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Bad Reception, slow change from 2g to 4g

Hello, I just got my wife an Xperia Z3 from Tmobile, and the reception is very bad. Compared with my Note 4, sometimes I have 4G LTE and she is stuck on 2g. Very slow while changing from 2g to LTE and so forth. Is this a normal issue, and if is not, should I take it back to the store? Thanks everybody!

Definately not normal, my Z3 has slightly better reception than my mom's iPhone 6 but much better than my dad's M8 and sister's S4. Switching from 2G to 4G does not have issues for me so far. I have not used a Note 4 so I can't really comment on the faster switching to 4G I guess. I suggest you take it to the store and check the display model. If its doing things better then get a replacement.

abhinav.tella said:
Definately not normal, my Z3 has slightly better reception than my mom's iPhone 6 but much better than my dad's M8 and sister's S4. Switching from 2G to 4G does not have issues for me so far. I have not used a Note 4 so I can't really comment on the faster switching to 4G I guess. I suggest you take it to the store and check the display model. If its doing things better then get a replacement.
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Thanks! I'll definitely take it back today. Your experience is compatible with all the reviews I've read. Everybody talks about the good reception on this phone.

[Q] Oneplus One Tmobile

So does the factory unlocked oneplus one work good with tmobiles 4G lte bands, I currently have the att note 4 and has terrible connectivity and signal strength with tmobiles network never had issues with tmobiles phones them selves had great signal till I bought a factory unlocked att note 4 it works but the signal is bad, I want the one plus one but anyone use it with tmobile and how is the signal compared to a tmobile phone?

It does work well. Not as well as the TMO S5, it doesn't have all the bands. That being said, my LTE speeds have dropped to around 20mbs in certian places were they once might have been 35mbs., you'll have to do a speed test to even notice. I live in middle of nowhere AL, this is a rest i just ran. tl/dr OPO works great on TMO

Cool seems good, another thing is the signal strength I use my phone a lot and this att note 4 hardly ever gets signal at the border I work by the Otay border. my other tmobile phones had excellent signal.
So signal wise is it almost the same as tmo s5 ? Let's say in certain areas where you used to get very low signal with the s5 does the oneplus one still get signal? I almost never get full bars unless I'm outside with my tmobile phones I would literally almost have full bars or close to full bars anywhere and that's what I'm looking for.

Cr1z619 said:
Cool seems good, another thing is the signal strength I use my phone a lot and this att note 4 hardly ever gets signal at the border I work by the Otay border. my other tmobile phones had excellent signal.
So signal wise is it almost the same as tmo s5 ? Let's say in certain areas where you used to get very low signal with the s5 does the oneplus one still get signal? I almost never get full bars unless I'm outside with my tmobile phones I would literally almost have full bars or close to full bars anywhere and that's what I'm looking for.
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I travel for work a LOT and what i have found is where i got poor LTE on my S5 i now get HSPA+ on thr OPO . basicly same speed though. Again im in the US. I have no idea what border you taking about and being New Years, I'm not looking it up . I still get signal where I always have.

Cellular strength and throughput

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.

Cellular strength and throughput

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.

Tmobile lte signal strength...

Anyone can test the tmobile lte signal please. Just wonder if it is the same like other phones.
Hmmm and what abound band 71? Does actually works?

My wife has an iPhone 7 Plus and I have a new OnePlus 6 and her phone works fine in areas with TMobile where my OnePlus 6 can't get a call out. So far I love the OnePlus 6, but this may be a deal breaker for me as I am running into several dead zones with the OnePlus 6 that my wife’s iPhone works fine. Too bad as I really like this phone.

Looks like the others have different experience. Just wonder why

netgar said:
Looks like the others have different experience. Just wonder why
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I'm using the OnePlus 6 on t mobile and get great reception and lte speeds. Can't test band 71 as I don't live in an area where band 71 is deployed but from other threads people have said it is working. Call quality, signal strength and lte speeds match that of previous phones I've used and better than a lot of them. There are also other threads on here and other sites stating that signal strength is really good with the OnePlus 6 on t mobile.

netgar said:
Anyone can test the tmobile lte signal please. Just wonder if it is the same like other phones.
Hmmm and what abound band 71? Does actually works?
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My one plus gets the best signal out of my note 8 and iPhone X usually full bars

TechOut said:
My one plus gets the best signal out of my note 8 and iPhone X usually full bars
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The signal strength doesn't reflect upon reliablility of signal or speed. You could have low bars and still max out on data transfer and network.

mikex8593 said:
The signal strength doesn't reflect upon reliablility of signal or speed. You could have low bars and still max out on data transfer and network.
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That's not necessarily true lower signal strength usually means lower speed. In terms of being reliable yes it's fine but as far as actual lte speeds they are generally lower

addictedtocars said:
My wife has an iPhone 7 Plus and I have a new OnePlus 6 and her phone works fine in areas with TMobile where my OnePlus 6 can't get a call out. So far I love the OnePlus 6, but this may be a deal breaker for me as I am running into several dead zones with the OnePlus 6 that my wife’s iPhone works fine. Too bad as I really like this phone.
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Have you double checked the APN settings are setup correctly? https://support.t-mobile.com/docs/DOC-2090
Also, it's true that you can't rely solely on the number of bars as an indicator of signal quality. I use an app called Network Cell Info to see what kind of signal I am really getting- https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.wilysis.cellinfolite

Mine works great. Usually have full bars full LTE speed.

I have a OP6 and my wife has an S8+ and we get about the same reception in the house (I'm in a weak service area) which is around -115db to -117db. She drops slightly more calls than I do but It seems like the signal on the OP6 is on par with everything else.

Compared to my V30 & G6 (bith TMO branded)
The antenna in the OP6 is quite good. I get LTE even underground at a train station I usually don't with my V30.
For WiFi i get 400mbps and LTE I usually get ahout 150mbps. I see 50mbps in my basement though.
Sent from my OnePlus 6 using XDA Labs

vouty said:
Have you double checked the APN settings are setup correctly? https://support.t-mobile.com/docs/DOC-2090
Also, it's true that you can't rely solely on the number of bars as an indicator of signal quality. I use an app called Network Cell Info to see what kind of signal I am really getting- https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.wilysis.cellinfolite
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I actually checked APN settings which appear fine. I do not use just the signal bats, I go into signal strength and the OP6 show signal strength of -118dbm which is very low. Also I find I am in dead spot far more often where my wife is. It, maybe there is an I tenal antenna issue or bad phone, it I am disappointed.

I don't have issues. Compared to other phones I have similar results.

My OP6 is much better then my OP5. Before selling my 5 I used the same sim card in both and my living room is the best signal in my house and my 5 got 48MBPS down and in the same spot on same sim I got 135MBPS down with the OP6. The combination of both the glass back and the 4x4MIMO is amazing!

My wife has an s9+ and I have a op6 on metro (T-Mobile) in rural Pennsylvania. We both get good signal but mine is always faster and stronger than hers. Comparative to my old phones, op6 is above and beyond.
Sent from my OnePlus 6 using XDA Labs