Verizon GS3 signal reception thread

[rushmore]

Rushmore ( & all you other fine people on this forum ) here is the second part of this test you asked me to perform, you know the one where you said do this test w/ both devices in a " not so good " signal area. We went out to dinner at a restaurant that we frequent quite regularly. W/ my DROID Charge I would always be so annoyed b/c it would do the whole 1x one minute, then switch to 3G for a few minutes, and then for like 5 to 10 seconds go to 4G LTE & then the whole process would start over this while having 1 to 2 bars. My wife would be over there w/ her RAZR RAXX just Facebooking away w/ 2 bars & 3G the whole time. So I figured this would be a great place to test the S3 & since this is the first time I've left the house all weekend you get what you get.

Weather Conditions : Same as before, not a cloud in the sky.
RAZR MAXX: 2 bars w/ 3G in the notification bar, however when I went into the settings where the signal readout is it said 1x ( - 95dBm ) & also at the same time a readout of 3G ( -103dbm )

S3: 2 bars of 3G with a reading of ( -93 dBm ) It did not give the 1x reading as well like the RAZR MAXX did.

I would look at both devices about every 4 to 5 minutes to make sure they weren't changing from a bar & signal standpoint & both stayed at 3G & 2 bars the whole time. So all & all again not bad. A plus for me was that I was actually able to use my phone ( S3 ) there tonight as w/ my DROID Charge in the past it was impossible to do anything on it when it was bouncing all over the place like it did when we went there in the past.

So Rushmore I hope this is what you were looking for & don't need anything else b/c now I have to go warm up a left over 12oz. NY Strip b/c I spent the whole time at dinner looking at my phone for you.

Much obliged!

Surprised your wife was so understanding.... Not sure mine would be..... I hope she did not hear that.....

 

[Member 536573]

Much obliged!

Surprised your wife was so understanding.... Not sure mine would be..... I hope she did not hear that.....

Like all good wives she let me do it & just " took it for the team. "


:smokin:

 

[Raftysworld]

Unfortunately, I think there is probably a positive response bias at play here. Brand new, shiny, expensive device... we WANT to believe there are no problems with it. So we marginalize and ignore them... Focus only on the good parts and downplay the bad.

 

[Member 536573]

Unfortunately, I think there is probably a positive response bias at play here. Brand new, shiny, expensive device... we WANT to believe there are no problems with it. So we marginalize and ignore them... Focus only on the good parts and downplay the bad.

Trust me my friend if there were problems I would say so. I paid over $700.00 for this device & wouldn't brainwash myself to ignore problems b/c it's shiny & new.

 

[Raftysworld]

Trust me my friend if there were problems I would say so. I paid over $700.00 for this device & wouldn't brainwash myself to ignore problems b/c it's shiny & new.

I'm not saying you specifically, or everyone would exhibit this behavior. I'm just saying that it's hard to get truly unbiased analysis from everyone when people just put down hundreds of dollars on a phone that they REALLY WANT to love.

 

[dmaxfan]

Rushmore ( & all you other fine people on this forum ) here is the second part of this test you asked me to perform, you know the one where you said do this test w/ both devices in a " not so good " signal area. We went out to dinner at a restaurant that we frequent quite regularly. W/ my DROID Charge I would always be so annoyed b/c it would do the whole 1x one minute, then switch to 3G for a few minutes, and then for like 5 to 10 seconds go to 4G LTE & then the whole process would start over this while having 1 to 2 bars. My wife would be over there w/ her RAZR RAXX just Facebooking away w/ 2 bars & 3G the whole time. So I figured this would be a great place to test the S3 & since this is the first time I've left the house all weekend you get what you get.

Weather Conditions : Same as before, not a cloud in the sky.
RAZR MAXX: 2 bars w/ 3G in the notification bar, however when I went into the settings where the signal readout is it said 1x ( - 95dBm ) & also at the same time a readout of 3G ( -103dbm )

S3: 2 bars of 3G with a reading of ( -93 dBm ) It did not give the 1x reading as well like the RAZR MAXX did.

I would look at both devices about every 4 to 5 minutes to make sure they weren't changing from a bar & signal standpoint & both stayed at 3G & 2 bars the whole time. So all & all again not bad. A plus for me was that I was actually able to use my phone ( S3 ) there tonight as w/ my DROID Charge in the past it was impossible to do anything on it when it was bouncing all over the place like it did when we went there in the past.

So Rushmore I hope this is what you were looking for & don't need anything else b/c now I have to go warm up a left over 12oz. NY Strip b/c I spent the whole time at dinner looking at my phone for you.

