For those of you with the verizon version of the nexus how is signal strength (4g, 3g and call) compared to otther phones (such as razr and rezound). Over at phandroid folks seem to be saying that 4g is a real issue (very weak signal) and perhaps a few dropped calls.
The Razr definitely had better signals overall. I always had full 3G bars and strong 4G at work. Now I have 2 bars of 3G.
Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using XDA App
really bad compared to my droid charge. Almost -20dBm less wherever I go
Any other happy owners of the verizion version care to chime in ?
Its definitely worse then the Droid X, but it looks much worse if you just compare bars. I compared them side by side:
Droid X - full bars, 90dBm
Galaxy Nexus - 2 bars, 93dBm
I have a Charge and will be getting the Nexus tomorrow. I will do some side by side comparisons. It would be nice to hear more comments from others...
Looks like a bar less but so far reception hasn't suffered.
Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using XDA App
Coming from the Rezound, the signal is terrible on the Nexus.
At my house I used to get full bars and 4G on the Rezound, I now get 2 bars max and 3G only.
I can get a 4G signal for a couple minutes after rebooting but it never stays.
-100 to -120 dBm ans 2 to 23 asu.
Everything else is great about this phone.
I've only had Verizon for a week, but I have a different experience than most here.
I got the Rezound last Friday and got the Nexus early this morning. With the Rezound I couldn't maintain 4G at my desk at work beyond 1 bar (it could hold 1 bar, but moving from my desk would drop me to 3G)...but I dropped in on work today (even though I'm on vacation) and at my desk I was blasting 3 bars of 4G.
At home it's about the same. Either way, it's better than AT&T =P
i dont know about DB (which is really the only thing that matters) but in a low signal area of my office building i show less signal than my droid incredible did.. again this is only bars NOT db... not sure the difference there.
Ive only had the Nexus today but so far signal has been great 3/4 bars all day and lightning speeds. I get the speed in my sig (+/- 5/10Mb/s) at my house.
The difference between db and bars is that db has meaning and bars do not. So any comparisons of I had x bars on this and x bars on this have no real meaning as they are not a set measurement.
In myexperience, I'm seeming to hold a solid 4g signal slightly better than my thunderbolt did. Never had real trouble with signal in general with either here to judge performance in low signal areas. However, I would have issues getting 4g at all at home with the thunderbolt while I haven't had any yet on this tiny sample size of one evening...
Razr had excellent signal and call quality in my house (friends phone) not quite as good compared to my wifes Htc Evo on sprint.
I had just got done playing with the Rezound for 4 weeks until i switched to the Sgn today, Rezound and Sgn are about even in this area of Wi... Signal is basically zero in my house, matches the Rezound dead even.
I have faster 3g internet (Sgn) than my wifes Evo on 4g with Sprint. But i dropped calls with the Rezound where the Evo and Razr held strong...
Dont quite understand the towers up here, I have faster internet than sprints 4g service, But signal and call quality are better on my wifes Evo on sprint
Razr has better signal and call quality compared to the Rezound and Sgn...
Sorry if this is confusing, Im sleep typing.
I'm actually a bit confused as to whether the signal is awful or just not super duper. From the mobiletech review it sounds passable but some folks seem to be having a miserable experience.
Related
Has anyone read this article? Very informative.
http://www.anandtech.com/show/5254/investigating-the-galaxy-nexus-lte-signal-issue
Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using XDA App
interesting read.
For a long time people have blamed their handsets for problems when the truth is there are always a lot of network issues out there at any given time.
Simply blaming your handset and assuming the network is 'great' because it has full bars or a good db is not the way to go.
Bars or db ultimately mean nothing, they do not mean you will get good speeds or in some cases to be able to make a call, in my experience its rare that the handset is to blame
True.
I had the RAZR before my phone. I would bet that the RAZR wasn't showing the correct signal strength and this is what a lot of people are comparing.
Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using XDA App
aye it would be interesting if someone ran some speed tests on the two devices side by side to what what the speeds v coverage were like
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jimdurt said:
They still have some issues to work on. My OG Droid gave me a better signal at my house on 3g. At least measuring the db strength. I dont have 4g here so the measurement in db strength should be sufficient to accurately see which phone has better reception.
Give Google time. They have the right hardware. Just need to get the software tweaked a bit more.
My wifes DroidX consistantly shows -93dBm with 3 bars of 3g service, while my GNex bounces a little more between -120dBm(most of the time) to -93dBm(rarely)
Even with no bars and @-120dBm, i get 600kbps download. Thankfully i have 18mbps download service through ATT Uverse wifi.
