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Help Signal Strength

I tried to warn some folks in the main thread a few times, and was jumped on a bit for it. Nothing excessive, but I think that the fanboyism took over on this one.

Its one of the reasons that I bailed on the GN and got a Razr. Could not be happier. Only thing I am missing right now is ICS, but we already have a dev with ICS booted on it. More goodness to follow.

As Ive stated before, Moto is king of radios. I will definitely have a Nexus someday, but not today. Most likely when Motorola is making the phone and not Samsung.

Cheers.

The other thing Motorola tends to be a "King" of is releasing phones that will eventually work. The Droid 1 was fine but every phone since then has had some sort of quirky quirkiness that prevented normal functionality until months after release. This was true for the Droid 2, Droid X, Bionic, Droid 3....the Razr seems to have fewer but they are still there. All I know with the Nexus is I have no issues yet. 5 hours and traveling around town on 4g LTE
 
People seeing a pattern here? :(


Historically, that number hasn't meant a whole lot. Take the Bionic for instance vs the Thunderbolt (pre update Bionic) the bionic would have 4 bars, full signal strength, yet no data capabilities. The OG Incredible vs the Eris had some similar things where the bars were reporting one thing but functionality was difference. IF it says 0 bars and you can still call, text, or whatever...there isn't an issue. I have ran several speed tests with different strengths and they are just generally sporadic like the world of a cell phone is. I have a Bionic, Incredible 1, and my Nex laying here....so I wouldn't put much thought into the bars vs the functionality.
 
I guess I am one of the lucky ones.

Cruising around town, at home or in the stores today I have probably averages 24 down and 15 up.

At home one time I hit 36 down and 22 up. I haven't dropped any calls and people have actually told me how much better I sound than on my OG droid or the Bionic I had for 2 weeks.

Battery life isn't all that great but I don't expect it to be fabulous on a 4G phone with the specs they have these days.
 
The other thing Motorola tends to be a "King" of is releasing phones that will eventually work. The Droid 1 was fine but every phone since then has had some sort of quirky quirkiness that prevented normal functionality until months after release. This was true for the Droid 2, Droid X, Bionic, Droid 3....the Razr seems to have fewer but they are still there. All I know with the Nexus is I have no issues yet. 5 hours and traveling around town on 4g LTE

I have had no issues with any of my Droid's.
 
Oh, LTE is great. Previous response was related to call signal only. I'm getting solid 4G signal inside brick building 15-21 up 5-12 down. Slightly slower than I was getting with the Rezound yesterday but not much. And as far as call quality so far - excellent. Calls so far in limited testing have been equal or better than rezound and better than TB. Will do more testing outside brick building, around town and home. These are initial.
 
How is everyone finding Signal strength?

I stopped by my friendly neighborhood VZW Corporate store. There were 12 people in line for he GN. I went just to check it out and compare. One thing I noticed was the signal strength. The device had v4.0.2, but the signal strength seemed subpar.

I compared it to the Razr, Rezound, Bionic, and Charge. All these devices where around -39dBm to -55dBm, but the Nexus was -120dBm. The Motorola's had the best signal strength.

I'm a little concerned from that stand point. What are others seeing?

Mine is -81
 
Before I left work to get my Nexus, I checked to see what my Droid's signal strength was before I left. I tend to get very poor reception at work.

In my cubicle:
Droid 1 = -90dBm
Galaxy Nexus = -111dBm

I haven't made any calls yet.

People keep throwing these numbers out, but I am very curious as to how much worse -111dBm is compared to -90dBm. Does anyone have any insight on this?

How big of a difference is 11dBm?
How big of a difference is 20dBm?
How much dBm difference does there need to be for the average user to notice?
 
Before I left work to get my Nexus, I checked to see what my Droid's signal strength was before I left. I tend to get very poor reception at work.

In my cubicle:
Droid 1 = -90dBm
Galaxy Nexus = -111dBm

I haven't made any calls yet.

People keep throwing these numbers out, but I am very curious as to how much worse -111dBm is compared to -90dBm. Does anyone have any insight on this?

How big of a difference is 11dBm?
How big of a difference is 20dBm?
How much dBm difference does there need to be for the average user to notice?

IMO, anything over 90 is poor. Anything over 100 is awful.
 
