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Deathgrip

If I hold my phone normally (near the bottom) my signal plummets, is this normal or do I have a lemon?? It is really worrying me, if I grab it near the bottom I go from 3 to 0 but still have service but I am still without bays and my data slows. I don't know if this is normal and I should just accept it or if I should go exchange it.
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I897 using XDA App

I haven't been able to produce the "death grip" effect even when I have tried to.

Mine does the same in my house with a pretty weak signal. However, unlike my iPhone 4 (I am a happy convert to android now) which dropped calls and data went to 0, the Captivate seems to keep the connection. Even with zero bars, I get decent data speeds and people say I am loud and clear on the phone.
I wouldn't stress over it. The antenna has to be located somewhere in these phones, and yeah, covering it completely will cause a signal drop. Just be happy the antenna is on the inside and you can't short it with your skin

I get the same thing, but I think where I work is a dead zone, because my old phone had problems holding a signal also. I'll do some more testing when I'm out of here

OK, I will do more testing and make a final decision next week since I am going out of state to a place I know has good coverage and if I get bad signal there it is probably my phone and not coverage area.
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I897 using XDA App

I have to completely cover the metal back to drop a couple of bars. Even then, it still performs about the same in speedtests.

It is not the metal back you need to cover on my phone but instead the plastic below the back...
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I897 using XDA App

cropythy said:
It is not the metal back you need to cover on my phone but instead the plastic below the back...
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I897 using XDA App
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Tried it this way as well and the results were even closer together.

It's the way Samsung is programming the bars. They underestimate signal strength believe it or not.. it's not like the iPhone where it gives you this crazy readout (before 4.0.1).. it's still wrong, but in the best way possible.

Dropping calls like crazy with Captivate
I was just on a very important call about a new job and my captivate dropped the call 4 times within 15 minutes. I was holding the phone only on the outside. I was not touching the bottom or the back of the phone. How frustrating. It even drops calls when I am using my headset. Just dropping all the time. Any suggestions?

I can get the bars to drop one or two when I hold the phone at the bottom, however (and this is a BIG however!) even with 0 bars, I was just able to make a phone call, and while the signal bounced from 2 to 1 to 0 to 1 bars, the call didn't drop or even so much as hiccup.
As heygrl said, it seems however Samsung calculates their bars, the phones are displaying a lot less signal strength than they actually have, which is a good thing in my book. It's a nice surprise to look at your screen, see 0 bars, desperately try to make a call anyway, and have it go through!

Mantooth said:
I was just on a very important call about a new job and my captivate dropped the call 4 times within 15 minutes. I was holding the phone only on the outside. I was not touching the bottom or the back of the phone. How frustrating. It even drops calls when I am using my headset. Just dropping all the time. Any suggestions?
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Sounds like the AT&T network to me.
Yeah you can see how Samsung reinterprets the phones recieved signal strength under the Service Menu. I also suspected that the reason why we only see -81dBm max and not -51dBm like the Captivate is because Samsung didn't completely readjust the scaling and just cut off one visible bar. Under the Service Menu (Antenna/ADC or something of the sort) you can see where it says "Antenna bar: 5" when we clearly only have 4. The same goes for actual signal strength, you can see a very usable 10 RSSI but Samsung designed the bars to show that as "0" instead of 1.

I do notice that when I'm in areas that are 1-2 bars, giving the phone the deathgrip does kill the signal totally. But when I'm out in full service I can hold it any way and no problem.

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

[Q] HTC ONE S Wifi Problem

I have a HTC one s and it is experiencing wifi problems. I know the one x has had some of the same issues, but the problem with my one s is that whenever i hold the device from the top, the wifi drops suddenly and it than cuts off. When i remove my hand about, 5 seconds later the wifi shoots up to 4-5 bars.

return it and get a new one

That's where the antenna is!! Your SIM cover has the antenna built in to it.

Please use the Q&A Forum for questions &
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Moving to Q&A

Try to remove and reseat SIM card cover, if its still too bad have the phone replaced. A friend of mine had his One S replaced after we compared Wifi signal with Wifi analyzer and his was ~20 dBm worse than mine at same locations. New one is fine. Didn't know about the wifi antenna on sim card cover back then though, might have helped since it seems it has for some users here.

