(Sorry, I just went back and this is super long. Bear with me please

Or just skip to my conjectured conclusion at the bottom heh)
So I met a buddy for lunch who has the Nexus. We both fired up sensorly to compare our dBm, and not surprisingly, we were sitting at identical 3G and 4G signals within 1 dBm on the LTE side.
Initially (outside) we were both at -72 dBm 3G and I was at -102 dBm and him -103 dBm. We waited a few updates and the LTE signal was always within 5 dBm of my Rezound, though mine tended to fluctuate
up while his Nexus would fluctuate
down. But for the most part they were within 5 dBm of each other most of the time. I did notice that my 3G signal would say pretty consistently at -72:-75 dBm while his occasionally was as low as -89 dBm, but it was again usually very close to my Rezound.
So while we were outside, we ran a speedtest.net run (both from the same server

) and despite the same signal, my speeds were quite better.
Rezound: 10946 kbps down, 11109 kbps up, 52 ms latency
Nexus: 9035 kbps down, 3951 kbps up, 88 ms latency
We went inside for lunch and I was going to test again, but he had no 4G signal at all. Mine was 1 bar (according to sensorly, at about -102 dBm, fluctuating as low as -110 dBm) and never dropped 4G. So I wasn't able to do a speed test on his phone. I ran one on mine and the results were still quite good, but noticeably worse inside. As for 3G signal, the rezound was hovering between -78 dBm and -85 dBm and his Nexus was fluctuating more, generally between -89 dBm and -100-ish dBm (can't remember if it was 102 or 100), but was usually down near 89. So slightly worse, but not bad. I did not run a 3G speed test comparison unfortunately, but I did run a 4G test on the rezound during this time:
Rezound: 9692 kbps down, 3666 kbps up, 88 ms latency
Nexus: no data (3G only)
Later on, I asked to look at his phone (ok, I admit, it was to fondle it. SUE ME!). And I noticed he then had 4G! It was only 1 bar and the signal was -112 dBm to -110 dBm, but it remained on 4G long enough to run a speed test. So it was about 10 dBm lower than the Rezound once it was able to get back onto 4G. So here are the speed test results inside:
Rezound: 12945 kbps down, 5158 kbps up, 70 ms latency
Nexus: 7017 kbps down, 1725 kbps up, 88 ms latency
So what are the takeaways from this? A few things:
- I do think there is a software issue causing inaccurate bars as well as premature 4G to 3G toggling.
- The Nexus signal (at least in this location) outside was nearly identical to the Rezound. This is just one data point, but I have a feeling outside radio levels will be comparable between the two.
- Where the Rezound really seems to shine is with better speeds with a low-ish signal. Even outside when both phones had -102 dBm or so, the Rezound was able to pull slightly fast download speeds, but more importantly the upload speeds were
significantly better in this marginal area.
- Similarly, the Rezound seems to handle being inside this particular building (but it corroborates the results I saw in other locations and some of the other posts here) better than the Nexus. Either the signal was too faint to stay on 4G when we initially went in (though I did test 5-10 minutes after entering the building), or the software saw the signal fluctuate and decided it was time to drop to 3G. Only later when the signal stabilized did it go back to 4G.
So I think the problems some are seeing is due to a combination of two things:
1. signal level seems to fluctuate more on the Nexus' radio compared to the Rezound. I believe this is a hardware (radio) limitation, but who knows perhaps a radio firmware update can improve this.
2. software is too quick to drop from 4G to 3G. I think it's absolutely related to point 1. because if the signal fluctuates down to an "unacceptable" level (according to the software), it drops to 3G, even though it may still be capable of holding onto 4G.
I think item 1. can be worked around by fiddling with the tolerance for these fluctuations or only toggling when the fluctuations remain below the threshold for X number of samples per T period rather than as soon as a sample dips below the threshold. And if the radio can be stabilized a bit, issue 2 may be a non-issue or only happen in
very marginal signal areas.
Overall, at least based on what I saw today and some of the other reports, it looks to me like people in strong signal areas won't have the issue, as the fluctuations won't bring it below the software's toggle threshold, while people in weaker signal areas will see 4G to 3G toggles more often. Obviously, this is all conjecture based on the data I've seen so far, but I think the chances are very good this can be improved significantly (though maybe not 100%) with some radio firmware updates and/or software tweaks.