I'm at -81 on my incredible and -93 on the nexus holding them right next to each other...running speed test now, will report back in a min

Speed test results are actually better on the nexus than they were on my incredible. I only live in a 3g area but I just got 1.6 down and 0.8 up. My Inc usually got around 1.0 down only if not a little less

Also now after I've been sitting on the couch for a bit and turned my Inc off, the nexus is down to -83. Right about where the Inc was...
 
See...

If there are no issues, the decibel numbers should be used as an indicator of the type of area you're in....good or bad reception.

For folks that are in a known bad reception area, they should be able to just pull up the decibel numbers and use it like a compass to find a better area. In my building its the 6th floor of the right side of the building, dont know the decibel readings right now. Only spot I know of where I can get 4G in the building that I actually tried.

I agree we need to hear how is the phone actually working while it says -120 or -110 or -90 or -95, etc. Again for reference...-120, -125 is absolutely no signal. If the phone gets reception and it says that....somethings wrong. The difference between a good, great and a so so radio for reception is that it will work in areas, at decibels readings where some others dont. And the only way to really tell this is to be in a bad reception area. History with me and Samsung for reference:

Samsung U740, Omnia 1 didnt work in places my E815, Droid 1, Droid X1 and RAZR does. And so far the RAZR edges my Droid X1 for phone reception. Probably for 3G too. I live n work in a bad reception area. Decibels at work can be -120. For reference at my ex GF apt it was -75. I know an area where the reading is -55. Best I've been in so far.

I dont really care about LTE reception, since I wont be using that alot. I wanna know about phone reception tho.... And I will be keeping an eye on this thread too. It might save me an unneeded return. I'm planning on getting a G Nex to compare it with my RAZR. Or even Droid X1 and Droid 1 for phone reception. I can live with Droid 1 reception. Mind you....the Droid X1 was better than my Droid 1 and the RAZR was better than my Droid X1. And when I got the Droid 1....the only other phone I had that was on par was the E815, that I can remember.

My RAZR can get 2-4 bars, clear to kinda clear calls, not too many drops and some 3G in my apt at -99. Now...if I move around I can lose the call easy depending on where I go and have no 3G. For me to get 4G I have to go outside.
 
Well we just got back from a shopping mall we go to quite often. When I had the Rezound, I got 4G pretty much throughout the mall and very solid data regardless. The really bad news is the GNex struggles to keep 4G for any length of time anywhere in the mall.

In fact, for a short period I lost ALL data (no 4G/3G). This is just very reminiscent of what I wen through with the Charge.

Folks, I see ZERO difference in radio performance between these two. If someone tells me it's a brand new radio in the GNex, my response will be "So what, it performs exactly the same".

This is a real bummer for me. I mean I knew there was a significant chance I'd have 4G issues, but deep down inside I thought they'd fix it.

I will say this, the GPS is definitely a lot better than it was on the Charge, but frankly at this point that's not enough for me. I think mine is going back.
 
A friend of mine that works for VZW corp informed me a little bit ago that there is another update coming down the pipe (4.1?) that will really help if not solve the signal issues. He said it should probably be in the next week or two. He also suggested I take this with a grain of salt because of the last few weeks and the update delays that delayed the phone's launch.
 
Report is that it's showing a lower signal strength than is actually there. Bars are irrelevant, check actual signal strength in settings and you'll notice it's peachy.
 
I posted this in another thread, but needs to be here too. I stopped at a vzw store on the way home from work. Wanted to check the reception on the Nexus. I currently have the Rezound.

The Nexus was -103dBm, 2 bars. The Rezound was at -80dBm, 3 bars. I downloaded speed test on the Nexus. I did the test twice on both my Rezound and the Nexus. The Nexus was at 8-9 down and 4 up. The Rezound was 13-14 down and just over 3 up.

I also checked out a few sites on the Nexus browser and they loaded pretty fast.

I made a few calls on the Nexus. No problems connecting and it sounded perfectly fine.

Our last Samsung, a Fascinate was poor. It could maintain a signal, but the reception was below average.
 
Report is that it's showing a lower signal strength than is actually there. Bars are irrelevant, check actual signal strength in settings and you'll notice it's peachy.

I wish.

Consistently showing -100 db to -103 as a signal whereas before I would get -89 db to -92 db.

This sucks.
 
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