I have my Inspire 4G for a little over a month now. It is stock, not rooted.
From the beginning I noticed that the signal strength indicator seems to fluctuate more that I was used with from my days with the Tilt 2.
I can't say if it is my imagination or not but this fluctuation seems to have gotten more pronounced. The other day I was waiting for my flight in Boston Logan. The phone was on top of my carry-on bag and I could see the signal go from full 5 bars to one bar and back. This happens in other places.
If this normal?
I've noticed the likes with both my iPhone 3G and my BB Curve 8310. I've always chocked it up to AT&T's astounding coverage
I posted this in another thread but it's quite relevant to this discussion.
Listening to police scanners and messing around with building antennas and such has been a little hobby of mine since I was a teenager. It's pretty amazing what factors can effect the quality of a radio signal. The higher the frequency, the more line-of-sight the transmission becomes. For example, in the 800Mhz public service band, even simple things like the leaves on trees can absorb some of the radio signals, lowering signal strength and creating "flutter". Now take into account that AT&T GSM networks in North and South America operate in the 850 or 1900 Mhz range - even more susceptible to environmental variables.
henrybravo said:
I posted this in another thread but it's quite relevant to this discussion.
Listening to police scanners and messing around with building antennas and such has been a little hobby of mine since I was a teenager. It's pretty amazing what factors can effect the quality of a radio signal. The higher the frequency, the more line-of-sight the transmission becomes. For example, in the 800Mhz public service band, even simple things like the leaves on trees can absorb some of the radio signals, lowering signal strength and creating "flutter". Now take into account that AT&T GSM networks in North and South America operate in the 850 or 1900 Mhz range - even more susceptible to environmental variables.
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So the wind can literally "blow" your signal away by moving the branches, etc?! I thought I was just making a figure of speech when I said such things.
Related
I'm using the Snap now for 5 days.
The only thing I noticed is that the radio signal is poor !
I also use the Excalibur now for two years with the latest Kavana rom.
Never had problems with the radio signal.
Does somebody know if it it possible to flash the Excalibur radio with the Snap !
Of course is not possible. Excalibur and Snap are different hardware.
ps. btw, where do u get your Snap? You can send me a PM with the info
tramuyo said:
Of course is not possible. Excalibur and Snap are different hardware.
ps. btw, where do u get your Snap? You can send me a PM with the info
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Click to collapse
OK, thanks.
The snap is introduced in Holland last week, so you can buy it everywhere here unlocked.
the main HW difference between SNAP and EXCALIBUR from radio point of view is... 3G!!
SNAP has a 3G HSDPA radio. Select only GSM band in phone configuration-Band-network. This could improve battery life and network coverage. The cost is the reduction in data speed transmission,, lowering at the excalibur level
3G Network
This is true... with the 3G on the signal is very weak. I just bought the Snap last week (im in Singapore) and had the Excalibure for 3years, with GSM - Signal was much better
But the speed of data transfer worth the poor signal!
The problem isn't SIGNAL is PHYSICS The radio frequencies are different, inside the buildings the 3G frequency and modulation have a lower penetration. The phone-Cell range is lower in 3G signals (at least in Europe or in countries using 2100 mhz instead of 800-1900 GSM or CDMA)
Make sense... outside buildings there is no problems, only inside...
Thanks for the explanation!
i have both the snap and the dash
the snaps signal is AMAZING by far the best ive ever had on anyphone ive ever used
Just got in the new Samsung Nexus S from Sprint and I've noticed some major issues in reception versus the HTC Evo from Sprint as well. I'm seeing a 2+ bar difference in the exact location sitting next to the Evo on the same Sprint network.
Is anybody having this issue? Or does anybody know of a fix.
I have the latest firmware (suggested fix by Sprint) and have seen several complaints about it on other less developer friendly forums.
If I can't come up with a solution soon, I think I'll have to get an Evo. But if you guys can understand, I'd prefer to keep the phone that will get timely updates.
Thanks ahead of time for any suggestions!
You can't compare signal across different devices based on "bars". Check the actual signal strength in Menu > Settings > About Phone.
Sent from my Nexus S using XDA App
I know you need dB... As soon as I can get the Evo next to me again for a comparison, I will post.
I'm a tech savvy guy, run a computer building company and build websites. I even develop some entry-level apps for a few clients (yes entry-level).
If one googles "spring nexus s reception," they'll find that this issue is quite common. I'm just curious as to whether it's hopeless or not.
I know I can petition for the Airave with Sprint and can at least get decent service at home.
