Develop Bugs

Post Your Radio Observations and Experiences

So I recently decided to try out different radios to see what they have to offer. I will post my observations here. For reference I have a G2 on T-Mobile in upstate NY area.
I started with the stock T-Mobile OTA radio, 26.03.02.26 on stock froyo rooted. I had no particular complaints about this combo, though I thought idle power consumption was way too high. I would lose over 35% idling over night on wifi calling.
I flashed CM7 stable and heard that the latest radio was required for full functionality. I tried flashing without updating the radio first, and GPS was non-functional. So I flashed the latest gingerbread test radio, 26.08.04.16 and GPS was working again. Now I am extremely pleased with battery life. Max idle power consumption I have seen so far was 8% overnight on wifi calling. If I charge to full right before going to bed, it still say 100% when I wake up in the morning.
In addition to the increase in battery life, data speeds were much improved. At home, with only two bars of H, I used to get just above 1Mbps down. The new radio easily and consistently hits over 2Mbps in the same location with the same reception.
I do think there are some trade offs with this radio though. I noticed a higher rate of wifi disconnects. Every now and then when I look at my phone, wifi calling has dropped and I have no data. Takes a few seconds to come back. I'm still not entirely sure if this is radio related or if it is my specific wifi environment.
I also noticed my phone bouncing between 3G and H a lot more frequently with the newer radio. In areas where I used to get very solid H, it will now bounce between 3G and H. Connectivity is not affected and I hope this is not bad for battery life. I suspect reception is slightly worse with this radio, maybe the tradeoff for better speeds.
I recently flashed back to the T-Mobile OTA radio to test it with CM7 and I was horrified at the battery drain. I lost 25% in less than 2 hours. Granted, the phone was active for half that time, but even still, that is terrible battery life. Needless to say, I am back to the 26.08.04.16 radio.
What have you noticed about the various radios you have tried so far? Any preferences? Post your experiences.
--MrAnt--

Just got off the phone using 26.08.04.16 and my call quality is extremely clear.

With the stock radio and the stock ROM I had terrible cell coverage in general, I would routinely not have usable cell signal let along data in my house even when my old G1 or two MyTouch 4G devices would work fine.
Specific symptoms would be the phone randomly cycling between 2-3 bars of 3G/HSPA+ and 2-3 bars of EDGE and then no bars of anything, even if it reported 2-3 bars when you went to use it almost invariably you would lose all bars and would be unable to make a call or use data. Could not identify any sort of pattern, it looked like the phone was having a hard time negotiating with one or more cell sites, I'd guess that there are two that have OK but not great coverage in range of my house and the phone could not figure out which one it wanted to connect to.
While still on the stock ROM I loaded radio 26.04.02.17, it did seem to help some but not significantly.'
After I switched to CM7 final there wasn't much if any change to my cell coverage (still sucks) but my GPS was ridiculously unreliable/unstable. I am a Foursquare users and use GPS every day several times a day and my phone would not turn on GPS consistently and would not turn it off consistently when I exited the application. A couple times I could not turn off GPS even if I disabled it in settings and would need to reboot to get GPS to turn off. Sometimes I would have to try several times (by exiting/restarting my GPS enabled application) to get it to turn on and sometimes it would just randomly turn off while in use (had this happen twice while using navigation). I would need to exit the GPS enabled app (exit navigation if I was using it) and then relaunch (sometimes more than once) to get GPS back up and running again)
I tried using the wipe the EFS data fix but that didn't fix my GPS problems
I have since upgraded my radio to 26.08.04.16 which has made my GPS better (but not as reliable as it was before CM7), I think my cell coverage/data is better but honestly the GPS is a much higher visibility problem for me so I haven't been paying as much attention to that.

Interesting, my GPS reception seemed to improve a lot with the new radio and CM7. Used to take well over a minute for a GPS lock, now its around 10-20 seconds.
I also have no cell reception problems, just power consumption complaints.
I just flashed the new test radio that was leaked, 26.8.04.30. I'm hoping this will solve my flaky wifi issues and, if I'm lucky, reduce cell radio power consumption to something more reasonable/manageable. I will update once I have a chance to try it out and see how battery performance is.
So far the wifi appears more stable, and cell bandwidth is about the same as the 26.8.04.16 radio, maybe even a little better.
--MrAnt--

mrant said:
Interesting, my GPS reception seemed to improve a lot with the new radio and CM7. Used to take well over a minute for a GPS lock, now its around 10-20 seconds.
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I have noticed when GPS works it is much faster than stock, GPS locks, when I can get them are lightning fast (usually less than 5 seconds if I'm outdoors in a remotely clear area).
Interesting problem I had yesterday, I would fire up my GPS app (tried both Foursquare and Google Maps) and the GPS icon would activate then turn off after 1 second, usually if I exit my app and relaunch it a few times I'm able to get it working again but yesterday I needed to disable and re-enable GPS to fix the problem. These problems are very strange.

