Verizon GS3 signal reception thread

[Skeeter125]

What's weird is that S3 owners on androidcentral seem to be reporting significantly worse results than I'm seeing here. Over here I'm generally optimistic and over there I feel like throwing in the towel and waiting for the Max HD.

it seems over there they are going off simply the bars and numbers and seems like there is the same few who are having data issues. I think until people realize #'s do not always make the signal people will just keep using that as a measure. They don't have the great info like users on here have provided in links, write ups, etc.

 

[bennybbc]

it seems over there they are going off simply the bars and numbers and seems like there is the same few who are having data issues. I think until people realize #'s do not always make the signal people will just keep using that as a measure. They don't have the great info like users on here have provided in links, write ups, etc.

If only that were true...

 

[heyeaglefn]

Exchanging my wife's phone due to echo issue, no issue on my phone yet.

 

[rushmore]

What's weird is that S3 owners on androidcentral seem to be reporting significantly worse results than I'm seeing here. Over here I'm generally optimistic and over there I feel like throwing in the towel and waiting for the Max HD.

Maybe they are Motorola plants

 

[bennybbc]

My daughter got her SGS3 yesterday. I got mine today. I'm soooo disappointed after reading some of the more positive reports on this thread. But no, both of our phones get really crappy reception for both 3G and phone (Talk) reception. No 4G here until the end or the year or so.

Db's don't make any difference so don't ask. Number of "bars" don't make any difference either. The fact is that sitting at my desk with my 2 year old DroidX I get pretty decent 3G coverage and I can get 3G anywhere in my house. I've never dropped a call anywhere in my house, ever. The calls aren't always crystal clear but they always hold the line.

My new SGS3 will only get 1x and it's a very weak signal. During the phone's setup I had to turn on wifi because the phone stopped getting 1x. What the hell?! I've received 3 phone calls so far. the first one sounded very clear but half way through it dropped the call. She calls back and the call is very garbled and it drops the call. I get a call from somebody else (Not sure who) and it's completely garbled and it drops that call in about 10 seconds or less. My son comes out with his Bionic that's a couple of weeks old. Holding my SGS3 and his Bionic side by side he gets a decent 3G signal and I barely get 1x. I call his number and in less than 10 seconds it drops the call. It wasn't garbled but it wasn't very clear.

I've been really patient waiting for the phone. I've read the reports of really poor reception and a few that said they got pretty decent reception. People have spewed all sorts of technical jargon and numbers about signal strength. Irrelevant! How does the phone compare to any other phone you have or have had? That is the ONLY thing that matters so why even bother with the numbers?

It's arguably the most technologically advanced phone you can buy in the U.S. right now but sooo many people, including myself and my daughter have phones that don't really work as phones and unless we're using wifi the internet is practically out of reach at home. This is in a home where we don't normally get great 3G reception but it's usually pretty decent. We don't always get great phone reception but it's usually fair to pretty good. Sigh...This just SUCKS!!!

I haven't tried the phone outside of the house anywhere around my town yet but I'm doing that next. If the reception is the same or anywhere near as bad as it is in my house I'll have about half a dozen or so cases and 1 screen protector for sale after I return my POS SGS3. I can't express how disappointed I am in this phone right now. I NEED to have phone reception. It's the phone number that I give everybody I know or do business with. I have a good wifi signal but that won't work outside my house. What possible fix could Samsung or Verizon have for this huge blunder that is the SGS3's terrible radio reception?

Benny

 

[EarlyMon]

Benny - sorry to hear about the trouble. Maybe a good idea to have the both of them back to the store. Rough handling during shipping or a bad batch during production could explain why those are bad when others are good.

In my personal opinion, stand for your consumer rights. Lemons happen but life is too short to hassle bad phones.

Best luck!

 

[Ken7]

Maybe they are Motorola plants

Could be and if so, someone should stop watering them.

 

[rushmore]

Our reception thread should be renamed the Great Roller Coaster ride. Up & down, up & down. Some of us are still way back in the line. Double Boo.

Good idea, Ken7

 

[Blacklight82]

Worse than the Rezound but better than the Thunderbolt.

