Verizon GS3 signal reception thread

[rushmore]

After ongoing tests, I pretty much solidified my reception perspective during the Batman marathon my oldest son and I went to:

The Droid 3 is better than GS3 and Razr for 3G signal reception. I gave my son the Droid 3 when I got the Razr and doing video stream tests in buildings or on the road, D3 was king. My son reminded me of the focus I had on this when first got the Razr and our trip to Florida.

In the signal challenged theater, we had plenty of time between flicks. Had the opportunity to compare with D3, GS3 and Razr. Droid 3 smacks them both down for 3G and had no trouble streaming video while the GS3 and Razr had to cache a few times. Same for downloading.

That along with the other tests I think have a comparative scale:

3G= Droid 3 > Razr > GS3 4G= GS3 > RAZR

For phone call range, they all appear to be the same. THIS at least IMO is the most important thing. Compared to other phones, can I make calls when I need to?

Another thing I notice and has been backed up by VZW field techs (most are contractors) a lot of the issues we may be seeing are noise due to network transition efforts and ongoing maintenance to facilitate the transition.

This to me explains part of the "all over the place" results. I had similar issues with the Razr, but NOT the Droid 3. The common component I think is that for VZW, 3G/4G radio design may be a dubious bridge for a few years.

None the less, the GS3 is a keeper. Battery life, speed, "cooler" running chipset, sweet display, amazing sound AND the ability to make calls when I need to cover the bases for me

The one thing though that is common for the Droid 3, GS3 and Razr is they all run hot when using GPS beyond fifteen minutes. Razr is a little hotter, but all three run hot.

Added: I understand why the GPS runs hotter than other radios, so not an issue of bad design. Just the physics of the chips and signal, plus stuffing that in a small form factor.

 

[cmybliss]

After ongoing tests, I pretty much solidified my reception perspective during the Batman marathon my oldest son and I went to:

The Droid 3 is better than GS3 and Razr for 3G signal reception. I gave my son the Droid 3 when I got the Razr and doing video stream tests in buildings or on the road, D3 was king. My son reminded me of the focus I had on this when first got the Razr and our trip to Florida.

In the signal challenged theater, we had plenty of time between flicks. Had the opportunity to compare with D3, GS3 and Razr. Droid 3 smacks them both down for 3G and had no trouble streaming video while the GS3 and Razr had to cache a few times. Same for downloading.

That along with the other tests I think have a comparative scale:

3G= Droid 3 > Razr > GS3 4G= GS3 > RAZR

For phone call range, they all appear to be the same. THIS at least IMO is the most important thing. Compared to other phones, can I make calls when I need to?

Another think I notice and this has been backed up by VZW field techs (most are contractors) a lot of the issues we may be seeing are noise due to network transition efforts and ongoing maintenance to facilitate the transition.

This to me explains part of the "all over the place" results. I had similar issues with the Razr, but NOT the Droid 3. The common component I think is that for VZW, 3G/4G radio design may be a dubious bridge for a few years.

None the less, the GS3 is a keeper. Battery life, speed, "cooler" running chipset, sweet display, amazing sound AND the ability to make calls when I need to cover the bases for me

The one thing though that is common for the Droid 3, GS3 and Razr is they all run hot when using GPS beyond fifteen minutes. Razr is a little hotter, but all three run hot.

Added: I understand why the GPS runs hotter than other radios, so not an issue of bad design. Just the physics of the chips and signal, plus stuffing that in a small form factor.

Thanks for such a great write up!

 

[bennybbc]

Yesterday my wife and I were going out to dinner and we had to make a stop at her work for a few minutes. While I waited out in the car killing time for a few minutes I checked the signal strength of my phone (Settings>About Phone>Status) and it read: -87dbm/8ASU. Far better than I typically get at home where I usually have about -102dbm/1ASU. The phone showed 3 bars of 1x instead of 3G. That was surprising since I usually get 3G pretty much anywhere around town. I powered the phone off and back on again and checked again. New readings: -73dbm/16ASU and the phone now showed 3 bars of 3G. I didn't have time to check the actual voice or data connection by talking or loading a website like I normally would while testing the phone. But the numbers were somewhat surprising. That was all I had time to do before my wife came back out and we were off to our favorite Indian restaurant. When I try the same thing at home there is never a change in the numbers.

Honestly, the numbers really don't mean that much to me. What matters to me is if it will hold a voice connection without dropping and the quality of the call. Also, if I can connect to whatever website I'm looking for and how snappy it is when doing so. I've seen many comments and somewhat speculative explanations as to why the numbers are important and the phone connecting to this tower when it should be connecting to that tower, etc. etc. But...

For me this thread is just about at the end of it's useful life. I appreciate that some are still working out the hows and whys of the bizarre signal reception that some/many of the SGS3 owners are experiencing and there still may be some answers to be had. But it's beyond my "pay grade" when it comes to technical expertise. I've swapped the phone along with the sim card. I've changed various settings according to recommendations on this thread as well as following the instructions of a couple of different Verizon tech VSR's. We even swapped my daughter's SGS3 and the results have been the same.

Other than the improvement (At least numbers-wise) seen in my first paragraph, the only time voice and data reception for our phones have improved was a few days after receiving our phones. As I already reported, neither phone was able to make phone calls at home where no other phone has ever had a problem at all. Getting ANY data reception was hit and miss and mostly miss, 1x only. I swapped my phone but not my daughter's and somehow both of them can suddenly get passable (but kinda rough) voice reception at home. And while the data connection was still hit and miss it was mostly hit then and I could actually see 3G part of the time. With no 4G available in my area yet I can't check that.

Nothing has really changed since then and we've decided to keep our phones. The reception around town is fine but sometimes not stellar. Mostly comparable to my Droid X. We both like the rest of the phone but I gotta be honest and say that the reception problems that are clearly a real problem with MANY SGS3 owners, (and certainly my daughter's and mine) has seriously knocked the "Sparkle" off of the phone. Shame on Samsung and Verizon for allowing this to happen.

I appreciate the attempts at figuring out these problems and suggestions but for me this horse, while still twitching and kicking a little, is just about dead. Good luck to you all and I hope there is a breakthrough but at this point it appears that the quest for SGS3 signal reception enlightenment has stalled for me. Sorry I haven't been able to contribute more to the explanations.

Benny

 

[rushmore]

Benny, I think the Razr Maxx would be a good fit, or wait for the HD. I would have waited for the HD, but HATE a fixed navigation bar taking up display space and too easy to touch by mistake.

 

[Trent Reznor]

My fiancee was coming from a 3g phone when I got the GS3 so I activated the sim that came with the phone (associated with her #). After activating her sim in the GS3 I swapped sims between the Gnex and the GS3.

I've had some concerns this week because my GS3 had less signal (per dBm) than the Gnex showed in the same spot side by side. My upload speeds on 4g were also lower than what I see with my Gnex. When putting her sim in the GS3 I would also get much better speedtest results... but comparable signal.

So early this morning I did a "master reset" (using a code dialed from the phone pad) that reset the phone and reactivated my sim. Since doing this I am seeing significantly better network performance.

Before After


I made sure I was in the same spot and on the same server. I also tested multiple times (before/after) to get a sense of what is typical.

I was now curious how my GS3 would stack up to other GS3's so I took a trip to VZW. They had a white and blurple on display. White was reading -69 dBm and blue was reading -73 dBm. I swapped the locations and the white read -73 dBm and blue -70 dbm. My GS3 was reading -74 dBm. Given I was holding mine and the store GS3's were free standing and the difference in location... I'm comfortable that mine is at least on par with other GS3s.

Interesting the Gnex on display ~8ft away was reading -66 dBm but did not get as good speedtest results as the GS3's.

Net/net.... i'm keeping my GS3 and am going to back to playing with it vs worrying about dBm's. I have yet to drop a phone call and have had no one way audios. I do have places at work where I lose signal but I also lost signal with the Gnex at these spots.

 

[Ken7]

The one thing though that is common for the Droid 3, GS3 and Razr is they all run hot when using GPS beyond fifteen minutes. Razr is a little hotter, but all three run hot.