Just tested GPS lock in a location where it used to take forever, so long I never waited for a lock before moving to a window. Sitting on my couch, a good 15 feet from the nearest window, I got a lock in 10s flat. Impressive.
Battery life does not seem to have changed in the latest radio, .30, and things seem more stable and faster. Battery consumption is about 2%/hr on wifi calling, and a little under 4%/hr for cell radio. These are idle consumption rates.
Additionally, my HSPA+ speeds have reached rates I have never seen with my phone before. I just clocked in a hair under 5Mbps down and almost 2Mbps up. I used to see only 1-1.5 down and .25-.5 up.
I am very pleased with the performance and power consumption improvements this radio brings.
--MrAnt--

Just gotta email from sprint

They were sayn that wifi saves batt up to 50%. Ive always been told the exact oppisite. Wifi kills batt life. Wtf
Sent from my SPH-D710 using xda premium

harley1rocker said:
They were sayn that wifi saves batt up to 50%. Ive always been told the exact oppisite. Wifi kills batt life. Wtf
Sent from my SPH-D710 using xda premium
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Depends on distance/strength of wifi signal...
It's a good way for them convince you to not use your data connection for a while and slow down the network.
Sent from my Super Galaxy'd SPH-D710

I got an email/text or statement insert saying the exact same thing. Funny thing is ever since that statement I have always made sure to have wifi on when home.
I know it sorta turns off when disconnected but then it scans and picks up wifi networks so I just turn it off when I leave the house.
On my OG Evo I did not notice any change in battery life with wifi on.

Searching for WiFi is what really kills the battery which is why I turn mine off and on manually rather than leaving it on. If I'm in an area with WiFi available and my 3G signal is low, then I'll turn on my WiFi, also when I'm at work or home my WiFi is always on but if I'm out and about then I keep WiFi off rather than have it drain my battery constantly looking for signal.

Technically, I think Wifi takes up less battery than, say 3G when actively used.
Just a guess o-0

MochaCharok said:
Technically, I think Wifi takes up less battery than, say 3G when actively used.
Just a guess o-0
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I would think this is true, especially if you're sitting close to the router like at home or work rather than pinging off a cell tower however far away.

It goes both way guys. When idle, wifi consumes more battery than an active cellular data connection.
By virtue of simply being more efficient, wifi consumes "less" when actively using it. This is, however, because of the generally increased data speeds: it takes less time to accomplish a task (I.e. downloading a file), thus providing battery savings. In this regards, even 4g consumes less battery, even though it technically takes more juice to run 4g.
The way to really look at it so it becomes clear is say, hypothetically, you had a wifi connection whose internet side connection was very slow. In this regards, wifi doesn't save you any battery, and will probably end up consuming more, simply because its gain in efficiency is now gone.
Of course sprint wants us to get off cell data as much as possible, but in a lot of real world situations, it will save someone battery. Take my typical work day for example:
I wake up at home, drive to work, stay at work all day, then go home and probably stay there. I have good wifi connections both at home and work. Now, if I was the kind of user that didn't auto sync anything, I would probably end up using more battery life than I need to if I left wifi on all day, simply because I'm pumping juice into a radio that isn't being used.
However, I DO use a lot of auto sync functions, which means that my phone is actively using data a lot throughout the day. In this case, the battery drain due to the time in which wifi is left idle is out-weighed by the gain in battery life I get by the times my wifi is now being used instead a cell connection.
In a nutshell, as I said at the beginning, cellular data connection is more efficient at being idle than wifi (provided it's a good connection), and wifi is more efficient at being actively used (again, provided it's a good connection and the internet-side speed is sufficient).
Sent from my SPH-D710 using xda premium

My battery last far longer on wifi than 4g, not even close in my book.

Since I have wi-fi at work and home I can say there is a HUGE difference - especially since at home and work the 3G/4G signals are so weak that the phone burns quite a bit of battery just searching for a signal. Hoping that this will change as NV completes in the area but it might be the frequency that we're on is not too friendly with the newer building materials.

Yes, using wifi will save you more battery life than using your 3g/4g

Pastie13 said:
My battery last far longer on wifi than 4g, not even close in my book.
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4g is a completely different animal than 3g when it comes to battery drain. So far when on 4g your battery life is sucked out of your phone. The email Sprint sends out I would safely say is comparing 3g to wifi.

That same tip is on Sprints website when you log into your account. It is on the right hand side.
As for battery life my findings have been WIFI uses less juice when the signal is good. 3G uses less juice when the throughput is good. So when I am on 3G in an area that has good speeds I can hit near 30 hours of battery.
I can do the same on WIFI when the WIFI signal is good, but if the WIFI signal is on the lower end the throughput slows since the quality has been lowered.
So in essence the better the throughput the better the battery, because when the phone wakes to check on any sync items setup the longer it takes to make that check the longer the CPU is at max and the more battery drain occurs. And I'm not talking signal strength for 3G since you'll get more drain on the battery in lesser areas because the phone is naturally going to have to boost the transmitter power. I'm talking best signal and crappy 3G network throughput. That is where the drain comes from.
I have tested this in my house with my WIFI and my Airave. On WIFI if I go outside my WIFI range is really bad and my battery drains a lot quicker. If I turn off the WIFI and use the Airave, which has a much higher transmitter power, I can get great battery. I have also seen this in over night testing. My WIFI is in the living room which is 5 walls away and the signal is pretty poor. If I leave my WIFI on over night and not charge my phone I loose 50% battery and when trying to use my phone for internet I get super bad throughput since I am on the edge of the signal. But turn off my WIFI and ride on the Airave I only loose 15% over night and the internet is great, but limited to 1.5m since it is 3G. So if you download a 1meg attachment. 3G takes 2 min and WIFI take 4 min then 3G will use less battery. This also goes vis versa. Whoever is maxing the CPU the longest is your battery killer because both are always on and always ready when they are selected.
Hope I didn't go into to much detail, but transmit power is not the big thing here it is throughput quality of the signal. The worst the throughput the more time it takes to transmit and thus more battery as the CPU is maxed till the job is complete.