 

[dfran1]

Hi all ,
I received mine yesterday withing 5 minutes of getting home from work after my wife stayed home for me all day

Anyway I knew I was going to work in a hospital today that has very bad reception on all my previous phones in areas I work in.

matter in fact just 1 week ago today I was in an electric closet that my iPhone 4s was breaking up bad.....

Results .......

I am a very picky person when it comes to this signal stuff (it has to work)

guess what......

the Siii works just as good as my other phones and iPhone 4s, no worse at all if anything maybe very very slightly better!!

I was using it a lot and calling people just to see.

I did get 1 call that went to voicemail but I was in an area that was just no reception on any of my previous phones also.

I spent 8

 

[Phases]

No paperclip option for me. Only an image option but it asks for a web address not a locally stored image.

Under my posting rules, it says the following:
You may post new threads
You may post replies
You may not post attachments - DING, DING, DING. I guess I'm blacklisted
You may edit your posts

Let me look into this, you're the second today to report it.

 

[jazztalker]

Just activated mine about an hour ago, haven't played around with it at all, but just spent about 45 minutes on the phone testing it out. I wrote down a bunch of signal numbers and whatnot today, and I'll compare at the same times tomorrow, but the sound quality on the call was great. It sounded clear and crisp, and I had no issues walking to different rooms or levels of my place. I was on the phone with my parents, and it took my mom awhile to come up with a way to describe how it sounded differently from my old phone, she could tell there was a difference, but couldn't quite describe it. After a few minutes, finally she said it sounded like I was talking on a regular (non-mobile) phone. They could hear me loud and clear, the speakerphone worked a lot better than other phones I've had, and while it's only 1 trial, I'd say so far so good!

 

[gnexowner]

Yup call quality is great for me and signal. i knew it would, nexus was good for me as well.

 

[Ken7]

Does anyone know when this is available in-store at VZW?

 

[parapluie]

Does anyone know when this is available in-store at VZW?

I called my local store today and was told they will have it in stock on Thursday.

 

[ymDroid]

Wife and I have received the error message 'insert SIM card.' This has happened around our 4 g town, and in our house.

Is this a signal problem, or a SIM card problem?

My wife's is all over the place with this issue.

It will read 4 bars of 4g, and once she makes a call it reads " no sim card". After a few attempts to make a call it will finally connect. But after she hangs up, she gets the same message. Some, text go through, some give her the " no mobile network available".

VZW said its because we used a new sim card, but switched back to the old one and they programmed it, erased the other, and she still has the same issues.

So now, vzw says that all the Sims were bad, and they are sending a new sim. but the sim that came in the box was new as well. Sucks to not have a phone she can't use. Sucks to call her and not know if this is the call that is going to go through, or the call that's going straight to voicemail.

The Vzw rep said that the 4g fall out is a known issue, and would require a reboot. But she hadn't experience anything like this where the phone is selectively disconnecting from the sim card.

And for the record, the sim card has been inserted and reseated 100 times, to include power cycles.

What's left to do? Wait for another sim? Reconnect her rooted Gnex that had a poor signal, but never lost a call.

Kinda frustrated.

 

[yorklab]

I got my S3 today, and compared it to m wife's brand new Rarz Maxx around the house and around town. The Razr Maxx had about 10 to 20% better signal strength most of the time using Open Signal. I was in a fringe area where the S3 was at 1x but the Maxx still had two bars of signal strength. Wi-Fi had similar results. I went to my usual spot to play on the phone under wi-fi, but had no connection; the Maxx still had Wi-Fi. Connection in the same spot.

I'm going to try it at work to see how it goes. My Droid X has a decent signal, and a coworker also has no issues there with his Rarz, but another co-worker purchased a Nexus and can't get a signal.

I should mention that although there was a point where the Maxx still had a good signal and the S3 had the1x signal, I made a phone call on the S3 and it was crystal clear.

I'll report back after I do more testing tomorrow at work. The S3 has to have a good showing there to change my mind about sending it back.

The sad part is, I did my usual research and decided the Razr Maxx was the phone I wanted, and Verizon had them on sale for $100 off....perfect. But instead of ordering two (me and my wife) I got a wild hair and ordered the S3 along with lots of extras for myself (I rarely purchase anything without lots of user reviews so this was way out in left field for me). After everything is said and done it will end up costing me $100 more if I switch to the Maxx; an expensive lesson.

