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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
I have looked far and wide for a fix to my plagued Nexus S GPS and WiFi Signal problems. I tried GPS Test and erased all cached AGPS data. NO Towers show up. Left phone sitting there next to my window for more than 30 minutes.
Wifi Signal is always one bar while my iPod, Samsung Focus, HP Veer all get three to four bars. Including different SIM cards all recently new.
I've always tried the no battery cover trick to no end. Flashed several radios for my I9020A that i bought at best buy and nothing has helped.
I'm on 2.3.4.
Any ideas before I return this phone as a defective and give another a try?
As for the GPS, this is some sort of issue with the phone. There have been videos on YouTube explaining that it's something to do with the back cover they chose: they found that the GPS signal was stronger with the back cover removed. Not too practical.
I too have issues while using Navigation (on a bus...or even in a car sometimes...it must have a lead lines roof or something) with the Nexus S that weren't present in the Nexus One (which could lock onto satellites in a basement :what. This looks like something you can try to DRM, but it may not improve.
As for the Wifi signal, how far are you from the access point? What wireless technology are you setting up on your access point? (802.11a, b, g, or n?). If it's n? Are you trying to use the phone with a 5ghz N router? Finally, is there anything between your router and the phone that could cause interference?
- chris
Thanks for the reply chris.
I have major issues even outside. the most accurate I've seen the phone pinpoint is 2500 meters accuracy with clear skies and such.
As for my router, its a BHN SBG6580. Basically Motorola Surf Board. It's supposed to go up to N. No There isn't any kind of interference otherwise my other devices wouldn't pick up a good signal right?
Please will anyone suggest anything I really like my nexus s and it's My first real Android coming from window phones and the iPhone 4
Okay so interesting find. If I tether my nexus s to my iPod my iPod can locate itself within 20 meters where as my nexus can't locate itself with about a huge margin error where I should be. My iPod gets GPS from my Nexus S giving off wifi
Does this mean it could be an android bug causing his problem ?
That's odd. It looks like Google knows where the phone is (err..where the access point with the ESSID of your phone is) but the phone isn't picking up on it.
There's a program on market called GPS Toolkit (something like that) that has an option to refresh your AGPS cache this may help you get a fix more quickly. If this doesn't work out, it may well be worth it to get the phone replaced. Oh...and if you're not using stock firmware....give that a try as well.
If none of that works, and you're not able to resolve your wireless issues, you may want to consider taking the phone back or RMAing it. This combination of issues sounds a bit strange.
- chris
Thanks again for the reply Chris.
It looks like I'm going to bring it back to stock how I got it and return it for an exchange or just wait or for another AT&T phone that is actually decent. By the way it is on the stock ROM just rooted.
If the replacement if I do get one issued still has the problems I am at lost then. I had tried GPS test from the market and the one you mentioned without any resolve to my problem
Why is it that the wifi signal strength is better on my laptop than on my phone?
I have noticed this for nearly every device I have owned. The laptop will always seem to catch a better signal than the phone, even though they are both in the same position, same network, etc.
Is there anything I can do to boost the signal range of my phone?
(no I'm not sticking an antenna on it)
Interesting - I notice the complete reverse. My doubleshot has stronger signal to my wifi router and for a longer distance (of about 5 feet in my driveway) then my laptop.
Sent from a digital distance.
Blue6IX said:
Interesting - I notice the complete reverse. My doubleshot has stronger signal to my wifi router and for a longer distance (of about 5 feet in my driveway) then my laptop.
Sent from a digital distance.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Out of all the different phones I have owned, NONE have been able to catch wifi signals as good as my laptop
As I speak right now, I am connected to the same network with both devices. Laptop shows a good signal, while the phone is showing a poor signal, and even disconnects at times.
Interesting. I guess logic might wanna tell me that a laptop would have a larger/more powerful radio chip, or whatever it is that receives the signal... and that has basically been my experience, my laptop can stray further away from the router. But perhaps it depends on your hardware?
gtmaster303 said:
Out of all the different phones I have owned, NONE have been able to catch wifi signals as good as my laptop
As I speak right now, I am connected to the same network with both devices. Laptop shows a good signal, while the phone is showing a poor signal, and even disconnects at times.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yes this has been the case from my G1 all the way til the DS.
yogi2010 said:
Interesting. I guess logic might wanna tell me that a laptop would have a larger/more powerful radio chip, or whatever it is that receives the signal...
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Click to collapse
I have to think the same. That has been my thinking since I started brainstorming ideas about this. It would be interesting to see a answer with facts tho. :thumbup:
Typed by ---- oh wait! I'm schizophrenic!