I do have to mention, my service improved ALOT from 4.0.1 to 4.0.2 update.
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At -120 on 3g your lucky to anysort of dl
My 3g/4g signal has never been better. This phone is twice as good as my incredible.
WiFi signal strength does seem to be a little less strong but nothing horrible. Now I wish they would figure out why the OS won't go to sleep.
Well, Verizon resolved all my Nexus, CDMA, and LTE issues for me in one fell swoop. They called me yesterday and told me that they couldn't provide me service at my house and recommended I switch to a different carrier.
I was with them for less than three days. Brought my Galaxy Nexus and wife's temp phone back to the store, then went to the Apple Store to get my wife an iPhone 4S on AT&T with the plan to stop at an AT&T store to get myself a Skyrocket. While standing there playing with the 4S waiting for a sales associate, I got the warm fuzzies from back when I used the iPhone and decided to get one for myself as well.
It was a fun year with Android, but looking back at how I spent yesterday debating if I was going to keep the GN with all its issues, I think I made the right call for me.
I also forgot how much better GSM is than CDMA. I have full bars in my office, whereas on Sprint and Verizon the phones were struggling to hold onto a 3G connection. Amazing difference.
Anyway, sorry to hijack the thread for a moment. I truly hope that this is an issue that can be fixed with software; it seems like poor reception has become a hallmark of Samsung phones and I haven't seen a software update yet that makes a notable difference. We'll see what Sammy and Verizon come up with.
i can understand the signal strength display not being accurate but explain this...
for one, the signal strength on this Nexus is always 1/2(or more) then what i had on my Thunderbolt or Rezound at any given time/place.... which apparently is explained above.
what isntvexplained is this... my Thunderbolt was able to download fast, but not nearly as fast as my Rezound. on the R, i was able to download 1GB in roughly 5 minutes. ive tried downloading the same file(s) from same location various times(test) on this Nexus and it always takes 30 - 40 minutes.
so if the signal strength isnt being reported accurately i can accept that.... but what about the significant difference in data speed?
i also want to note that on my Reound, whenever i played a track in Google Music it started up right away and could jump/skip forward in a track without delay...
now on this Nexus, theres always a delay before the track starts & when you jump/skip to. buffering b.s.
Your Rezound probably already had the music cached.
Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using XDA App
You guys also have to keep in mind that the LTE network slows down the more people that use it. When it was first intro a year ago, it was STUPID fast. Like 50mb DOWN. I remember my Droid Charge hitting low 40's in May. Now that there is a plethora of phones that have LTE and a lot of people using it, the network will be slowed. It still beats the hell out of any other network.
I’m glad somebody posted this.
I did a little experiment in my office this morning with three Verizon LTE phones:
1) Samsung Charge
2) HTC T-Bolt
3) Samsung Galaxy Nexus
With all three phones laying side by side, I opened up the same “Network Signal” app. All three phones we ranging in the -85 to -100 dB strength. There was no phone that clearly had a better or worse signal.
However, the Samsung Charge was showing 4 out of 5 “bars”, the T-bolt had 3 of 5 while the Nexus has a whopping 1 out of 5 bars. Amusing since they we all reading between -95 and -90 dB at that moment.
One thing I noticed different though, is that the Nexus requires at least -85dB before it will connect to LTE. Anything less, it switches to CDMA. I can’t speak for the T-bolt, but I could have sworn I saw the Charge at -95 / -100 dB and still reporting LTE Net. Type.
So, food for thought. Hopefully this “update” that Verizon is working on isn’t anything more than a recalibration of the “bars” indicator.
-Gp
Grannypotts said:
I’m glad somebody posted this.
I did a little experiment in my office this morning with three Verizon LTE phones:
1) Samsung Charge
2) HTC T-Bolt
3) Samsung Galaxy Nexus
With all three phones laying side by side, I opened up the same “Network Signal” app. All three phones we ranging in the -85 to -100 dB strength. There was no phone that clearly had a better or worse signal.
However, the Samsung Charge was showing 4 out of 5 “bars”, the T-bolt had 3 of 5 while the Nexus has a whopping 1 out of 5 bars. Amusing since they we all reading between -95 and -90 dB at that moment.
One thing I noticed different though, is that the Nexus requires at least -85dB before it will connect to LTE. Anything less, it switches to CDMA. I can’t speak for the T-bolt, but I could have sworn I saw the Charge at -95 / -100 dB and still reporting LTE Net. Type.