 

[c4v3man]

I will say this, my GS3 got into a condition where it has good signal, but no data, until I toggle airplane on/off. Then data is restored. I had this same issue on my Spectrum, so not sure if it's the local network, or what. It seems to happen when I'm attempting to stream, walk away from my wifi network. It's almost like it keeps trying wifi. Since I have unlimited data, and Verizon is intent on screwing us over with a locked bootloader, I'm simply going to remove my wifi router password again and test tomorrow. My WiFi performance seemed to be the same at the office, if not a slightly higher signal strength.

 

[wishiwas]

Well, after suffering with really poor signal for the past 24 hours, I returned my 2 S3's.
I love that phone, but the signal was a deal breaker for me.
I am hearing some positive info about the Razr HD being equally speced if not better than the S3 so at this point, I'm going to have deal with my old phone. I need it for work. When I took the S3 into the same building as my old 4g phone, the signal died at the door.
Verizon swapped sim cards but I still had the same results.
I can't understand how some people are getting better signal with their S3 than others, but all the more power to you.
For me, as great a phone as the S3 is, it's useless if you can't actually get signal.

 

[Ken7]

My wife's is all over the place with this issue.

It will read 4 bars of 4g, and once she makes a call it reads " no sim card". After a few attempts to make a call it will finally connect. But after she hangs up, she gets the same message. Some, text go through, some give her the " no mobile network available".

VZW said its because we used a new sim card, but switched back to the old one and they programmed it, erased the other, and she still has the same issues.

So now, vzw says that all the Sims were bad, and they are sending a new sim. but the sim that came in the box was new as well. Sucks to not have a phone she can't use. Sucks to call her and not know if this is the call that is going to go through, or the call that's going straight to voicemail.

The Vzw rep said that the 4g fall out is a known issue, and would require a reboot. But she hadn't experience anything like this where the phone is selectively disconnecting from the sim card.

And for the record, the sim card has been inserted and reseated 100 times, to include power cycles.

What's left to do? Wait for another sim? Reconnect her rooted Gnex that had a poor signal, but never lost a call.

Kinda frustrated.

Sure sounds like a defective phone. You tried 2 Sims with no luck and you're not having any issues. I'd swap the phone, the hell with the sim.

 

[Ken7]

I got my S3 today, and compared it to m wife's brand new Rarz Maxx around the house and around town. The Razr Maxx had about 10 to 20% better signal strength most of the time using Open Signal. I was in a fringe area where the S3 was at 1x but the Maxx still had two bars of signal strength. Wi-Fi had similar results. I went to my usual spot to play on the phone under wi-fi, but had no connection; the Maxx still had Wi-Fi. Connection in the same spot.

I'm going to try it at work to see how it goes. My Droid X has a decent signal, and a coworker also has no issues there with his Rarz, but another co-worker purchased a Nexus and can't get a signal.

I should mention that although there was a point where the Maxx still had a good signal and the S3 had the1x signal, I made a phone call on the S3 and it was crystal clear.

I'll report back after I do more testing tomorrow at work. The S3 has to have a good showing there to change my mind about sending it back.

The sad part is, I did my usual research and decided the Razr Maxx was the phone I wanted, and Verizon had them on sale for $100 off....perfect. But instead of ordering two (me and my wife) I got a wild hair and ordered the S3 along with lots of extras for myself (I rarely purchase anything without lots of user reviews so this was way out in left field for me). After everything is said and done it will end up costing me $100 more if I switch to the Maxx; an expensive lesson.

This kind of post scares me since it sounds so 'typical Samsung' and what I've experienced with the Charge and GNex.

 

[rushmore]

I guess it all depends on where you are, since an aggregate view so far suggests the G3 is not as "tolerant" of regional network quality fluctuations. Though the trend so far is a roller coaster, the mean of the trend appears to be downward overall (in relation to Razr). Question is how far down? The ground IMO is the Gnex and the top of the ride is the Razr & Rezound. The G3 appears somewhere in between- on average. Will that be good enough?

If the reception is not close to the Razr (within reason), I will return it (whenever I get the dang thing) and wait on the Razr HD..... Frankly, I hope the reception is good, since in spite of the dimmer display (IMO), the HD will have a fixed navigation bar on the display (HATE IT) and a fixed battery (DOUBLE HATE).