Well, my laptop is about 2 years old and beat up, compiling kernels is killing it.
I wouldn't be surprised if the wifi chip suffered some damage from how many times its overheat and shut off.
Sent from a digital distance.
I have this same problem, out of all my devices my Doubleshot is the worst at picking up a wifi signal. This includes two other low end Android phones, the Droid Eris, and the Huawei Ascend. On my Ascend I can pick up my neighbors wifi almost anywhere in my apartment, even better than my laptop, but on the Doubleshot I can not pick up the signal at all unless I am outside right next to my neighbors house. I wish there was a fix for this issue. Even at school where the wifi is very strong, I can only pick up a weak signal that disconnects from time to time on my Doubleshot, but my Ascend never had that problem, it always received the signal strong and clear.
Blue6IX said:
Well, my laptop is about 2 years old and beat up, compiling kernels is killing it.
I wouldn't be surprised if the wifi chip suffered some damage from how many times its overheat and shut off.
Sent from a digital distance.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
My laptop is nearly 4 years old. Runs a Centrino chipset. Maybe that explains the better signal it catches. Either way, I've never seen a phone outperform a laptop in signal strength
gtmaster303 said:
... Either way, I've never seen a phone outperform a laptop in signal strength
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
lol - you should come by my house. Sometimes (I posted it in a thread a few months ago around here somewhere) I use the doubleshot as a wifi bridge to my router to make up for the inadequacies of my laptop wifi abilities, or for my desktop that has no other means of internet connectivity.
It seems I represent a minority (of one!) in this... i dunno. I've been excited about how well it works out, and am quite surprised (astonished even!) to find everyone else singing a different tune.
Blue6IX said:
lol - you should come by my house. Sometimes (I posted it in a thread a few months ago around here somewhere) I use the doubleshot as a wifi bridge to my router to make up for the inadequacies of my laptop wifi abilities, or for my desktop that has no other means of internet connectivity.
It seems I represent a minority (of one!) in this... i dunno. I've been excited about how well it works out, and am quite surprised (astonished even!) to find everyone else singing a different tune.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yea, seems like you're the only one. By the way, if your laptop is overheating from compiling, you're doing something wrong. No laptop should overheat, even under full load, unless you have blocked vents, or you're overclocked.
Lol, unless it's choked with dust, has no compound between the processor and heatsink, the fan doesn't work and it relies on an external cooling pad for all of it's cooling air circulation.
Half the usb ports are burnt out and no longer function and the speakers stopped working a year ago. Since the audio out jack has stopped functioning.
I'm pretty impressed with the fact that it even still turns on, let alone being able to actually do anything with it, but, I'm hoping to get a full blown linux install on the doubleshot and thereby circumvent ever having to purchase a real computer again.
I'd grab another laptop, but, i'd rather invest my limited tech funds into android hardware and write off real computers entirely, and given the capabilities of the doubleshot and future android devices on out this is no pipe dream - the only thing between me and realizing that goal is the knowledge to make it happen, a gap that shrinks daily.
Sent from a digital distance.
Hi guys. I've got a saga to describe for those of you who are interested, but I'll try to keep it brief. I think it really boils down to one or two simple issues.
I've had Verizon phones for a long time, in Central Illinois. Probably about 10 years now. Rarely had problems with dropped calls. My previous phone was a Droid 1 ... worked great, very rarely (as I recall) had dropped calls.
Then in January 2012, as the Droid was killing me with general Android lag and unresponsiveness (but voice was still fine), I upgraded to a Galaxy Nexus. Loved it for Android performance. For the first 3 or 4 months I had it, I don't recall it giving me any undue trouble .. dropped calls were minimal if any, I think.
Then sometime around April or May, started getting a ridiculous number of dropped calls. Mostly at my home, throughout the day, but not just there, I've also experienced them a mile or two away from my house. The neighbor hood is fairly wooded, but that's never been a problem before.
Additionally, my wife has a "feature phone" (non-smartphone) also with Verizon and very rarely if ever has dropped call problems.
The topography at my house is along a river, we're right near a high bluff overlooking the river, with line of sight (besides the trees, of which there are not a ton, really) for at least a mile or so across the river. I think we're possibly within range of several cell towers.
I notice at most points when I'm in my house, using some apps that help you track signal strength and show you the cell tower ids, that I'm mostly one just two different ones, both of which seem to be maybe about 1 mile away. Also, if I'm walking up one flight of stairs, I pretty reliably see that same app showing the phone switching among possibly as many as 4 or 5 towers, in the space of about 5 or 10 seconds!
I suspect this may be caused by the topography in my area.