So, food for thought. Hopefully this “update” that Verizon is working on isn’t anything more than a recalibration of the “bars” indicator.
-Gp
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There needs to be some kind of way to trick the OS into thinking it actually has the real signal so it will stop switching between 3G and 4G.
One thing I noticed different though, is that the Nexus requires at least -85dB before it will connect to LTE. Anything less, it switches to CDMA.
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I have -86dB with 3 4G bars as I write this. I know that's not much of a difference from the -85dB, but I thought I would just mention it. Also, I've had -93dB with 4 4G bars (no picture of that though).
Syn Ack said:
There needs to be some kind of way to trick the OS into thinking it actually has the real signal so it will stop switching between 3G and 4G.
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Click to collapse
My 30,000 foot uneducated view is simply that the calibrations for the Nexus require a stronger signal to both acquire and then maintain an LTE data connection. These calibrations probably could be tweaked, but at what cost? I suppose (assuming my theory is correct) the decision came down to a flaky 4G or a solid 3G... and Verizon chose the stronger connection over the faster one. Do you blame them?
However, when I do get a solid 4G connection... the speeds are stupid fast.
On my lunch break today:
30.6M down
15.7 up
Anyone else get bad reception and weak radio from the Galaxy Nexus. I have the new radio i think (1515.09 V.FA02/ 1515.FA02).. the changing between 3g and 4g is still terrible and sometimes its hard for the signal to even come back in.
Do you know if this is the best radio? i think soon I will just get a Motorola device because they have better signal strength even in weak coverage areas. Not happy with the galaxy nexus for that reason. I think htc may even be better at that. samsung isn't good with their signal stength with phones.
The only time I get bad reception is in my house for some odd reason. It's so fraustrating because when I had my thunderbolt or bionic I got 4G in my house. Any where else I am good with 4G. I almost switched somebody phones but then I realized I might as well stick to the nexus.
kidnice15 said:
The only time I get bad reception is in my house for some odd reason. It's so fraustrating because when I had my thunderbolt or bionic I got 4G in my house. Any where else I am good with 4G. I almost switched somebody phones but then I realized I might as well stick to the nexus.
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Yeah.. just not willing to settle for a weak signal in a phone just because its a very nice phone. I pay for data and i want to have access to it completely.
I get 4G almost everywhere I go with the GNexus. Live about 25 minutes from Pittsburgh and can drive around pretty much everywhere and get good reception, at least on par with my Thunderbolt.
Significant problems as well, returning phone.
I have had the phone since 2/13. I'm in Rochester, NY and have had a significant number of dropped calls, times when the signal dropped, and extended re-connect times. I received a new SIM last night, which had no effect on the problem. I also tried the 4.0.4 update to the radios the OP has, with no significant improvement. VZW has said that a software update due in early march will alleviate the problem. I don't buy it. I've decided to return my phone within the 14 day "Worry-Free" period and go back to my OG Droid for the time being. I'm going to wait until the reports come back on this new "update", which is probably just 4.0.3. So i'm not feeling very confident.
-rs
I had the same problem...bad signal and wouldn't switch from 4g to 3g I returned mines and got another and now i'm very happy.the first one was a piece of junk but the second has been awesome..
Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using xda premium
stepinmyworld said:
Yeah.. just not willing to settle for a weak signal in a phone just because its a very nice phone. I pay for data and i want to have access to it completely.
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Let me ask you a question , how did you get to the conclusion of bad reception or bad radio strength ? I had my razr side by side with gnex a few days ago. GNex shows one bar less than razr . I guess many folks will then consider throwing their gnex to nearest wall after seeing this. Guess what ? Then I ran speed test on both of them side by side at same time for 20 times to test speed (yeah I was bored that day) . Every single run I observed about 1mb/s to 3mb/s faster in gnex than razr. Even at the same time gnex showing one fewer signal bar.
Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using Tapatalk
jiwengang said:
Let me ask you a question , how did you get to the conclusion of bad reception or bad radio strength ? I had my razr side by side with gnex a few days ago. GNex shows one bar less than razr . I guess many folks will then consider throwing their gnex to nearest wall after seeing this. Guess what ? Then I ran speed test on both of them side by side at same time for 20 times to test speed (yeah I was bored that day) . Every single run I observed about 1mb/s to 3mb/s faster in gnex than razr. Even at the same time gnex showing one fewer signal bar.
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Bars are irrelevant...
Having both the nexus and the rezound, I can definitely say the rezound has better 4g radio strength. With my rezound I get 2-3 bars 4g easy anywhere in my house. Gnex barely gets 1 and most of the time is on 3g. Very frustrating.
Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using XDA App
That's the problem. There are plenty of places I go that I lose 4G completely (on 4.0.4), while friends with the Razr or Rezound still have 2-3 bars of 4G and it's going strong.
I couldn't care less how many bars I have...I just care when I get dropped to 3G and other people don't.
My bionic held the 4G signal the best out of GN and Thunderbolt. But the browser on the GN is pretty darn fast that I hardly have any complaint when browsing on 3G. My GN holds that 3G with a death grip though. 4G is flaky at work and at home unfortunately...
Went thru 2 bad ones before I got one that worked properly.
If its giving issues, return it and try a replacement.
Seems Samsung's quality control is seriously lacking but they are a good phone when they work.
I think I get pretty good service on 3g. I don't have 4g in my area yet. I've had a droid x and iphone 4 and the nexus is best.
Both phones set to CDMA EVDO only, no LTE radios active. Location is 3G EHRPD enabled, but does not have any 4G towers for miles. I held both phones the exact same way in the exact same location within 30 seconds of each other to record my results.
Signal Test:
Galaxy Nexus 3G Signal Strength: 0-1 bars, -120dbm 99 asu - -100dbm 1 asu
Thunderbolt 3G Signal Strength: 1-3 bars, -94dbm 2 asu - -85dbm 2 asu
Bandwidth Test:
Galaxy Nexus 3G Bandwidth: 0.86mbps down, 0.54mbps up
Thunderbolt 3G Bandwidth: 2.94mbps down, 0.56mbps up
Bandwidth test was the best of 3 runs using www.speakeasy.net/speedtest connecting to New York, NY. Current location is central NJ.
My Galaxy Nexus is running stock 4.0.4 with the newest radios and bootloader, along with Imo's kernel 2.4.1 exp2.
Honestly, after having my Thunderbolt for 8 months, coming to this supposed better phone and having these kind of radio problems is just appalling. The Thunderbolt was always railed for being the pioneer of LTE radios, and for getting weak signal. Well after these tests I am not sure what to believe besides the truth that is sitting in front of me. My brand spanking new Google phone has by far the worst radio I've ever seen in a Verizon smartphone.
I'm going to be hopeful in getting an update that may resolve these radio issues, but the realist in me tells me this is 100% hardware.
I'd like to get some results from other Verizon Galaxy Nexus users running 3G to see what kind of dbm and bar signal, as well as what kind of bandwidth you guys are getting. I am very disappointed and want to know if it's a hardware defect or if this phones radios' really are this bad
Meh. The Qualcomm radios in both of these phones are in fact ****. I think the build of the Galaxy Nexus (whether it be physical or software) has something to do with it. Maybe Samsung herp derped the position of the radios or Google took a **** on the blobs.
Regardless, its a great phone and still gets better data speeds than every other carrier and phone. -coughs- iPhone users -coughs-
Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using XDA
Except it doesn't get the best data speeds of any other phones, as my test results conclude.
Even on 4G I've nabbed 40mbps down 15mbps up bandwidth tests on that same exact Thunderbolt when I was in a good signal 4G area. How much have most GN users hit on 4G? 30mbps down?
This phone is a great micro-tablet, but as a phone it is heavily lacking.
DaRkL3AD3R said:
Except it doesn't get the best data speeds of any other phones, as my test results conclude.
Even on 4G I've nabbed 40mbps down 15mbps up bandwidth tests on that same exact Thunderbolt when I was in a good signal 4G area. How much have most GN users hit on 4G? 30mbps down?
This phone is a great micro-tablet, but as a phone it is heavily lacking.
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Really, cause I have seen people getting upwards of 50mb/s on the Nexus (seems like most of them live in NYC).
Not to mention I was talking about people on other carriers.
Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using XDA
Other carriers is a given, but that really isn't what the point of this comparison is. The point is I'm holding two phones on the same carrier, at the same time, the same way, and one performs multitudes greater performance than the other. Has nothing to do with other carriers.
Fact is this phones radio is junk. You can have a quad core 1080p Super AMOLED Plus screen and 2GB of RAM, the best GPU on the market and 128GB of space, but if it can't hold a signal to save YOUR life, then what good is it at as a phone?
Samsung/Google needs to get on this right now and fix this phones radio. I'm just worried that it can't be fixed through a software OTA...
And I'd also like some speed comparisons, namely 3G, from other Verizon GN users if possible please.
On 3g i used to get about -75 at worst with thunderbolt at my house. Currently getting -93 at best with two different galaxy nexus. Usually worse. Used to have a stable 4g signal too. Now it drops after a few seconds
johnprevite said:
On 3g i used to get about -75 at worst with thunderbolt at my house. Currently getting -93 at best with two different galaxy nexus. Usually
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That sounds about right... very disappointed in these radios.
I get the same -120dbm, 99asu with my Nexus at home, where I would get around 95dbm on my old Tbolt. I think the antenna/radio gives up signal quicker at the fringe distances faster on the Nexus - if I go into a city I get the signal strength I am supposed to get. I have a theory that part of the problem may lie with Verizon's use of old Alltel towers (I'm on the VA/NC border) - The signal in my area is consistently weak, but I've gone to other rural areas & gotten good strength. Perhaps Samsung/VZW will give us a software update on the phones...and perhaps when they upgrade our towers around here for LTE it might straighten up the tower's overall firmware...But we probably wont get LTE here until 2020.
strongergravity said:
I get the same -120dbm, 99asu with my Nexus at home, where I would get around 95dbm on my old Tbolt. I think the antenna/radio gives up signal quicker at the fringe distances faster on the Nexus - if I go into a city I get the signal strength I am supposed to get. I have a theory that part of the problem may lie with Verizon's use of old Alltel towers (I'm on the VA/NC border) - The signal in my area is consistently weak, but I've gone to other rural areas & gotten good strength. Perhaps Samsung/VZW will give us a software update on the phones...and perhaps when they upgrade our towers around here for LTE it might straighten up the tower's overall firmware...But we probably wont get LTE here until 2020.
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LTE will cover Verizon's current 3G footprint by the end of 2013, FYI.
Here's hoping!
Sent from my A500 using xda premium
Seems that my Radios on my Verizon GNex are getting worse. I can set the phone down on the table in my house and watch the signal go from 2 bars 4g to 1 bar 3g to no signal then to 1 bar 4g. My wife's Motorola RAZR has 3 bars 4g solid. I am really getting tired of this. The luster has faded. Don't really want to go to a RAZR and wondering if a S4 is any better.
Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using xda premium
Wasn't there a big debate on this before and signal bars mean nothing.
If you compare actual -db, you might find they aren't that different. Motorola has strong radios though I've heard.
This was a big ordeal back in the day where Verizon and At&t actually increase the bars display and also display 4G all the time, even when not.
So basically your phone may be accurate and your wife's is lying. Check -db and play with upgrading your radios.
Also you are supposed to update your roaming profiles on Verizon occasionally. I think its like **2424 or something. It downloads all the most recent tower information. Could be a new tower that your phone doesn't know about.
Lots to think about.
Sent from my Nexus 7 using xda premium
^^^ Excellent reply!
Agreed, the only way to find the best radio for YOU is to play with them. Not everyone has the same experience with a particular one. It depends on the market you are in.
When we say play, we mean test it for a couple of days in routine situations not a 30 minute test to see if both your phone and your wife's phone retain the same amount of "bars". But even then, as player911 stated, bars are just a graphical representation of signal quality. Different phones have different thresholds for different representations. Inspect the Signal strength in About Phone -> Status. The lower the "dBm" the better your signal quality.
I have a Verizon Galaxy Nexus and am looking for an upgrade. I love my Gnex but my phone has a terrible signal just about everywhere, but it is especially bad at my house . I went down to my local corporate VZW store to check out some phones today.
I compared every phone side by side with my Gnex, both showing the signal strength in dbm and asu rather than relying in bars. To my surprise every phone was within 4-5dbm of the Gnex. I looked at the LG G2, Moto X, Note 2 and the Droid Maxx. Surprisingly, the G2 consistently had a worse signal than my Gnex when comparing dbm....
My main upgrade motivation was better signal strength... my trip to the store popped my upgrade bubble.
astraelraen said:
I have a Verizon Galaxy Nexus and am looking for an upgrade. I love my Gnex but my phone has a terrible signal just about everywhere, but it is especially bad at my house . I went down to my local corporate VZW store to check out some phones today.
I compared every phone side by side with my Gnex, both showing the signal strength in dbm and asu rather than relying in bars. To my surprise every phone was within 4-5dbm of the Gnex. I looked at the LG G2, Moto X, Note 2 and the Droid Maxx. Surprisingly, the G2 consistently had a worse signal than my Gnex when comparing dbm....
My main upgrade motivation was better signal strength... my trip to the store popped my upgrade bubble.
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Your store must have some terrible reception. My HTC One had much better reception and any motorola phone did as well. As per LG their radios seem weak as well...