Just curious, where was yours built? Korea or China?

 

[Member 536573]

I'm not saying you specifically, or everyone would exhibit this behavior. I'm just saying that it's hard to get truly unbiased analysis from everyone when people just put down hundreds of dollars on a phone that they REALLY WANT to love.

Honestly, I find people find more reason to not love their devices they threw hundreds of dollars down on. For example you already have people complaining about battery life & that if it doesn't get better they are going to return their phones. Yet they have only had the phone 2 days & are running 4G all day. Sure your battery life sucks, you need to give your battery a good week of work to get it where it needs to be & 4G eats battery life like the Cookie Monster eats cookies so use Wi-Fi. My point is people complain more on these phones when not needed then they do report positive things when needed. Look at all the threads 80% negative 20% positive ( & thats probably a stretch ). Sorry to go on a tangent here, but I'm tired of all the negative threads on here that are just people not knowing how to work their phone. Sorry if I got off topic on this post.

 

[Member 536573]

Just curious, where was yours built? Korea or China?

My Blue 32GB was made in China.

 

[sorka]

but the phone has already been ordered. It does not matter if every other person who has the phone has good reception if it doesnt work for you doesnt matter if for me it gets better reception since its you using the phone. That's why i do not understand why everyone is freaking out. Wait until you get the phone and if it doesnt work return it. We all have the same 14 days to return it

The problem is a bunch of us are trying to decide *before* we crack the box because if reception is an issue, we'll want to ebay them, pocket the proffit, and then buy off contract when the Fighter/ Maxx HD comes out. For those o us still on unlimited that is.

 

[dmaxfan]

My Blue 32GB was made in China.

Yep. Mines white 32GB made in China also

 

[Member 536573]

Yep. Mines white 32GB made in China also

You sure? Your avatar makes me think it's a 32DD made in Los Angeles.

 

[Ches111]

The folks saying Moto's RIL is much better do not understand where we are currently.


If both companies are using he same radio "I got it from the link that I posted and you quoted" the S4 this means they are both starting from square 1 as this is a new SOC. So their code is likely to be very similar. Also likely is an API/Driver was given to each vendor to allow them each to gain acces to services provided in the S4. If they are both working from an API /Driver then you will find their code to be extrmemly similar.

Where they may differ is the design and placement of the antennas. Although there are not too many liberties that you can take with this either. Are they using a 1/4 wave vs 1/8.wave antenna? Given the size of phones it is likely they are using similar designs as well due to constraints. This leaves us with placement which could be crucial as demonstrated by Apple in the 4/4S external antenna solution which allowed/encouraged the user to change the length of the antenna because of the way they held it.

Hope this helps.

 

[you2]

I'm not trying to exclude it; rather just suggesting that if it is a little worse than the razr it might still be very usable. Btw the fellow never said if this was 3G or 4G. Also not mentioned is how well the phone works with weak signal. I.e, i'm not convinced that my razr handles a weak signal that well.

Why do people try to exclude the RAZR from the comparison? Someone else said the same thing when discussing battery life. I guess if you want the SIII and battery life and reception are important, then you have to remove Motorola from the mix.

A friend had a good saying "if you haven't seen the sun, you think the moon is bright".

I'm not coming here as a troll, or a Motorola fanboy, but to me, battery life and reception are more compelling to me than any of the features I've seen on the SIII.

 

[rushmore]

I'm not saying you specifically, or everyone would exhibit this behavior. I'm just saying that it's hard to get truly unbiased analysis from everyone when people just put down hundreds of dollars on a phone that they REALLY WANT to love.

It is called new device pixie dust. Some are very allergic to it, but other are not.

I eat pixies for breakfast. Delish.

 

[rushmore]

Actually for many of us, it would be more like a $650 mistake. Many of us may well buy off-contract, so poor decisions will be very costly.

Agreed and I am one of those too.

As far as testing, I have a similar threshold place to test as treb's. My office gets poor 3g signal that that fluctuates from weak to awful and 4g is a little better. Of course, the way 4g works, weak 4g is better than great 3g. Razr is what I will compare the GS3 with.

Rather than signal numbers, I will focus first on streaming performance as soon as I eventually finally actually possibly get the GS3. With VZW constrained on supply, I can see VZW choke Best Buy out to cover their store launch and preorders.

A cynic, I be. Harrrrrrr!

 

[Travisimo]

The problem is a bunch of us are trying to decide *before* we crack the box because if reception is an issue, we'll want to ebay them, pocket the proffit, and then buy off contract when the Fighter/ Maxx HD comes out. For those o us still on unlimited that is.

I'm in the same boat. Out of curiosity, how would you go about doing this with an unopened GS3? You still have to activate it, right, since it's assigned to the line you purchased it on? So you can activate it without opening the box, and then re-activate your old phone? Then just sell the phone unopened?

 

[sorka]

I'm in the same boat. Out of curiosity, how would you go about doing this with an unopened GS3? You still have to activate it, right, since it's assigned to the line you purchased it on? So you can activate it without opening the box, and then re-activate your old phone? Then just sell the phone unopened?

Folks on the forum have been saying to call customer service to activate it and to let them know it's still in the box box because it's a gift.

Still waiting for someone to respond with whether that actually works, but there are hundreds of vzw S3s for sale on ebay with sellers doing exactly that.

 

[Ken7]

I can deal with data being a little flaky, but voice has to work and so far so good.

Actually my issue is the opposite. Even with the prior lousy Samsung radios, maintaining a call was never the issue, it was always data drops while my wife's IPhone rarely had an issue. So for me I expect the 'phone call experience' to be fine regardless of the phone. What separates the men from the boys in my area is maintaining a data flow.

 

[Ken7]

The folks saying Moto's RIL is much better do not understand where we are currently.


If both companies are using he same radio "I got it from the link that I posted and you quoted" the S4 this means they are both starting from square 1 as this is a new SOC. So their code is likely to be very similar. Also likely is an API/Driver was given to each vendor to allow them each to gain acces to services provided in the S4. If they are both working from an API /Driver then you will find their code to be extrmemly similar.

Where they may differ is the design and placement of the antennas. Although there are not too many liberties that you can take with this either. Are they using a 1/4 wave vs 1/8.wave antenna? Given the size of phones it is likely they are using similar designs as well due to constraints. This leaves us with placement which could be crucial as demonstrated by Apple in the 4/4S external antenna solution which allowed/encouraged the user to change the length of the antenna because of the way they held it.

Hope this helps.

Unless there are cost rationales, wouldn't it be safe to assume that the only reason Mot would change the radio given their great history of class-leading reception, would be a further improvement in reception? It's hard to believe they would venture into a chip that would compromise reception relative to the reception Mots have been enjoying for years.

So if you are correct and if the code, chip and whatever else is the same in the Sammys, then yes, reception should be the same. But do we know for sure that the radios are the same? We don't know if the antennas and their placement are the same either.

So we still have several variables that can alter the performance between the upcoming Razr HD and the S3.

 

[Skeeter125]

Unfortunately, I think there is probably a positive response bias at play here. Brand new, shiny, expensive device... we WANT to believe there are no problems with it. So we marginalize and ignore them... Focus only on the good parts and downplay the bad.

Look at all the negative posts and very few positive posts. I'd say you couldn't be farther from the truth seeing how people already are saying they are returning it.

 

[Ken7]

Razr is what I will compare the GS3 with.

Rather than signal numbers, I will focus first on streaming performance as soon as I eventually finally actually possibly get the GS3.

That's the comparison I want to see as well as a similar environment with the GNex and GS3. It's those comparisons that will either make me a believer or a waiter for the Max HD.

Truth be told, if I knew exactly when the Max HD was coming out, I'd rather wait and choose between the HD and the S3. My gut is I'll probably like the form factor of the S3 better, but it will be interesting to see which screen is the better looking. Hard to bet against Samsung in that kind of comparison.

OTOH, my bet is that the Max HD will still have the better reception.

 

[red66charger]

Ok, for those that are reporting your phone's signal level, are you actually having reception issues, or are you just saying "my dB is -100 so it must be bad"?

I'd be ecstatic if I could get -100 dbm indoors on my GNex. Unfortunately -120 is the norm.

 

[svensett]

I'd be ecstatic if I could get -100 dbm indoors on my GNex. Unfortunately -120 is the norm.

Do you have connection issues?

 

[2horses]

So, once I activate my S3 (in hand right now, but not activated yet) will I still be able to power on my old Dx and compare signal strength between the two? I'm thinking not, if it is removed from the network. Or will it still work, just won't have my phone number associated with it?

 

[Thechidz]

So, once I activate my S3 (in hand right now, but not activated yet) will I still be able to power on my old Dx and compare signal strength between the two? I'm thinking not, if it is removed from the network. Or will it still work, just won't have my phone number associated with it?

nope data will shut off right away