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[Q] Infuse for 1 week, my problems so far

Picked up my Infuse up at BestBuy on May 15th, the release date. After 1 week, I've had these problems:
Main problem is that GPS sucks. I had specifically tried to get a smart phone to ditch my GPS navigator. This phone isn't it. Long times to fix, sometimes *never* producing a fix. If there is no network (away from civilization, no wifi or cell), there's often no fix, ever. This problem alone is probably enough for me to take it back. Does anyone know what the GPS implementation is in the Infuse? If it is a Broadcom chipset, that would explain it!
Wifi signal strength seems weak. In places where my laptop gets full bars, it gets half that. In places where my laptop gets two bars, it sometimes can't connect or it intermittently drops. This is very annoying.
Cell signal strength seems a bit weak, too. My old phone gets consistently one or two bars more. Cell data seemed not as strong, too.
I tried the HDMI adapter. It showed video fine, but failed to send audio to my TV. I know the TV is capable of HDMI audio from other sources. Oh well.
While driving with the device on sunny day, the screen was dim and hard to read. Found out the display brightness was low in auto mode. So I put it on manual, but it refused to allow full brightness, saying "Display brightness limited due to temperature" or something to that effect. So, you can't have full brightness in sunlight when you need it most? I suspect anybody who tries to use the car dash mount is going to run into thermal limiting problems, making that use impractical. Maybe if you get a white skin to keep the solar gain down. The thermal design isn't apparently good enough to get the heat out.
Otherwise, the phone seems pretty good, but my issues are high enough to have me contemplating a return.
I'll note that the Galaxy S II is reported to have a new GPS chipset, SirfStarIV, which sounds like a significant upgrade to the GPS system. But, not yet released in the US. Sigh.
How does one determine the GPS chipset in a phone?
Thanks for any help.

I've had a few issues with the phone also but you don't really expect your cell phone to get the same wifi signal as a full blown laptop do you?

Wow, seems as the Infuse does not meet your expectations. Question, If not the Infuse then what would be your next line up of devices?
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I997 using XDA App

These are also my big issues, its definently the best ATT handset minus the antenna, I keep missing calls if its in my pocket and the wifi is really buggy.

DarkH2O said:
I've had a few issues with the phone also but you don't really expect your cell phone to get the same wifi signal as a full blown laptop do you?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I make no apologies for having high expectations.
The wifi circuitry inside a phone should be as good as any that is inside a laptop. That leaves only the antenna as the prime issue for wifi performance. I can understand losing 3 dB, maybe 6 dB over a well designed laptop, but not 20 dB. That's severe incompetence in antenna design.
I've seen other smart phones do significantly better than the Infuse with regards to wifi.

pixelkore said:
Wow, seems as the Infuse does not meet your expectations.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
In those areas it isn't. I am particularly sensitive to GPS performance for my needs.
Question, If not the Infuse then what would be your next line up of devices?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The Atrix is noted to have good GPS performance. I've been advised that Motorola is less friendly to things like rooting and ROMs than Samsung, though.
The HTC Inspire seems to have similar weak GPS problems.
The Samsung Galaxy II S (Attain on ATT?) is said to have a new GPS engine so that is what I hold out hope for. I may just return the Infuse and wait for that to come out and hope the GPS is improved.

I have had similar issues as well. Having a normal temp around 105° is high for any phone. It causes my screen to flicker constantly during game play. I expected something like an oversized captivate, which I got. I will switch to the gs 2 when it is released.
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I997 using XDA App

mciholas said:
I make no apologies for having high expectations.
The wifi circuitry inside a phone should be as good as any that is inside a laptop. That leaves only the antenna as the prime issue for wifi performance. I can understand losing 3 dB, maybe 6 dB over a well designed laptop, but not 20 dB. That's severe incompetence in antenna design.
I've seen other smart phones do significantly better than the Infuse with regards to wifi.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I get great speeds with my router. It's set to only n and I pay for 30 /5 and get that on land line and with phone I get 16-20 down and 4-5 on up...
sent from Infuse but miss my captivate on cont. 5.5.... One day this can be as good...

chvybeatsford said:
I get great speeds with my router.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Speed is not the issue, I get great speeds when close to my access point. The issue is lack of range and an unstable link.
I have to be in the same room as the access point, or maybe one room next to it, to get a reliable wifi connection on the Infuse. Other wifi devices work fine throughout the house.
My GPS units will get a lock in any room of the house. The Infuse GPS will not get a lock in any room of the house and takes a long time even outdoors.

I also get good range. May be my house but I can get great speeds in the garage. And the router is 3 walls and about 35ft. Also get good rec. Out side across my yard. (60ft.).
Not the best signal but 2bars.about 6mb.This is. Brand New house with the router about in center of floor plan.
sent from Infuse but miss my captivate on cont. 5.5.... One day this can be as good...

my captivate got better reception and didnt get as hot with heavy wifi usage. but you cant have everything.

i wouldn't get it because of the bad gps. i guess samsung forgot to put a gps antenna in it like they did with the rest of the galaxy s phones.

I love my infuse, my only issue is that 2 or 3 times so far, the phone starts playing music from my library without a music player opened. I've checked all my notifications and they are all set to what I want. Only thing i can think of, it's playing music to let me know my battery is full. My captivate used to beep, if its not the battery then i have no clue. no alarms are set, calenders have alerts turned off, sms is set to what I want, I don't know lol

Rldowney said:
I have had similar issues as well. Having a normal temp around 105° is high for any phone. It causes my screen to flicker constantly during game play. I expected something like an oversized captivate, which I got. I will switch to the gs 2 when it is released.
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I997 using XDA App
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
How are you going to upgrade? Just off contract purchase?

I don't have any issues with my GPS. I have been using the phone and testing it our for almost 2 weeks now and have not had any issues with it using Google Maps or Google Navigator. I would put it on par with my Atrix where the GPS is phenomenal on it.
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I997 using XDA Premium App

Wifi issues
mciholas said:
I make no apologies for having high expectations.
The wifi circuitry inside a phone should be as good as any that is inside a laptop. That leaves only the antenna as the prime issue for wifi performance. I can understand losing 3 dB, maybe 6 dB over a well designed laptop, but not 20 dB. That's severe incompetence in antenna design.
I've seen other smart phones do significantly better than the Infuse with regards to wifi.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I had to return my Infuse due to the poor wifi reception. I had it side by side with my old iPhone 3G a couple rooms away from the router. The Infuse dropped wifi completely and I lost internet connectivity while the iPhone was happily chugging along.
It's a gorgeous phone and I was sorry to send it back, but not being able to keep wifi connectivity when compared with a 3 year old iPhone was a dealbreaker.

gPS
I rooted My infuse and installed faster fix and north america and my gps works perfect now it lock way faster then my htc inspire does i have noticed the phone gets warmer than others but i have only had it about four hours now so we will see

My gps using maps and navigation work perfectly, the only time i've noticed it getting hot is when I have it on the car dock, but, the thing is black and my car is old so everything is hot in it... i'm grandfathered into unlimited so I can't speak on the wifi cause I dont use it
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I997 using XDA App

jdonnell said:
I had to return my Infuse due to the poor wifi reception. I had it side by side with my old iPhone 3G a couple rooms away from the router. The Infuse dropped wifi completely and I lost internet connectivity while the iPhone was happily chugging along.
It's a gorgeous phone and I was sorry to send it back, but not being able to keep wifi connectivity when compared with a 3 year old iPhone was a dealbreaker.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I think I'm gonna follow suit , this phone is an attrocity in every single way
1 - Touch the phone frame with two fingers , wifi and phone signals drop by 3/4ths which is RIDICULOUS ... there is no 4g and the hspa+ system should go and suck an Elephant's left NUT
2- Gps lockon takes more than 10 minutes ... again I'm screwed if I'm in a rush + no TomTom
3 - No gingerbread ?? . . . F^K you samsung seriously ... Ice cream is up next within the next 2 months and not even one dev on the internet was able to come up with custom firmware (No offense to any devs , I know you guys are awesome and work your @$$es off... so props to you for devotion and work always but patience is not my virtue)
4 - Single core is kinda painful to bear when you know quad core & 3d phones are being released very soon
5 - No apps that can use the front face camera (AS FAR AS I KNOW) so again why bother even giving this to us ?, Samsung you guys might as well have given us a dual core with one of the cores shut off.
6 - THIS IS VERY IMPORTANT ... call quality / microphone is ATROCIOUS ... In my quiet bedroom at night with no audio disturbances my gf is telling me every 5 seconds that she can't hear me and that pisses me off so badly. I've tried with at least 10 other people all giving me same bs. So I have to yell at my phone like a walky talky .... so sad
If you bought this phone from costco you can do 2 things guys.
Either return the phone and stick with w/e u had b4 until the good stuff comes out or wait 90 days and pray something decent comes out by mid august.
I'm returning mine and returning to my Iphone 3g ( as old as it may be and dinged up it still is dam reliable )

sonkameja said:
3 - No gingerbread ?? . . . F^K you samsung seriously ... Ice cream is up next within the next 2 months and not even one dev on the internet was able to come up with custom firmware (No offense to any devs , I know you guys are awesome and work your @$$es off... so props to you for devotion and work always but patience is not
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Okay. I hate getting worked up by people....but seriously? The phone has now been out for FOURTEEN DAYS!! Dont use "lack of dev work" as an excuse to take your phone back. I understand your frustrations, but just take it back and stop feeding this thread.
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I997 using XDA App

[Q] General Performance and Quality issues?

Was just wondering if any could give me some feedback on their experiences with this phone vs other carriers or VM phone models. In the little over a week I've owned it, it's horrible compared to my current AT&T phone service.
I wanted to know if it was a quality issue on the phone, or VM's network.
I've notice in Los Angeles area I almost always have 1-2 bars, often have x1 instead of 3G. I also can be stopped at a major intersection in my car and the bar goes from full 3G to no bars and 1x, then spikes back up to full, then says no service. Even when I have a full bar and 3G I get like 150kpbs using speedtest.net sometimes.
Youtube video even in low quality stutters often, in HQ it's pointless.
I've also noticed the GPS lock times are sporadic but yet a utility shows the phone has a lock on 7+ satellites, but reports only about 100ft accuracy.
Sometimes when the screen comes on it flickers for a split second.
I was also told that the phone's radio only uses the 1900Mhz bands, does anyone know if we could get 800Mhz support once we get ROM development for it?
Has anyone noticed similar issues?
Best Buy just got 8 more in stock I'm going to swap it, but wanted to have some reference before the 30 days are up. No stores have a activated VM phone that I can compare service to.
I really want to update my phone and if I can save my money from AT&T. But need something at least somewhat reliable and consistent.
Thanks,
-Lich

Hey man, I'm in southern Indiana, so I can't really say much about your service area, but mine is great. usually 3/4 bars, with 3g speeds faster than my wifi. If your device is wonky like that, where it keeps jumping from no bars to full bars, then maybe its something with the phone itself. as far as 1x data, that's the network. I'm using an optimus v, rooted running cyanogenmod7, and I have excellent battery life and performance, so if you are going to switch to a different VM phone, I recommend that.

I have had absolutely no problems with this phone that aren't software related. There are quite a few Lemons out there and it seems only people on these forums are getting lemons!
I have software version 039 (Not sure that matters)
My signal strength sitting right here in my house is -64dBm with no tower in sight, full bars. I traveled from Upstate NY to Tucson, AZ on multiple flights with multiple layovers last week with this phone and I had absolutely no problems including getting in flight WiFi.
My Triumph is everything I could've hoped for after selling my iPhone 3GS to get the Triumph.
The screen is large and beautiful with absolutely amazing colors. The screen is responsive (after taking the thick 2nd screen protector off) and nearly as good as the iPhone's screen responsiveness. Phone feels good in my hand with a nice coating on the outside. The camera is absolutely amazing. I have taken beginner SLR quality photos with it, and when focusing you can even get quite a bit of bokeh added. The 720p camera is great, though it's jumpy in low light and I really don't like that it doesn't have video focusing. Battery life will take me through an entire day of normal use.
Any problems I have had, are software related and should be able to be easily fixed. GPS Locks beautifully to 3ft accuracy in under 30 seconds with the GPS Test app, but this cannot be said for Google Maps or Navigation. I think Google has a driver problem in their software which should be easily fixed with a new update to the Maps application. The Triumph does become unresponsive for a few seconds at times, but it's no big deal to me, again that should just be a software problem.
One other major problem I have that I KNOW is software related is that the headphone volume is WAY too low. If you make a phone call while listening to music, the volume will jump up to a normal level. Without making a phone call I have to turn my cars radio up to about 8/10 just to be at a normal level, if I make a phone call I can leave it on about 3/10.
For $300 and $25/month, you cannot beat this phone in any way.

On mt phone I can see little horizontal lines.does any one else see them?

My experience:
WiFi takes a while to turn on when I wake the phone. Streaming video is a bit choppy, and downloading the videos only reduces the choppiness by a little bit. I dont have the flickering issue, and to the best of my knowledge, gps works well. Keeps up with games like my bro's Droid X. Snappier than my friends Samsung Galaxy S. Sometimes the soft buttons require a second press to initiate. Overall I'm happy with it, but will be better when CM is installed.
Sent from my MOTWX435KT using Tapatalk

My experience is that gps works just fine the phone is fast, the signal in seattle area is only good downtown anywhere els and it sucks. I searched for towers in my area and sprint has very few towers I get 1 maybe 2 bars max signal at home mostly 0 bars but can still make calls.
wifi works great and when I have a good signal 3g works great but the lack of signal in most places is what sucks my battery down.
Sprint just needs to improve its coverage

bugs i've come across :
widgets resize after holding your phone in landscape mode
wifi can't connect to a router and will keep re-trying, causing the phone to reboot
random reboots
back button will stop working, while other buttons work
light leakage between soft buttons and case
i went from 038 to 039 software and haven't noticed anything yet. i always had a good gps lock on 038 but had horrible reception, 039 doesn't seem to improve that

Faster then my daughters galaxy s , 038,sometimes the back button takes a few times to act like a back button, but over all I'm very happy with it.
Sent from my MOTWX435KT

I came from the Intercept, and so far the Triumph is heads and shoulders above that even though it has a few minor bugs. Most of the stuff works great, my gps is fine, my signal is actually better than my Intercept, and I don't have any screen flickering.
I do have a small amount of light leakage (not a big deal to me) and sometimes my widgets resize, but all in all it's been great for me.

I came from using the Droid X and let me tell you that this phone reminds me of it so much. The only thing that i dobt like is that the battery is a little lacking compared to the X. An im just waiting for a custom rom to come out for this. I was running liberty 2.0.1 on the x and i would love to see something similar.
Sent from my MOTWX435KT using XDA App

Other than the atrocious performance of the battery.......Horrible gps performance which much like my wife works whenever it feels like it. The 3g speeds are an absolute joke also. So far i'm not all that impressed with this phone. I hope that it can be solved via software and that these are not hardware issues. It's my second one....the first one had power issues.

No problems either with _38, had it since 7/14.
Signal is about 5dB weaker v. an OV in the same location, however I have seen several people report making/receiving calls fine w/no bars as well as SMS. The areas that I usually frequent, I have 1-2 "bars"(no a good sig str indicator), 3G no problem.
...and I second the app problem causing thing to f'up. I read an article the other month that the VAST majority of Android phone problems usually end up being some app interfereing with functionality. e.g. I had sudden batt drain problems, so I checked batt useage and found Star Chart(FAOD that day) was using 80% of batt, so I killed it problem solved(in that case).
[EDIT]
3G speeds: VMUSA problem, mine are as craptacular on the MT as they were on the OV, i.e. usually about 56k dialup rates.
[/EDIT]

Well here's an update.
I just got back from BB and exchanged the 1st Triumph with another. It's funny the manufacture date on this one is newer but it has the 38 firmware and my old one had 39 go figure that out. Anyway so far the performance seem just as bad, but the screen doesn't flicker on power on.
Maybe I just have the worst luck and need to try a 3rd one. I really love this phone and want to use it and VM it's so cheap. I'm going to try this one for a few days and cross my fingers my house just has extra crappy reception.
I also bought a Optimus V just to compare the signal network speed as a reference, I haven't swapped to that one. I turned it on non activated and it shows 1 bar signal also. I'll be curious if it goes up once it's offically on the network. I really would like the bigger screen and flash support though from the Triumph.
Maybe I like in the wrong state and should move where you guys live..lol
Thanks for the feedback.
-Lich