The positive for the HD is the Atrix lapdock will not be a sunk cost and still will have mass storage mode. I paid $65 bucks for that lapdock- that could have went to a lot of good beer.

Added: I agree with other posters in that the results so far here and other forums are REALLY all over the place and have yet to settle down. The mean trend here seems to trend slightly up, but in contrast, the mean for Androidcentral is downward (not slight).

Excptions to this are the Gnex where the mean trend was all down and the Razr mean trend was all up. If we accept these two devices as controls parameters, this suggests the G3 is somewhere in between.

 

[Ken7]

Rushmore, I agree as you know, my tolerance for connectivity issues will be low on the G3. I know full well when I have issues at the beginning, they never get better. I'll no longer be 'fooled' into thinking software updates will fix things. If it doesn't work from the beginning, it goes back.

So the issue becomes how much tolerance will I have for signal issues that the Razr Max did not have? My guess is I'll like the G3 overall design, display etc. better than the Razr HD. With that said, I simply won't go through what I've gone through with the GNex & Charge on the connectivity side (never had issues with calls on either phone, just data).

Interestingly most G3 reviews never mention signal reception at all and the one that did said it was better than the GNex and not quite as good as the Max. So here we are and I'm not sure where that is.

I read your post about the dim display and that really threw me for a loop. I haven't heard of others complaining about that, but to be honest I've been concentrating on signal threads only. So it's possible this other issue has eluded me. Is this an issue others are seeing? That would be a real shocker since the one thing you can generally bank on as NOT being an issue with the Sammys, is the display.

 

[Ken7]

Looking at the polling on Android Central, unfortunately it seems that 71% are saying the reception on their G3 is either substantially worse or the same as their previous LTE phone (I discounted the #s for the category 'coming from a 3G phone').

Of course the poll would have been more useful if we knew what LTE phone they were coming from.

 

[thelber]

My Wife just got her Galaxy S3 and I took some comparison readings against my Razr Maxx from my home. I took readings from the best reception area (kitchen) and the worst reception area (basement).

Tested both phone in same location on Wi-Fi and on 4G and 3G. Both phones on ICS. For signal strength I used Open Signal App. For speedtest I used speedtest.net app. The 4G reading was in the kitchen where I get the best cell signal. The 3G is in the basement where the cell signal is weaker and both phones automatically switched over to 3G. For all tests I tested the Razr Maxx first and then immediately after the test was done I did the Galaxy S3 test.

Here are my findings:

KITCHEN
Razr Maxx.......Galaxy S3
-59 dBm.........-50 dBm.......Wi-Fi Signal Strength
87ms.............-96ms..........Wi-Fi Ping
3721 kbps.......4653 kbps....Wi-Fi Download Speed
1296 kbps.......1736 kbps....Wi-Fi Upload Speed

2 Bars.............1 Bar..........4G Bar Reading on Phone
-73 dBm..........-77 dBm......4G Signal Strength
85%...............83%...........4G Signal Strength Reading (Open Signal App)
108 ms...........161 ms........4G Ping
2189 kbps.......1536 kbps....4G Download Speed
151 kbps.........170 kbps.....4G Upload Speed

BASEMENT
Razr Maxx.......Galaxy S3
-70 dBm.........-73 dBm.......Wi-Fi Signal Strength
74ms.............79ms...........Wi-Fi Ping
4910 kbps.......3137 kbps....Wi-Fi Download Speed
1713 kbps.......564 kbps......Wi-Fi Upload Speed

2 Bars............2 Bars..........3G Bar Reading on Phone
-85 dBm.........-91 dBm........3G Signal Strength
56%..............51%.............3G Signal Strength Reading (Open Signal App)
254 ms..........264 ms..........3G Ping
57 kbps.........34 kbps.........3G Download Speed
27 kbps.........33 kbps..........3G Upload Speed


I'm thinking about switching to an S3 from my Razr Maxx but am concerned with signal strength like others. I take a lot of photos and the Razr Maxx camera doesn't cut it for me. Battery life is also a concern and yesterday was the first full day with the S3. The S3 battery held up much better than I thought.....I'd guess that it lasts 75-80% of the Razr Maxx battery from what I've seen just in one day. Once I started running these tests both phone's batteries dropped significantly.

Ultimately I'm still on the fence.