One thing I noticed when in really bad signal areas, the S3 still does run hot. I probably didn't notice it before because some of the areas I'd been in with the S3 were areas where the GNex would get very hot and suffer from shortened battery life. However many of these areas didn't have the same effect on the S3.

But when you do run in to places like that where the S3 struggles, it too will get pretty hot.

All in all I'm still very impressed with the phone. It's a keeper.

 

[dfran1]

I dont know what happened this morning and day with my siii
went off to work and my siii never connected to 3g, I had no data at all! Until I hit 4g areas, like 3g was down in my areas

I rebooted, removed the battery, removed sim, and all I got was very little 3g, in all areas that I have 4g it was fine but in my 3g areas, mostly no data at all, sometimes I would get some then, nothing again...

I hope they were working on things cause this sucked big time!!!!

On the way home all seemed well

I did the post by "sorka" just moments ago, hope that or something verizon was doing, cause all I thought about was having to load everything all over again after a replacement phone.

One more thing now that I am home I have been watching the wifi data signal up top and it keeps downloading
I quit everything ran system panel lite and it says im downloading very little data , it has slowed down now but ?? is there any app that will tell me what app is doing this or are all your phones doing the same?

update:
the day after it was better, I have now noticed it takes a few seconds to switch from wifi to 3g, but 4g when im in the areas seem to switch much faster, unfortunately for me, I have more 3g and not enough 4g yet.

Now I also had the phone in power savings mode so that may be the sluggish switch to 3g but still no problems with 4g, maybe Verizon sent an update to these phones this past week to get them to switch better, who knows but them.

I love the phone way better than my iPhones that I had, apps that I had or played on iPhone are showing up now on android and I think some are better, the rest are equal but getting better on the android most likely cause is apple locks things down way too much and android has lots of freedom for developers.

things that I can live with but wish I didn't

1. Battery seems to go quickly when in weaker signals (all my phones did this)

2. The samsung stock email app, I think samsung butchered it cause my moto zoom stock email app works great with hotmail and the samsung one does not (but livable), I have to scroll to the bottom of every, every email and click on load more details on every email every time, my zoom has it so I click once to show then click again to always show, what is so hard to do that!!!!!!

Yes I tried just about all other email apps and the rest are worse in one way or the other, especially the hotmail one by Microsoft, you cant have anymore than 30 days (thats what I set it to now anyway but if I wanted more Im out of luck), and attachments, they either go thru or dont (this I need for work).

3. Speaker phone works but sounded much better on my iPhones, I have a blue tooth desk speaker coming in to hopefully solve this. (no biggie anyway)

4. The screen gets !hot! when on for a while, and makes the rest of the phone hot, lucky I have a car mount near a vent with AC blowing on it while using GPS and stuff.

5. Wi-Fi is something weird and most likely seems something software related, most of the time it works but sometimes it chugs, now in saying that I have normal and 5GHz, I have set the 5GHz for static IP and left the other and never had this happen on the 5GHz after I set it, so I now set both for static.

I hope everyone is enjoying this wonderful beast!

Also one last thing I am damm glad we US folks have 2 gig cause there are lots of times I look at the memory and Im like using 1.3 gig of it sometimes more, 1 gig would not cut it for me at least.
This has to be the first phone that I may actually have for 2 or even more years! (as long as verizon or samsung dont screw it up, and Im not even thinking about rooting, at least for a while, jelly bean is coming anyway and this does everything I want and need without rooting-at the moment)

 

[ksmith2012]

We will probably have to get through a week of denial before the real story of reception comes to light.

I really want the phone. I'm not looking for it to have the best reception out there just enough to get by with.

I am in the backwoods so only have 3g. The reception is not enough to get by with. Mine is going back today.

 

[rushmore]

Got my blue 32gb now. IMO, a lot better to look at then the white and better for looking at the display, rather than the white border.

This 32gb has "UPDATED" on the box and a newer kernel dated July 4 (the white 32gb was June 16). As far as if it improves reception or not, I am more inclined to say it does not and perhaps even made it a tad weaker. I will confirm when I get home to my fringe dwelling areas. If it did get weaker, that will tell it fairly quick.

The GS3 alread stands out in a weaker way compared to the Droid 3 for 3G (the Razr also was left in the dust), so hoping there has not been a step back. Do not have my Razr now, so can not compare directly to that, but know the fringe spots.

I am hoping I get home and test and turns into a "false positive". FWIW, 4G is still working in my office (a good test), but dBm appears about five points less. Ditto for the VZW store, when I went in there to compare to other devices as I did at launch.

At least I can not say for sure at the moment on if hurt reception, but 99% sure it did not help.

Added: Yep, the blue is IMO- MUCH x2 better.

 

[ylexot]

Got my blue 32gb now. IMO, a lot better to look at then the white and better for looking at the display, rather than the white border.

This 32gb has "UPDATED" on the box and a newer kernel dated July 4 (the white 32gb was June 16). As far as if it improves reception or not, I am more inclined to say it does not and perhaps even made it a tad weaker. I will confirm when I get home to my fringe dwelling areas. If it did get weaker, that will tell it fairly quick.

The GS3 alread stands out in a weaker way compared to the Droid 3 for 3G (the Razr also was left in the dust), so hoping there has not been a step back. Do not have my Razr now, so can not compare directly to that, but know the fringe spots.

I am hoping I get home and test and turns into a "false positive". FWIW, 4G is still working in my office (a good test), but dBm appears about five points less. Ditto for the VZW store, when I went in there to compare to other devices as I did at launch.

At least I can not say for sure at the moment on if hurt reception, but 99% sure it did not help.

Added: Yep, the blue is IMO- MUCH x2 better.

I'm confused. The entire post goes on about evidence of the blue one being worse until the very last line where you said it's better. Were your initial impressions and evidence incorrect? What evidence changed that decision?

 

[rsarno]

Got my phone yesterday so i can finally chime in a bit. I dont plan on doing any extensive testing (unless someone requests me to), but this issue just hopped out at me

I went to the local Subway restaurant i always go to every day for my lunch. My inc2 usually had no bars, but enough to play online or make calls as needed.

today i went in with my gs3 and began loading a webpage (this forum, actually) and all of a sudden it said "Network error" or something. It was apparent i had no service.

 

[rushmore]

I'm confused. The entire post goes on about evidence of the blue one being worse until the very last line where you said it's better. Were your initial impressions and evidence incorrect? What evidence changed that decision?

I have stated before the Droid 3 and Razr have better 3G signal (Droid 3 being king), but the issue here is 4G. The update does not appear to help reception at all. It seems neutral, but based on the apparent 5 dBm point loss in three key places I tested before, it APPEARS there is a chance the reception might be a tad less.

Performance does not seem to be impacted so far, so waiting until home and around fringe areas to confirm if correct. Point is the update has not improved the dBm signal (for me), but is about five points weaker.

Will check it out more later. I have noticed some other things, but want to confirm if just me being a rube.

 

[ylexot]

I have stated before the Droid 3 and Razr have better 3G signal (Droid 3 being king), but the issue here is 4G. The update does not appear to help reception at all. It seems neutral, but based on the apparent 5 dBm point loss in three key places I tested before, it APPEARS there is a chance the reception might be a tad less.

Performance does not seem to be impacted so far, so waiting until home and around fringe areas to confirm if correct. Point is the update has not improved the dBm signal (for me), but is about five points weaker.

Will check it out more later. I have noticed some other things, but want to confirm if just me being a rube.

Then what did you mean by this:

Added: Yep, the blue is IMO- MUCH x2 better.

That's the part that is confusing. It does not follow based on anything that was posted just prior to it.

 

[snilloconator]

Got my phone yesterday so i can finally chime in a bit. I dont plan on doing any extensive testing (unless someone requests me to), but this issue just hopped out at me

I went to the local Subway restaurant i always go to every day for my lunch. My inc2 usually had no bars, but enough to play online or make calls as needed.

today i went in with my gs3 and began loading a webpage (this forum, actually) and all of a sudden it said "Network error" or something. It was apparent i had no service.

I'm curious to what version is your baseband version?

LF2 or G1? or something different.