Common issues for me now are connectivity, battery drain, and light leaking from the bottom right corner. I'm going to swap mine out before the 30 days are up

mr2011 said:
Common issues for me now are connectivity, battery drain, and light leaking from the bottom right corner. I'm going to swap mine out before the 30 days are up
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
yea i think everyone pretty much has all those problems. if you exchange it you will probably get the same problems or worse. hopefully a new batch will have been released by then

I own both the Triumph and the Optimus V. Reception seems a touch better with this one in known trouble spots around town here. Where the Optimus might lose connection, the Triumph retains it, if barely.

I am having issues with a greenish yellow blob in the middle of the camera. It is reducible within some combination of the setting, but in some instances it is still there. Is this a common issue, or are there MTs which do not exhibit this? The reason I ask, is that I am weighing wether to swap my MT out for another.
I also have intermittent lock screen 'flicker', but from what I have read, it seems to be fairly common. I dont see it often within normal use, but if I repeatedly hit the power button, it becomes visible.
Connectivity does however seem to be stable when I have been using it (both wifi and cdma). Even in cases where there are low bars, I seem to have a decent connection for text/voice.

Has anyone else's battery life gotten more and more horrible by the day? It seems like mine is getting worse as each day passes. The first day I got my Triumph I had some heavy use on it getting all my apps installed and configured and it lasted almost a day and a half for some time on a single charge, now 2 weeks later im having to plug it in maybe twice daily for quick charges.

So the flickering screen issue... Major defect? Or can we count on a solution when custom ROMs become available?
I'm on my 4th Triumph now, and at this point, Best Buy is probably going to ban me from making returns if I go back very much more with this crap..

mr2011 said:
Has anyone else's battery life gotten more and more horrible by the day? It seems like mine is getting worse as each day passes. The first day I got my Triumph I had some heavy use on it getting all my apps installed and configured and it lasted almost a day and a half for some time on a single charge, now 2 weeks later im having to plug it in maybe twice daily for quick charges.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Try calibrating the battery with charge cycles. Might help. Or maybe it is an app you installed?
Sent from my LG Optimus V running Sense 3.0

Amaze or One S

So I love my sister, but she ordered new phones without asking me here. They offered her the One S for100 each and since it's the nest phone right now, she agreed. They should be delivered today out tomorrow.
The thing it's that I'd prefer the Amaze. I really want a dedicated camera button better frontfacing camera, sd card slot, and removable battery. Otoh the One S is slimmer it's supposed to have better battery life and a quicker camera. Le sigh.
Is it worth sending back the One S and ordering an Amaze? When I called CS they said the Amaze pricing would be somewhere between 100 and 200 so it may end up costing more money for the Amaze despite it being an older phone and available free online to upgrades.
is it worth sending back the One.to get the Amaze?
Sent from my HD2 running Dorimanx.

Tough call. I had the option for the GS2, Amaze, blaze and the One S. I went with the One S because of the rear camera, updated tech and premium build quality and feel. If removable storage is deal breaker or a physical camera button then the One S is not for you.
Sent from my HTC VLE_U using xda app-developers app

Keep the One S, you won't regret.

Friend has the blaze and its junk. Sgs2 is better than that. Amaze is a good phone with a bunch of hardware issues. I gave mine away after a few months and got the One S which is the best device tmo has to offer. Built solid, sense 4, globally marketed so much better development. Amaze development is a joke. It has a bunch of 15yr old kids developing a bunch of broken wip roms. Lol. It's embarrassing. Now that they have ics, they're developing CM7 LOLOL.
Get the One S or SGS3... I say the One S
Sent from my HTC VLE_U using Tapatalk 2

Thanks for the replies I first there are proud to the One S . This it's what I was hoping to hear. None of the pros for either phone are complete deal breakers. although the Sd card slot would be nice. I've got 12GB of music on my 32GB card now and 32GB will be hard to give up. Also, the front facing camera is only VGA right? How does it perform in different lighting situations? I'd only really use it for Google hangout and am current using my laptop which also has a VGA camera and I have to have a lot if lighting in order not to be a dark blur on the screen.
Sent from my HD2 running Dorimanx.

jillora said:
Thanks for the replies I first there are proud to the One S . This it's what I was hoping to hear. None of the pros for either phone are complete deal breakers. although the Sd card slot would be nice. I've got 12GB of music on my 32GB card now and 32GB will be hard to give up. Also, the front facing camera is only VGA right? How does it perform in different lighting situations? I'd only really use it for Google hangout and am current using my laptop which also has a VGA camera and I have to have a lot if lighting in order not to be a dark blur on the screen.
Sent from my HD2 running Dorimanx.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
U do get 23GB added to your dropbox for cloud storage as well with One S... Plus Google Play Music works well for uploading up to 20k songs
But if u need an sd slot and removable battery, get the sgs3... Not the Amaze
Sent from my HTC VLE_U using Tapatalk 2

glacierguy said:
Amaze development is a joke. It has a bunch of 15yr old kids developing a bunch of broken wip roms. Lol. It's embarrassing. Now that they have ics, they're developing CM7 LOLOL.
Get the One S or SGS3... I say the One S
Sent from my HTC VLE_U using Tapatalk 2
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
haha, that made my day. sad yes, considering I still have an amaze.
nothing like a dozen themed roms all based off of one underclocked rom. aaaah.
but, I do like the camera button, from sleep it comes on in a second and its no lag, very fast, and great pics. Expandable memory is a plus for me, I couldn't be bothered with dropbox, I prefer to have my data to myself. the vga camera I wouldn't care about, I rarely use my front facing 2mp cam, but quality isn't there, I doubt you'd be able to tell the difference between the two. So, down to you which features are more important.