I also suspect that most of my dropped calls *may* have something to do with being in range of so many towers, or with the phone switching too frequently (or unnecessarily, really) among the towers, while I'm on the call, if this is possible (I have very little technical knowledge of cell phone radio technology -- hence this post).
Now, I've done a fair amount of research and talked to Verizon customer support about this at length. They've actually been very patient and good with me, but we still haven't arrived at the solution.
I originally thought the problem my be the Galaxy Nexus, but after getting a warranty replacement on that one, and even getting to try a Droid RAZR and then finally the GS3, I'm seeing virtually the exact same behavior on all of the phones. The symptoms do *not* seem to be directly related to signal strength exactly. I get usually about 50 - 60% of the total bars (maybe 3/5 or 4/5) in most parts of the house, yet *still* get these persistent drops.
Verizon's final best solution for me, basically, was to use a Network Extender. Despite my misgivings towards this, I have acquired one and it does seem to solve the problem for me, when I'm home, and when I'm in range of the device (its range seems pretty good in my house). One big problem with it though, ridiculously, is it seems that whenever it's on, my wife's Verizon phone starts dropping calls (and it never does otherwise). So there's a Catch-22 there, added to the fact that I'd rather not have to be running a Net Extender *and* the fact that I still see other drops when taking a walk or driving at least a mile or two from my house.
So, for those of you still with me, I'm wondering if
a) my theory about excessive switching, etc., is plausible, or if you have another one based on the facts I've outlined
b) if doing something like flashing an alternate radio ROM (I barely even knew there were separate ROMs for the radio -- I've done some rooting before of Android, but not the radio) might give me some more control or better performance. It'd be great if there were a setting somewhere where I could tell the phone to be less willing to switch towers or to give a higher preference to one tower, at least while in a certain GPS area (I know, I'm sure it's a reach).
Anyway, looking for a little education into why your opinions are of what may be causing this and if I have any remedies available that are feasible and may actually help.
Thank you for your attention and expertise.
Alright, first some general info:
Phone: Nexus 5 T-Mobile Branded
Software: Android L
Plan: Unlimited Data 30$/month
Location: Urbandale, IA
Troubleshooting Steps: Just about everything, called customer care talked to them and walked through all their steps, checked APN settings, restored phone, tried a lower OS on the phone, tried a different radio, tried new SIM, disabled common house hold possible interference (Wifi, Microwaves, ect.), tried other phone (Blackberry Torch, Samsung Galaxy SI(Vibrant) and SII), I do have WIFI calling on those phones, but it's a pain in the rear to have to changed phones every time I get home, and I'm not going to use those as all of them are outdated, don't tell me to get a new phone as this one is not even four months old. I'm an IT Cyber Security Specialist, so I have the background knowledge of how to fix many tech issues. So save the BS and give it to me straight please.
Problem:
As you most likely can tell from the title, I don't have service in my home. I sometimes do, but it's gone and I haven't even touched/moved the phone. I've always had terrible coverage in my home, but never this bad. I can walk ten feet out of my garage or front door and have three to four bars. If i go down a few houses into my neighbors home I have perfect signal (That also rules out the possibility of the house's building material causing problems as the house is the same material and finish as mine, it's not more then four years old.) I don't understand what is happening here...it's beyond a lot of things I've seen. I can receive a text, pick up my phone to respond and then my service is instantly gone before I hit send. It's like its purposely being dropped (That's just a stupid idea though). So I honestly have no clue what is going on according to the pre-paid coverage map I should have "Good" service where my house is located yet I continually drop signal. I get great service in most other area's and do not have the signal dropping in and out anywhere else, so I'm really confused as to what is happening here. The Nexus 5 doesn't currently support WiFi calling as Nexus devices are pure Google devices and can't be modified by the carrier with things such as bloatware, custom OS, ect, hence no WiFi calling. Any help would be appreciated.
Hmm strange. Have you tried different modems/radios? Is your house like literally right next to the tower? Is it just T-Mobile that this happens to? I have a friend with a metal roof and signals for cell phones get weakened badly in their house.
I have the exact same thing and I can say in my case it is not the phone(and most likely the same for you).We have 3 different providers(Tmob,Orange and 3 as im in the UK) and between us access to 8 different phones- N5,N4,HTC Desire,HTC One M7,ZTE Blade,LG O3D,Iphone 4s an8 5s.
All with different radios,modems etc and they all exhibit the same issues with the only same factors being my house and whats in it and its geography.
It`s one of those things that we have got used to since moving into the house-god knows what the neighbours think of us leaning out the windows and doors to make calls:laugh: