Could be that those devices have the new kernel update.....
Apparently not Rush. Here's what happened tonight. I went back to the same store for a possible sim card replacement and to look at cases. Of course I couldn't resist going back to the original two display devices to compare once again.
This time things were quite different. My S3 consistently did better than their blue S3 and generally matched or, at times, did slightly better than their white S3. Same store, same location, same two display S3s and the same approach to comparing, just different results. Bizarre, utterly bizarre.
As a result of this I walked out with a case, but told the sales guy I changed my mind about a sim card swap (which he was more than happy to do for me). At this point I didn't want to mess with anything.
Being as anal as I am, I went to another VZW Corporate Store in a much better signal area. There they had another white & blue S3. Here again my S3 did better than their blue S3 and generally matched their white S3. At times their white S3 showed a bit better signal than mine and a minute or two later, mine showed a bit better signal than theirs.
It seems there are just too many factors that go in to these comparisons and a single test at one location is simply not telling you enough.
At first I felt it was more a question of Phone A doing better than Phone B at one location and then the results potentially switching around at another location. But here I went to the same location that got me concerned and the results were very different. I can't begin to explain why. Even if you conjectured that atmospheric conditions played a role or the signal quality itself changed on that day, it would have done that for all the phones within that general area or store and the comparative results should have been the same.
The bottom line is that I'm happy with what I've got and I'm convinced these results can be all over the place with the same devices. I'd bet the reception, on average, of most of these units falls within a fairly narrow range.
However, do testing on any given day at any given location, and who knows what results you might get.