I have to agree with glacier on this, we just both switched from the Amaze. There are a few good Roms.. most of them are all based off of one Rom, so you get 10 different versions of a rom.
The One S is amazing, the amaze is literally a brick compared to this.
I can actually leave my capacitive lights on without seeing the light bleed, my back over doesn't squeak, I have a stronger WiFi signal.
I would stick with the One S.
Sent from my HTC VLE_U using xda premium

Good to know about the front facing camera. Even though I'd use it maybe once a week, I SO want something better than my laptop camera. Alas, maybe it's not meant to be.
My sister actually waited 3 hours longer than expected for the UPS guy earlier. She lives down near Houston and she was already heading up here to Dallas today so she figured she'd wait for the phone to arrive. The sister is sweet.
I'm cautiously looking forward to it, although it would be hard to beat the all-kinds-of-awesome HD2 for me. It was cheap so I never worry about dropping it on the floor or bricking it and there are so many different ROMs available. Unfortunately I need the money since next month's Tmobile bill is probably going to be over $500(100 plus tax for 2 phones and the upgrade fees and the more expensive plan) so the HD2 is going on Craigslist this weekend. I get way to attached to electronics...

I agree with all these guys I have the amaze and one S IMHO stick with the one.
Sent from my HTC VLE_U using xda premium

I had the Amaze and now have the One S. Between dropbox and google drive I really don't miss having a SD card. The battery life is ok, sucks if you stay connected to wi-fi and use wi-fi calling though. But over all think the One S is far better than the Amaze. Wouldn't go back

robbyb2 said:
I had the Amaze and now have the One S. Between dropbox and google drive I really don't miss having a SD card. The battery life is ok, sucks if you stay connected to wi-fi and use wi-fi calling though. But over all think the One S is far better than the Amaze. Wouldn't go back
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Im on WiFi calling almost all day, and my battery barely drains.
Sent from my HTC VLE_U using xda premium

So we kept the two HTC One S phones. As you say robbyb, the extra dropbox space is nice. I've been uploading my music to Google Play, but it's been taking forever. It is over 6000 songs though.
I should probably start a new thread for this, but I may as well ask here. My immediate first impressions were that the device is really slick and attractive and fast and the cameras are all kinds of awesome. Then I started using the phone and found a glaring deficit, the internet signal strength. grrr.
Both my sister's phone and mine seem to have pretty crappy internet signals. This effects both the mobile data and wifi. While I was getting 2-4 bars in the house and 2-4mbs d/l speeds for 3g and up to 8-9 mbs for wifi with my hd2. Now I'm getting .024-19 mbs for mobile data. Yeah that's quite a range. The .024-.7 mbs happen in the park beside my home and the 18-19 mbs were at the McDonalds less than a mile away. If I'm outside, I get up to 4 mbs. My wifi reception doesn't vary quite as much as the mobile data reception. It's 3-7 mbs. For most of my tests, I stayed in the same place in the house, except for the trips to the park and McDonalds.
The mobile speeds at home suck. If I try to do anything while not connected to the wifi, the connection usually times out. The signal also seems to fluctuate a lot. The phone will be laying on the bed and not moving and the numbers of bars goes down to zero then up again to 3. A few times it's gone up to 5 bars and then I try to use the internet and the connection times out again. The phone also gets really hot at these times.
Yeah and the wifi fluctutuates almost as much. Likewise, it will sit in the same plce and go from 1-4 strength periodically.
I went ahead and changed the APN to the old one I was using with the HD2. I don't know why, but the next test did have almost double the signal strength, although I've still getting connection time outs. For the wifi, I tried FXR Wifi Fix and Rescue which worked great on my signal when the HD2 started acting up again on some random ROM a few months ago. Thought I'd give it another shot and no, it had no effect.
Now I have been using Speedtest and I know it's not completely accurate, but the results make sense based on how the phone is acting when I'm running the tests and I can compare the data to the HD2.
Sorry for the long-winded explanation of our difficulties, does anyone have a solution to wifi and 3g/4g issues. The phones shipped with the newest update from Tmobile and have been restarted several times.

