone?

If you're not pleased, return it. The signal bars on the 2 devices shouldn't be compared, however, as ICS has a different algorithm of calculating LTE signal bars than versions of Android before it. This was covered at great length when the Verizon Galaxy Nexus first came out.
Sent from my SCH-I535 using Tapatalk 2

my speakerphone sounds pretty crappy too

Mean Bro Greene said:
If you're not pleased, return it. The signal bars on the 2 devices shouldn't be compared, however, as ICS has a different algorithm of calculating LTE signal bars than versions of Android before it. This was covered at great length when the Verizon Galaxy Nexus first came out.
Sent from my SCH-I535 using Tapatalk 2
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Click to collapse
I see... so it might be an ics bug? I just drove to my closest tower and that was the only time my phone was full bars as soon I drove away like two blocks away I was already down to 3 bars. Also I did a test side by side with my wife's phone and her phone performed on LTE waaay better than my S3...
Sent from my SCH-I535 using Tapatalk 2

Vertig0 said:
I see... so it might be an ics bug? I just drove to my closest tower and that was the only time my phone was full bars as soon I drove away like two blocks away I was already down to 3 bars. Also I did a test side by side with my wife's phone and her phone performed on LTE waaay better than my S3...
Sent from my SCH-I535 using Tapatalk 2
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She's connected to WiFi....

culpin said:
She's connected to WiFi....
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she's not.. I noticed that... even if I disconnect from wifi still show the icon letting me know there is wifi available...

Speakerphone and Headphone quality is horrible, on both ends of the call
Having similar problems here!!!!
Having major problems with speakerphone and headphone use while in a car.
The speakerphone in general doesn't sound very clear. Both ends sound like wind or a fan is blowing right into the microphone. It sounds garbled on both the sending and receiving end of the call. Same issue with headphones.
Basically everyone says it sounds like the windows are down and a wind storm is blowing. Windows are up, and no A/C fan is blowing onto the phone.
Second phone with same problem. Bad batch? Basically impossible to use it in a car. Even when not in a car, the speakerphone quality is not that great.
Any suggestions? Maybe there is a setting that needs to be turned on/off?

anyone else with sound issues?

Wish I could be of help. My GS3's voice/sound quality is easily the best I've had on any smartphone I've owned. You might want to take that in and have the reps compare it against another GS3 or if you know someone else who has the same phone, you could test their device against yours.

Alright know this is unrelated to the OP, but I was wondering about mine too. I just got my second S3 from verizon. My first one had some loose housing on the back and creaked like a loose floorboard every time it was touched. Now the new one they sent me today has a dark spot on the screen. It's not noticeable when there are light colors in that area, but when it's dark it's definitely visible. I remember seeing threads about this a while back but didn't take much time reading them. Is this something I should return it for? Thanks for any help

seems you're not alone in the cell reception issue. There's 2 other threads going about this very issue. One in this sub forum, the other is : http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?p=29166050#post29166050 . Call and get a tech support ticket opened. The more people opening tickets the faster we get this issue resolved...lol it'll still be slow as ****, but what can you do?
---------- Post added at 10:30 AM ---------- Previous post was at 10:24 AM ----------
Vertig0 said:
she's not.. I noticed that... even if I disconnect from wifi still show the icon letting me know there is wifi available...
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That's a "feature" lol. God I can't wait for the bootloader thing to get cracked so we can get some real ROMs going for this thing. The carriers want you off their network, like 5 minutes ago, and they're willing to do ANYTHING even if it's make your phone automatically connect to random networks against your wishes to get you off their network and on to someone else's. It wouldn't shock me to find out they lower the output on their towers artificially to keep folks in the sticks from getting a signal to force them to provide their own bandwidth the way they try to force us to us WIFI when we pay perfectly good money for our wireless connections.
You can shut off some of the annoying reminders in the auto-connect area...but never all. It's always gonna try to dump you onto WIFI. The carriers hate you using their precious bandwidths you paid for..
---------- Post added at 10:38 AM ---------- Previous post was at 10:30 AM ----------
Vertig0 said:
I see... so it might be an ics bug? I just drove to my closest tower and that was the only time my phone was full bars as soon I drove away like two blocks away I was already down to 3 bars. Also I did a test side by side with my wife's phone and her phone performed on LTE waaay better than my S3...
Sent from my SCH-I535 using Tapatalk 2
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No you're not imagining it, you can see one of the antennas molded into the plastic under the back cover, at the base of the handset...you know right where the fat of your palm rests when actually using the device in portrait mode. There appears to be another at the top right hand side. Dunno which antenna is what...but I did notice if you keep your hand off the bottom area, my signal goes up some. But when the signal changes so much by moving it a few feet one way or another who can really tell what effects what. Also, my flimsy plastic/silicon type case from verizon appears to knock 5-10 dbm off my signal strength too...great stuff that.

I have noticed this exact same thing.
My mom and sister say that it sounds like there is a lot of wind on the phone when I call them. Particularly on speaker phone but even when not. This is when I am inside or in my relatively quiet car.
I hope VZ doesn't try to f** around with me in the store. I have had nothing but horrendous customer service with this POS company before. I bought an expensive product and I expect it to work as a PHONE.

Hey at least you didn't get the crap shoot I got. I would get little dots all over my letters on the screen pretty often (but not all the time). Couldn't get rid of em no matter what I flashed or reset. Had to bring it back to Verizon and practically shove the thing in the old guy's face to get him to see the dots. He basically refused to return it. I complained to their corporate offices and hopefully that guy got a spanking. Another guy graciously exchanged it for me. I thanked him profusely.