It just seems peculiar to me that Google would endorse an inferior product. I live in a major Metropolitan area (DMA has it as a top 25 market - for those who aren't in the media business, that means it's one of the top 25 sized cities in the country). And this phone gets dismal reception.
Fact is, Evo does great in my house, Nexus S does not. I've heard some pretty bad reviews with the Galaxy S line of hardware so I'm figuring it's worth moving to the Evo.
To be honest, this phone is far superior (at the moment) with responsiveness and usability but if a phone can't operate well at being a phone, it's a waste of money. Especially if the hardware is inferior (phone-wise) to most of what HTC released a year ago. I love having a mini-computer in my pocket but I did aim at having a working phone.
Thoughts? Suggestions? School me? I will post the exact numbers when they again are available, until then, please only offer up friendly advice or questions. I am willing to try anything before taking this thing back.
You have not really described your issue. Do you have dropped calls or what?
Sent from my Nexus S using XDA App
I'm having issues with the Sprint Nexus S reception as well. Although my home location on Sprint's coverage map lists my area from medium to strong with 4G available right around the corner from my house I have dismal reception with the Nexus S. I had a trial EVO for a few weeks and reception was much better in the same area. If I try to call the Nexus S I often go right to voicemail, I'm told calls out (when I can) are choppy, data signal is often listed as 1x as opposed to 3g. Is it just this particular phone? Should I go to a Sprint store to have it tested?
There is atl least one thread over at the Sprint Message boards about bad reception on the Nexus S.
At work we have a repeater and the signal still only shows at one or two bars most of the time but data speeds seemed fine to me and I had no problem with making and getting calls.
No one else is having this issue?
This isn't the first post about this subject. I understand and agree. I'm not 100% sure about this when it comes to cell phones but different companies with different radios will give you different signals. If this is the same as two way radios, there's no standard on say how much signal equals one bar on the meter. Even the programs that give the signal strength in numbers, aren't universally accurate. When it comes to received signal, its how you can hear it, not really what the meter says. That number can easily be manipulated. A receiver sensitivity can be adjusted too but there are things that are thrown out too. Crank up the receive and you get more noise than distinguishing signal and adjacent frequency rejection goes to crap. You can work the receiver to have good rejection and sensitivity but you are making it more deaf too.
What I'm getting at is don't always go by what the signal meter says and take it as 100% truth. It is a good indicator of signal but not absolutely 100% accurate.
I am sitting about twenty feet from my router and yet the meter is telling me 50% signal which I know is bull****.
are you up to date?
Yobye, are you on 2.3.4? I have heard the update fixes some people's signal/radio issues.
yobyeknom said:
I'm having issues with the Sprint Nexus S reception as well. Although my home location on Sprint's coverage map lists my area from medium to strong with 4G available right around the corner from my house I have dismal reception with the Nexus S. I had a trial EVO for a few weeks and reception was much better in the same area. If I try to call the Nexus S I often go right to voicemail, I'm told calls out (when I can) are choppy, data signal is often listed as 1x as opposed to 3g. Is it just this particular phone? Should I go to a Sprint store to have it tested?
There is atl least one thread over at the Sprint Message boards about bad reception on the Nexus S.
At work we have a repeater and the signal still only shows at one or two bars most of the time but data speeds seemed fine to me and I had no problem with making and getting calls.
No one else is having this issue?
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Ditto on this. Have all the latest updates. Think it may be time to trade in for the Evo.
I am on 2.3.4. I brought home another Sprint phone from work - a Sanyo Taho and got about the same terrible reception despite the fact I'm in a Sprint Best Coverage area on their map. I miss and drop calls and can't get voice or data connection - send mms, etc from my home. I've contacted Sprint about the tower strength in my neighborhood.
I thought it might be nice to have not just LTE results but also overall quality per area listed. Ie. If you get good coverage, call quality etc. Their map for LTE coverage is not real accurate. I'd love more real world tests given this phone is entirely new for the network with its radio.
Surprisingly to me, my wife's iPhone dies better in our apt. But the One X is amazing down the street.
In the San Francisco area I think Sprint is overall better but no LTE of course. I get fast speeds (25Mbps) on the One X but so far my call clarity is not so hot.
I thought this phone had noise canceling? I know it could be signal.
Coverage seems decent but I will test more throughout the bay area to provide a more thorough review.
What about other cities? I'm curious about Austin, New York, and Philly...
Sent from my HTC One X using XDA
We know how much you like to stream, ahem, "videos", and so cellular data is mega-important. Rate this thread to express how you think the Huawei Nexus 6P's LTE performs. A higher rating indicates that it's fantastic: throughput is excellent and signal strength is top-notch.