jillora said:
So we kept the two HTC One S phones. As you say robbyb, the extra dropbox space is nice. I've been uploading my music to Google Play, but it's been taking forever. It is over 6000 songs though.
I should probably start a new thread for this, but I may as well ask here. My immediate first impressions were that the device is really slick and attractive and fast and the cameras are all kinds of awesome. Then I started using the phone and found a glaring deficit, the internet signal strength. grrr.
Both my sister's phone and mine seem to have pretty crappy internet signals. This effects both the mobile data and wifi. While I was getting 2-4 bars in the house and 2-4mbs d/l speeds for 3g and up to 8-9 mbs for wifi with my hd2. Now I'm getting .024-19 mbs for mobile data. Yeah that's quite a range. The .024-.7 mbs happen in the park beside my home and the 18-19 mbs were at the McDonalds less than a mile away. If I'm outside, I get up to 4 mbs. My wifi reception doesn't vary quite as much as the mobile data reception. It's 3-7 mbs. For most of my tests, I stayed in the same place in the house, except for the trips to the park and McDonalds.
The mobile speeds at home suck. If I try to do anything while not connected to the wifi, the connection usually times out. The signal also seems to fluctuate a lot. The phone will be laying on the bed and not moving and the numbers of bars goes down to zero then up again to 3. A few times it's gone up to 5 bars and then I try to use the internet and the connection times out again. The phone also gets really hot at these times.
Yeah and the wifi fluctutuates almost as much. Likewise, it will sit in the same plce and go from 1-4 strength periodically.
I went ahead and changed the APN to the old one I was using with the HD2. I don't know why, but the next test did have almost double the signal strength, although I've still getting connection time outs. For the wifi, I tried FXR Wifi Fix and Rescue which worked great on my signal when the HD2 started acting up again on some random ROM a few months ago. Thought I'd give it another shot and no, it had no effect.
Now I have been using Speedtest and I know it's not completely accurate, but the results make sense based on how the phone is acting when I'm running the tests and I can compare the data to the HD2.
Sorry for the long-winded explanation of our difficulties, does anyone have a solution to wifi and 3g/4g issues. The phones shipped with the newest update from Tmobile and have been restarted several times.
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Click to collapse
The Amaze has those problems also, but worse.
Really the only thing you can do is flash a custom rom and hope for the best, Zydroid is pretty awesome right now. Amazing battery life, my wifi signal doesn't fluctuate, my cell signal fluctuates some but I also have a week signal at home.
The only time my phone gets hot is when it's in direct sunlight, which I assume is due to the fact that it's surrounded in aluminum which, gets hot fast in sunlight...

Yeah, that sunlight is not so good for electronics, lol. I wonder if my sister's and my phones are atypical. If the One S usually performs better, we may try to exchange them. That's why it's still stock. I'll wait until I'm outside of the 14 day return period and commited before installing a ROM, although every time I see the app drawer, I want to at least root it and get rid of all the bloatware. Now when I'm not having connection issues, this phone is pretty epic.
Eta the next morning. Oh bother. The phone has been off the charger for 1.5 hours and has only 50% battery left. That's so wrong. When I turned off the WiFi the mobile data couldn't connect until I restarted the phone. Bother that will be annoying if it continues

On my second S3, and its also broken...

How many of you have had to return your S3 due to out of box defects? My first one would chronically overheat, had low signal, miserable 3g speeds (I know they're pretty miserable anyway), awful battery life, and would consistently drop my wifi signal at home.
Now, I'm on my second device. This one doesn't hold a much better signal, and worse yet, I have a very random screen glitch where it shows digital artifacts on some screens, and sometimes it actually flashes and randomly blinks at me, very much like a PC with a bad graphics card. Unfortunately it doesn't do I consistently either.
Am I just the luckiest person alive to get two of these that are bad straight out of the box?
I feel like a dbag taking this one back after I already took the first one back with issues. Especially since the graphics thing is so intermittent.
Sent from your mother's bed.

Sorry to hear that man. The only issue mine has is with very dark Grey screens it shows small black splotches on the screen, otherwise never there and I've looked closely
Otherwise 3G is slow (200kbps or so) but bearable. No other major issues, battery holds a 6.5hr charge with constant use and screen on basically non stop stock battery
Sent from my SCH-I535 using xda app-developers app

On my second one, the first one had a Bluetooth issue. When connected to any BT device it would crackle randomly. The second one had issues out of the box. Same as you, connection was horrible. Even in the same locations and apps, the first one seemed to connect well. I ended up doing several factory resets and now it seems better. My local vzw store was convinced enough to give me a third, but after it settled down I figured that I'd just keep this one. There is something weird about these phones. The connection is worse than my thunderbolt. The battery is all over the place (due to the radio I'm sure). We'll see I guess
Sent from my SCH-I535 using xda app-developers app

I have a blue 16gb and wife has a white 16gb, both arrived early on pre-order. No issues with either phone.

Yeah, it sucks for sure, he phone has so much potential if it worked properly.
I dumped att for Verizon at the same time, and my 14/days are up today. Ill likely port back to att, and wait to see what happens with LTE here.
3G alone is just unbearable on VZ.
Sent from your mother's bed.

ClubDownforce said:
Yeah, it sucks for sure, he phone has so much potential if it worked properly.
I dumped att for Verizon at the same time, and my 14/days are up today. Ill likely port back to att, and wait to see what happens with LTE here.
3G alone is just unbearable on VZ.
Sent from your mother's bed.
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Click to collapse
This is something to do with the phone, not verizon. I said in another thread they need to fix these cell issues asap. My old phone got 3 MBs down and up, this one gets less then 1 on both. 4G is fine but I don't live in 4G area, unless I literally walk a street away...:silly: Start calling and reporting this stuff to customer service. I've been doing this everyday.
Complaining on a forum does not fix the issues.

My first one had the USB port randomly go bad. Returned it in the first 14 days. This second unit is working ok though there seems to be a spec of dust or something under the screen that drives me slightly insane.

Radios have not been samsungs strong points. Wifi essentially does not work until I turn off power save which is a pita and resets after reboot. My rezound never had issues even with wifi on power save
Sent from my SCH-I535 using Tapatalk 2

tonictonic said:
Radios have not been samsungs strong points.
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Click to collapse
Samsung radios have always sucked, Samsung is known for this.
My Rezound had a far better radio than either my current G3 or my Wifes Droid Charge (& the POS Nexus I had briefly was even worse).