I have almost the same problems with WiFi antenna although it's not as worse as others are saying. I can confirm though that when you put your hand next to the SIM cover the WiFi signal drops 1-2 even 4 lines at some times. However I don't think it's a manufacturing defect for some phones but I think it's a general problem with all the models. I am saying this because I had the exact same problem with all my HTC devices (Diamond, Desire and One S). So I think it's a poor WiFi project and maybe cheap raw materials rather than a poor WiFi in some phones. In a way it's normal that this happens because your hand will screen the antenna. Try to do this with all antennas out there and you will see that your hand (your body) will influence the signal in all devices). So if they couldn't overcome this problem they had to put the antenna in the place where you will cover it most rare, and this place is on top of the phone. I don't like it either but that's the way it is.

amoiz said:
I have a HTC one s and it is experiencing wifi problems. I know the one x has had some of the same issues, but the problem with my one s is that whenever i hold the device from the top, the wifi drops suddenly and it than cuts off. When i remove my hand about, 5 seconds later the wifi shoots up to 4-5 bars.
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just noticed the same this morning, though only happens when i try to wrap the upper part of the device with my hand. i never hold the phone in that position so it does not happen.....

Actually when you are browsing the internet, view pics one-by-one, view movies - usually you are holding the phone in the landscape mode so most people will rotate the phone counter-clockwise until it reaches landscape mode and will hold it with the left hand exactly from the upper part (if the phone is rotated clockwise then the supporting hand will accidentaly touch the lower 3 buttons so not too many people will rotate it clockwise) and with the right hand they will browse. So in these situations, which come very often, we will loose (almost all) signal. If these will not bother you/me/all of us, for sure it will bother all of us when browsing internet. I really don't know if a fix can be made for this issue. Even if I would change the SIM cover (so change the WiFi antenna), the replacement will be built exactly the same so the problems will persist. I am curios to see if SGS3 has the same problem or not. I really think it's a question of antenna position so it's a crappy board design of the phone. It shouldn't happen at a 500+ euro device.

I have the same wifi issues on the One S. There is a firmware upgrade available OTA, it may fix it. I will see.

Any chance this is fixable or not device-wide? It's somewhat of an annoying problem when holding in landscape. I'm assuming this is no more than a design "flaw"

I'm having the same issue. When holding the phone in landscape mode, the wifi signal drops to one bar.
I noticed that when I'm closer to the router, like within a 3 meters range there is no signal dropping.
It's very annoying...
Could it be fixed by improving the contact between the antenna and the back-cover?

Sent an email to htc support about it, this is their response:
The location that you describe, on the side with the Power button near the camera lens, is where the HTC One's antenna is located. Covering this location will provide less-than-optimal results with regard to cellular and WiFi signal. You may want to try holding the device slightly to the side of this location, more towards the center of the device.
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I seem to recall a certain fruit phone with a similar problem and it was kinda a big deal lol. I'll get over it, but fokkkkkk

ThudButt said:
Sent an email to htc support about it, this is their response:
I seem to recall a certain fruit phone with a similar problem and it was kinda a big deal lol. I'll get over it, but fokkkkkk
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Did you guys try remove and reseat SIM cover? Might help a bit even though its natural with some signal loss when holding it that way. If your phone has significantly worse signal when laying on a table or whatever compared to another phone then try to get it exchanged. Compare with https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.farproc.wifi.analyzer
Edit: Love how your quote from HTC disappeared when I quoted you

traffic stops after few minutes
Hey,
my signal is ok, but after few minutes of working the internet connection just will not go through anymore. I have tried installing 4.04 but no change. AP is still connected, full signal, but not even google comes on. Restarting wifi helps for another few minutes. Doesn´t have to do anything with sleepmode, that I am sure of - it happens even during download from Play Store i.e.. Wifi best performance ON, Keep Wifi on during sleep Always.
Any idea on what that might be? - the old HD2 (android 2.3.) works like a charm on my home network
Getting desperate , otherwise such a nice phone.

WIFI problems
Ive been trying hard to figure out the flash 1.85 thing and have had no luck. any way someone can help me with exact directions on doing it. i have downloaded 1.85 2.85 files but having issues flashing it.
please help