Then, drop a comment if you have anything to add.
Using on AT&T, signal strength is good. And it has band 30 which will be good in the future when they get that rolled out.
Using on Verizon. With my old Note 3 and also my work iPhone 6 Plus, at work where the signal is terrible, it would switch to 3G periodically. With the 6p, i haven't had a single instance where it switched to 3G. Just for kicks, i put in my coworker's T-mobile sim card. He has iPhone 6 Plus and he gets 1 bar on his iPhone and i saw 3 bars
LTE on T-mobile - good strength compared to my Nexus 5 - can get LTE in some areas where I did not before. Shows full bars though LTE discovery shows different strength levels on band 4. Waiting for band 12 support to see full impact and hopefully with carrier aggregation to give better throughput.
pipnmike said:
Using on Verizon. With my old Note 3 and also my work iPhone 6 Plus, at work where the signal is terrible, it would switch to 3G periodically. With the 6p, i haven't had a single instance where it switched to 3G. Just for kicks, i put in my coworker's T-mobile sim card. He has iPhone 6 Plus and he gets 1 bar on his iPhone and i saw 3 bars
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Yup same here. this thing gets better signal at work (in a 12 story building) than my Note 4 on VZ. just to be sure it isn't a software bs thing. I tested speedtest and it pulls 7-8 mbs vs 1.5-3 mbs before (note4). So not sure which of the two VZ freq it pulls from normal or XLTE but the radios/antenae seems stronger than the note 4. in any event, I am quite happy and satisfied with my signal!! (orange county, calif)
T-Mobile signal at my desk at work has been inconsistent with my past two phones (Moto X 2014 and G4), but the 6P manages to hold on to LTE more often than the other two did. It also seems to switch back to LTE from HSPA+ quicker.
The biggest difference is HSPA+ performance. With both the Moto X and G4, HSPA+ performance was always awful, to the point that I just figured T-Mobile's HSPA+ spectrum was too saturated to provide decent results. The 6P manages to get much better data throughput in these conditions, so I am loving that.
LTE performance seems to be on par with the other phones, but with so many changes in the network, I never know if it's the phone or new things going on in the network.
I noticed that the signal strength is far superior than what i was getting on my S6 Edge. The 6P gets signal in places my S6 didn't so im a very! very! happy camper.
Cell reception has been pretty bad on mine so far...
Could anyone check if covering the visor area with your hand affects cell signal? (You will inevitably cover part of it when holding the phone horizontally with both hands or just the left hand) On my phone, just loosely covering the visor area with my hand lowers signal by one to two bars, and lowers data transfer rate from ~16MBps to less than 10MBps..
Of course it does. Every phone has an area or two that allow you to really hurt the signal by covering them with your hand.
WIthout a doubt the cell signal is far superior to that of the Nexus 6 that I replaced. This was easily seen driving down the road which with the Shamu would have areas that there was no signal at all, yet with the 6P I had at a minimum 2 bars all the way up and down the road. Even in my house where I had to switch to WiFi calling because of so many trees , I also get a good LTE signal throughout the house.
WiFi performance itself is amazing as it is literally faster than my $4k gaming laptop. This is what I got on my 300 connection
http://screencast.com/t/dHcAt6FuxN6
http://screencast.com/t/2Vn4MF5Iw
pipnmike said:
Using on Verizon. With my old Note 3 and also my work iPhone 6 Plus, at work where the signal is terrible, it would switch to 3G periodically. With the 6p, i haven't had a single instance where it switched to 3G. Just for kicks, i put in my coworker's T-mobile sim card. He has iPhone 6 Plus and he gets 1 bar on his iPhone and i saw 3 bars
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Hope this is the case for me too! I have the Nexus 6 and lose LTE occasionally... it irritates me too, because i can toggle Airplane Mode and LTE pops back up. So hopefully this is the case for me as well.
collinjm01 said:
Hope this is the case for me too! I have the Nexus 6 and lose LTE occasionally... it irritates me too, because i can toggle Airplane Mode and LTE pops back up. So hopefully this is the case for me as well.
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I used to see this with my Nexus 6 and G4 all the time. I had to use LTE Discovery and its Auto Cycle feature to stay on LTE longer at work. With the 6P, if it does drop out of LTE, it recovers a lot quicker than all the other phones.
Coming from my Nexus 6, I have much better reception everywhere in the Phoenix Valley
Sent from my Nexus 6P using Tapatalk
I am on AT&T and I am finding myself getting better LTE reception than ever before. My previous phone was an Xperia Z3 and the 6P is definitely superior.