Calling customer service doesn't fix "service" issues either, not to mention I don't have time to be on the phone with CS telling them how my service sucks every day. Not to mention that my gf can have full service, the Xoom has full service, and this phone has 3 bars if lucky, along with abysmal download speeds. Its as bad as Sprint with this phone. This doesn't seem to be Verizon isolated either, as local US Cellular customers have also been complaining of slow speeds and bad reception.
I don't even know what else Verizon has that I'd consider. Just sucks, because the phone is very nice.
Sent from your mother's bed.

i returned my gs3 suposedly due to factory defect but i knew it was my fault, and it had 3 dents on it from me dropping it lol... after flashing roms with k-exec so many times, i managed to change the network type to 3g only and the best buy rep couldn't figure out how to get it to connect to 4g. I know how i could of fixed it with phone info from android market but thats after the fact.... So he replaced with a brand new pebble blue 16g gs3 and it was updated to vrlg1 rather the older version. I was greatfull plus i added black tie protection and purchased buy back before they ended the program :fingers-crossed::good:

jmorton10 said:
Samsung radios have always sucked, Samsung is known for this.
My Rezound had a far better radio than either my current G3 or my Wifes Droid Charge (& the POS Nexus I had briefly was even worse).
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Click to collapse
I am still not convinced this is the case. I also have a rezound. They report the signal differently and what I've noticed is that it seems like the Samsung phone because of the way it reports the signal assumes the signal is worse before the rezound does and kicks to 3G sooner.
I don't know if it can be changed so it holds 4G longer, but back when I had an evo 4G with wimax you could tell the phone to hold the signal longer than default and I'd get wimax in my house when default settings would kick me immediately to 3G when I walked through the front door.
So I don't think the phone has terrible radios just that if you rated the 4G signal on a scale of 1-20 with 20 being the worst reception, that the rezound will hold 4G until it hits 18-19 and switch to 3G and the GSIII cuts out at 12-13 and there for where I have signal with my rezound, I could have it with the GSIII, other than it decides to dump the signal.
Sent from my SCH-I535 using xda app-developers app

onpoint10101 said:
i returned my gs3 suposedly due to factory defect but i knew it was my fault, and it had 3 dents on it from me dropping it lol... after flashing roms with k-exec so many times, i managed to change the network type to 3g only and the best buy rep couldn't figure out how to get it to connect to 4g. I know how i could of fixed it with phone info from android market but thats after the fact.... So he replaced with a brand new pebble blue 16g gs3 and it was updated to vrlg1 rather the older version. I was greatfull plus i added black tie protection and purchased buy back before they ended the program :fingers-crossed::good:
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Click to collapse
I work at best buy geek squad. It's not called black tie anymore it's called geek squad protection. Black tie was always the dumbest **** I ever heard. Also buy back is staying for mobile phones forever. The rest of the store got rid of it though cause it was a ripoff LOLOL
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xsteven77x said:
I work at best buy geek squad. It's not called black tie anymore it's called geek squad protection. Black tie was always the dumbest **** I ever heard. Also buy back is staying for mobile phones forever. The rest of the store got rid of it though cause it was a ripoff LOLOL
Sent from my SCH-I535 using xda premium
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
was never called black tie, it was Geeksquad Black Tie protection, Which if you are part of the actual Geeksquad culture, made perfect sense. It just doesn't relate well to your average person.
Also, Buyback is still a plausable rip off. If you are lazy, then it makes sense to get it. I will use my rezound as an example though. Best Buy has the phone in the system for 650. In the first six months I would get back 325 back. If you held the phone like I did for 9 months, you'd get 40% of the phone back, so 260 dollars. Not counting that after 10 months it is 30%. If I sold my phone on swappa, ebay, what have you, including my extended battery, I could get about that much, or more, without having to pay an initial fee to get the ability to get that money back.
Also, people are stupid, and phones that are already s-off, and with a rooted rom sell for more money. Best buy doesn't trade in the extended battery, and it being s-off'd would kill its value, if the tech doing the trade in even knew how to check for that.

My S3 was working great until this week (right after the 14 days return window). Now WiFi is dropping, 4G is running at worse than 3G speeds, phone randomly shuts off, apps that worked fine previously now crash / lock the phone on a black screen. I hope I can just swap this back out for my Thunderbolt without any issues. Hopefully I can get a replacement on this. If the 2nd one has these issues, I'll go back to my Thunderbolt which has been rock-solid since I got it.

angie4u said:
thats weird. Me and two my friends recently switched to S3 and none of us have had issues with the phone.
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same here...no issues. whatsoever...
there are things that i dont like. .but they are tocuhwiz related.
heck i even dropped my S3 in a baby bath tub...(i have a thread about that with pics of it dissembled) & still works flawlessly...
however with all the verizon BS on there...my quadrant scores arent what i thought they would be/should be

enohand said:
same here...no issues. whatsoever...
there are things that i dont like. .but they are tocuhwiz related.
heck i even dropped my S3 in a baby bath tub...(i have a thread about that with pics of it dissembled) & still works flawlessly...
however with all the verizon BS on there...my quadrant scores arent what i thought they would be/should be
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Click to collapse
People have been getting over 5000 scores on my 100% bloated stock deodexed ROM. They have all the Verizon garbage on them.
Sent from my SCH-I535 using xda app-developers app