Reason is I'm experiencing some weird signal strengths and low bars after Verizon did a swap on my sim yesterday to port my ATT #? or I'm wondering if I just got a busted up sim card. Not sure but it seems after they ported my phone# over with the new sim I don't have as good as a connection.

 

[Odin3]

Then what did you mean by this:
That's the part that is confusing. It does not follow based on anything that was posted just prior to it.

I bet he was talking about the black bezel of the blue model.

 

[ylexot]

I bet he was talking about the black bezel of the blue model.

Well, I'm glad he's filling us all in on his color preferences in the reception thread.

 

[rsarno]

I'm curious to what version is your baseband version?

LF2 or G1? or something different.

Reason is I'm experiencing some weird signal strengths and low bars after Verizon did a swap on my sim yesterday to port my ATT #? or I'm wondering if I just got a busted up sim card. Not sure but it seems after they ported my phone# over with the new sim I don't have as good as a connection.

LG1

Is that outdated? I haven't looked into it at all

 

[rushmore]

Then what did you mean by this:
That's the part that is confusing. It does not follow based on anything that was posted just prior to it.

Oh! I was referring again to the color. Now I see where I went bad.

The good news on the reception side there is no news. Definitely not better, so it is either the same, or slightly weaker. Not sure yet.

Sorry about the color focus, but the dark bezel makes the display better to me. At least I know that.

 

[snilloconator]

Nope lg1 is the update.

 

[Ken7]

I'm confused. The entire post goes on about evidence of the blue one being worse until the very last line where you said it's better. Were your initial impressions and evidence incorrect? What evidence changed that decision?

It's funny you mention about 'blue vs white'. In most of the stores I've been to, for whatever reason, it seems the white one performs a bit better than the blue one. Not sure if they're made in different plants, but it's been pretty consistent from what I've seen.

With that said, I much prefer the 'look' of the blue.

 

[treb1797]

Me's like the purple

 

[rushmore]

Me like purple, but me also confused. I was going to post today a "the reception is weaker" post, but decided to do more tests with Speed Test and streaming video.

Download Speed Test history:

1. White 32 June 16 kernel = 10500 average with a max of 11200 (over several days of tests). Tight results.
2. Blue 32 July 4 kernel = 7800 average with a max of 10100 (over several hours random tests). Results were all over the place.
3. Today the blue 32 is averaging 13000 with a max of 14600. A lot tighter results again.

I think there is a lot of bias in actual network stability and the devices we use are but pawns on the playing board of its performance. Well, that or checkers.

Added:

Phone call range still appears as good as the Razr. I wish I were heading to east Kentucky sometime soon, since that is where the Razr was awful for reception, but the Droid 3 had a little better results.

 

[Ken7]

I think there is a lot of bias in actual network stability and the devices we use are but pawns on the playing board of its performance. Well, that or checkers.

I think there's a lot of truth in that. I had noticed that on my return visit to one of the VZW stores when my S3 outperformed or matched their samples. The day before it was the other way around.

Why there should be this degree of variability is beyond me. Yesterday we were out east on Long Island and there were several places where my wife's IPhone refused to complete a call. Each time that happened, my S3 had no trouble at all completing a call. JOY!!!!!

OK, I feel a little bad for her...well not too bad....nah, I'm really happy!

 

[mseifert]

I have had my Verizon Samsung Galaxy S3 for 2 weeks and finally am out of denial that it doesn't match my old X. Using OpenSignalMaps I get the following side by side:

Droid X
Cell Connection: EVDO A
Strength: -89dbm 12asu
Signal Strength: 56%

S3
Cell Connection: eHRPD
Strength: -99dbm 7asu
Signal Strength: 32%

I am on a fringe area so I can tell that calls drop more frequently and are of less quality with the S3. I use wifi for data since signal doesn't work well with either phone.

Verizon is sending me a new SIMM (of course) as that is their protocol. I'm afraid that it is a design issue, but it seems that there is hope based on the experience of others. Maybe I just need to get lucky with a replacement that has a slightly better build. I will post back with results (SIMM arrives in 2 days via fedex).

 

[you2]

I read somehwere that an eng claimed the antenna is badly placed and reception is much higher if you place the phone on a table; has anyone with weak signal tested this ?