Way better signal than the Moto X 2014 or Oneplus One!
I'm on Verizon and have not had a chance to test it in my fringe areas. I do have a Wilson signal booster in the house and my Note 4 would typically show a signal strength of -84 to -86db. The Nexus 6P is consistently in the mid -70s. (Lower is better)
My cell reception is amazing.. Texts in and out of the depths of where I work.. Voice quality was muffled at times but seems better with root
I have a Nexus 6 & ordered a 6P using it on Verizon. Is the reception about the same? The 6 was my first moto phone & had much better reception than my LG G2 (previous phone). Will I lose call quality?
On t-mobile for the most part I am getting good signal. But....
I am noticing that many times I drop my LTE connection and just get HSPA and or 3g....
I am also loosing my LTE signal and a point that the cell site is close by so it is not because of weak signal.
I looked at coverage maps and used an app called LTE discovery I don't see the new T-Mobile bands here in Atlanta yet... Maybe that will help..
LTE has been great for me here in Irvine CA, got 84 Mbps download. WiFi speeds are good too, but WiFi range is much worse than my nexus 5. Bluetooth range isbworse too. My n5 keeps my WiFi signal down at my street corner, 6p loses thebwifi half way there. Same with Bluetooth, it loses bt signl half distance that my n5 does.
We know how much you like to stream, ahem, "videos", and so cellular data is mega-important. Rate this thread to express how you think the Google Pixel XL's LTE performs. A higher rating indicates that it's fantastic: throughput is excellent and signal strength is top-notch.
Then, drop a comment if you have anything to add.
Awesome. Verizon just put up a new cell tower by us. 68 down and 15 up.
Sent from my Pixel XL using XDA-Developers mobile app
I'm getting LTE service in places that were dead zones compared to my 6P.
I'm getting 120Mbps down, 30Mbps up here on Telstra.
I guess I am the odd ball out, coming from an iPhone 7 Plus and a Note 7 this phone def has the worst signal of the three. The other two would average at my house 3-4 bars of signal the Pixel is 0-1 bars. Now to be fair it hasn't dropped a call, I have not tested the throughput of it as of yet.
Fate0n3 said:
I guess I am the odd ball out, coming from an iPhone 7 Plus and a Note 7 this phone def has the worst signal of the three. The other two would average at my house 3-4 bars of signal the Pixel is 0-1 bars. Now to be fair it hasn't dropped a call, I have not tested the throughput of it as of yet.
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So the reception isn't actually that great. I wonder why all the reviewers were raving about it then. I can't imagine a half-metal phone manufactured by HTC having such fantastic cell reception.
Have you checked the actual dBm values? You can't really compare by "bars" side-by-side. I know that my Galaxy S6 got about 10dBm better reception than my Nexus 5, not sure how it is for the Pixel XL.
I know this probably isn't the right place for it but in London we use our phones to pay for transport and the NFC chip here is lightning compared my note 7. Just as fast as the oyster payment cards we use which open the gates for us Londoners.
Sent from my Pixel XL using Tapatalk
Pixel XL reception's seems to be a bit less than my tried and true Nexus 6. I will measure with LTE Discovery app over next few days.
The real question is ,
Anyone was able to trigger LTE-A (4G+) which peaks to 150+mbps or is it just LTE and we have to speedtest every now and then ?
Emerald Core said:
The real question is ,
Anyone was able to trigger LTE-A (4G+) which peaks to 150+mbps or is it just LTE and we have to speedtest every now and then ?
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*#*#4636#*#* is your command, change it, experiment boom, done
Sorry hit send twice.
Now that I have the phone... The cellular reception on the Pixel XL is as good as, or better (by a few dBm) than the Galaxy S6.
However it's hard to tell sometimes when it's in LTE+ carrier aggregation mode
My signal strength has been good. When I'm outside, I usually have full bars. Then when I get inside a building, I lose 1 bar. I have at&t, Google pixel xl, cruzerlite case.
Here's my speed test details from being inside a building.
How exactly do you enable LTE-A or VoLTE in the 4636 menu? I can't seem to figure it out.... I know I can't enable VoLTE provisioning; it lets me turn the switch on, but if I back out and go back in, the switch has reverted to off.
Tmobile baby??
i think my opinion comes more from the provider than the phone itself. My wife also has a Pixel XL but she's on Project Fi and I'm on AT&T. She gets better service than I do in most places, which is more TMO vs ATT than anything else. we live in NY and i'm underground a lot while traveling to work and home. I'm always getting 5 bars of LTE coverage in the train at Grand Central but I might as well have no service. There's never any data.