I'm not complaining about build quality, the speed of the phone, touchwiz, etc. My complaint is simply with what seems to be a slight lapse in quality control, which has affected me twice now, haha.
No biggie. I guess I'll just see what Best Buy says when I take it in.
Sent from my Xoom using Tapatalk 2

nosympathy said:
People have been getting over 5000 scores on my 100% bloated stock deodexed ROM. They have all the Verizon garbage on them.
Sent from my SCH-I535 using xda app-developers app
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Click to collapse
im interested in what & how you got those scores.
i come in consistently around 4200-4600 but i also have the free version so i dont know if thats causing it

My first phone was a pre order phone. For the lifebof me and Samsung and Verizon. We could not get the flipping GPS to find the phone. Both Verizon and Samsung tried to tell me that the phone needs the celular network to use GPS. I had to tell them that that is either impossible or that the phone is falsely advertising stand alone GPS. And if Samsung and Verizon allowed that to be that some one is in for a legal ride. I told them that I would never purchase a phone or any mobile communicqtion device without that option. Long story short they sent me a new one. And everything works perfectly. Well, with the exception of it freezing on me at times. This could be due to an over heating issue or just bad designe in the software. Though it has not happened in a while since I have frozen some of the Verizon and Samsung crap bloat. Specifficly Verizon. They know how to screw a good thing up. Also, I have this thing underclocked at 918MHz-1.134GHz. This helps a great deal because of wifi teather and bluetooth on in my car all day long. Now to find a charger that will let it more than just charge at a snails pace.
Sent from my SCH-I535 using XDA App

Thinking about coming to the s3..

Any apparent issues with these phone? I have the recent Samsung galaxy nexus, and I have the 3g-4g issue with mine and it was a PITA. Any issues with these phones, as in common issues?

This phone started getting really poor signal when the Note 2 came out. It got so bad a lot of people needed to get it replaced! Apparently, the Note 2 didn't have these issues.
Just kidding.
In some areas this phone can have signal issues. At home, work and most other places nearby I get perfectly fine signal. However when I visited some of my friends in Detroit we went to a bar that caused my phone to really heat up in my pocket. I noticed it was on 1x and my battery had been drained pretty good. Its hit or miss, but I'd say 90% of the people have no issues.
Out of the box the phone does not handle Bluetooth calling with an aux cable plugged in. You won't be able to hear the person on the other end until you unplug the cable from the phone. Fortunately, one hobbyist was able to fix what a multi-billion dollar corporation couldn't and released SoundAbout onto the play store. You'll have to buy it to get the Bluetooth correction ability, but it's worth it if this is a function that you use.
Samsung is playing coy about the availability of an extended battery. Only murmers of it exist though some people have managed to get their hands on it overseas. We're hoping this doesn't become vaporware because it's a 3000mah battery that doesn't add too much extra bulk. The stock battery provides average battery life. Better than your GNex but worse than battery titans like the maxx phones and Note 2.
There are issues with the real time clock that causes recovery backups to have an incorrect date. All of my backups were performed in 1970 apparently.
AOSP is very functional on this phone but it's still a WIP. Notable issues include staticy A2DP Bluetooth music playback (mastamoon builds unofficials that fix this at the expense of call echo), massive fps lag upon exiting games (fixed by turning screen off/on) and weaker signal strength in some areas. There may be other issues I'm forgetting about, but that's most of it.
There is a small chance you can lose your IMEI number when you flash custom ROMs or kernels. This is bad as it causes your phone to lose its ability to make calls, send texts or receive data. Luckily there are easy methods to back this up and restore if needed. I've backed mine up and thankfully have never needed to restore it. Look for the thread titled Comprehensive IMEI Backup for more details.
That's most of the issues with this phone.
Sent from my SCH-I535 using Tapatalk 2

No comparison to the GNEX. The GNEX was just terrible when it came to signal. The S3 might not be the best signal phone, but it is leaps and bounds above the GNEX.

[email protected] said:
No comparison to the GNEX. The GNEX was just terrible when it came to signal. The S3 might not be the best signal phone, but it is leaps and bounds above the GNEX.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
VERY true story!
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I've been having trouble with signal reception at home, but that's the only place I have an issue. My house seems to be in a deadzone with a radius of no more than 200m. My iPhone4 didn't have a problem with calls there, but hte GS3 does. That said, I don't really have a problem anywhere else. A network extender remedied that issue. I also get a quick A2DP audio skip once every couple of minutes, but that doesn't bother me much.
Aside from that, it's been an awesome phone. Lot's of support, and lots of roms to try out.

You have 14 days to return, give it a run. I have zero signal issues.
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I have the 32G blue on Verizon and although I don't always have a strong signal I have never had a dropped call. I travel a lot and watch the 4G and cell signal, most of the time I have 4G about 80 % the rest is 3G. Did notice that when the phone is switching between the two occasionally it will go to 1x not all the time. I did flash like a dozen ROMs not loosing my IMEI, however I did back it up b4 I started flashing just in case. Recommend you do a lot of reading b4 you start flashing n you shouldn't have any problems. Love the phone n the ROMs
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Thanks guys especially the 2nd poster!

This phone is awesome and one of the best I've owned so.
Came from the flagship thunderbolt on the verizon network.

Oh the thunderbolt my wife has had 6 of them none worked right
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I've had mine a couple of week now. I came from a Motorola Bionic. I would much rather the Bionic's radio, I find I have reception issue in places the Bionic was fine in. I got my wife a S3 also, it seems like her reception is better than mine.
Other than that, the phone is amazing. I would and have recommended it.