[Q] 3G Battery consumption

Hey,
when I use 3G I get about 2H of screen time,
and when I use WiFi I get about 4H (max).
My usage is WhatsApp, Browser etc..
Is it normal that I'm getting half of the time with 3G?
Can it be fixed with another baseband?

Any help?

3G uses more battery since it's also searching for better connection all the time(unless you choose 2G only in mobile network options, then you get better battery but speed is not so fast anymore).

I can confirm that a weak 3G connection gobbles up battery charge very quickly. This is a flaw in the radio firmware or perhaps somewhere else. Of course the phone should switch to 2G automatically when 3G is not used intensively, but uses excessive amounts of electricity, but the designers apparently overlooked this.
Your main option is, as already mentioned, to do the thing manually that your phone fails to do automatically—force 2G only.
If you do that, don't forget to disable the force-2G option again when (a) you need the higher speed and the connection is good enough for that, or (b) if you moved into an area with better reception, like 3 or 4 bars.
Alternatively, leave the settings untouched, i.e. 3G enabled, and keep charging the phone if you are stationary and have electricity nearby. You can charge from a computer, albeit at half speed.

I almost always have 3/4 bars, so I don't think I have a connection problem.

Cellular strength and throughput

We know how much you like to stream, ahem, "videos", and so cellular data is mega-important. Rate this thread to express how you think the Google Pixel's LTE performs. A higher rating indicates that it's fantastic: throughput is excellent and signal strength is top-notch.
Then, drop a comment if you have anything to add.

I have been having awful 4g signal strength, throughput is fine, but suffers greatly when the signal drops out every 30-60 seconds. I might have a faulty device, not sure. Currently testing side by side with an identical device.
Edit: Pixel on Verizon, purchased through Google Store.

I give it much higher rating over my Nexus 5 as comparison.
For instance, in a regional "subway tunnel" with a roof opening to the air over it, I have more consistent signal. So far, the signal drops less than it used to in those dropout areas.
Data transmission is faster too. In general sites load well.
Sent from my sailfish using XDA Labs

When sitting right next to my Galaxy S6, the signal strength of the Pixel seems to be consistently 1 bar lower than what the S6 is showing. I know that is relative terms, but in terms of absolutes, as it sits right this minute, the Pixel is fluctuating between -85 dbm and -117dbm, whereas the S6 is at a very solid -72-77dbm, when connected to a Verizon Microcell across the room (~20 ft) from me.
This shows that the Pixel indeed has lower signal strength.

I average 80 - 160 Mbps on Verizon. Any slowness I have is directly related to the carriers business, aggregation, etc. and not the phone. Im totally happy with it.

I know they're not exactly related, but one of the main reasons I bought a pixel (besides just wanting one) is because my Nexus 6p seems to have horrendous cell and gps signal strength. How consistant is the signal? Does it disconnect from either and if it does, how frequent is it? I'm picking up my shiny new pixel phone today, and I guess I'll find out soon enough, I just wanted to see how your guys' experiences have been so far.

same here!

I noticed terrible service with the 6p as well, so far the pixel seems better. The GPS is much better as well.
Speed seems ok, havent noticed any real lag yet, I have had mine for about a week, somehow got mine a few days early (shipping error?)
Based on speedtest.net tests, WiFi appears to be much slower than the 6p, coming in at 17 Mbps where my 6p sitting in the same spot on the same network was at 26-30 Mbps

Regular black Pixel 128GB ordered through the Google store. Signal strength at home isn't quite as good as my Moto X Pure. Not a big surprise, because if nothing else, Moto has the reception game down pat. Will have a better Idea tomorrow because I just received the phone today and have been nowhere else but home.
On a side note, this phone just feels a lot nicer than my X. It's all of the little things that add up to make it a very nice experience.

I live in a poor signal area, and Telstra (Australia) LTE signal strength is higher than my Galaxy S6

I was a bit reluctant to get the pixel because my carrier didn't enable VoLTE and Wifi calling on it. I noticed that even though it goes down to 3G for phone calls, it goes back to LTE right after I hang up which it pretty bad ass!
Sent from my Pixel using XDA-Developers mobile app

With my 5X I was getting dropouts and dropped calls at work which is a metal clean room inside a metal factory building. I could barely maintain 3G, most of the times on 1x. Every so often I would get lucky and be able to stream a youtube video. Speed was less than 1mbs, usually 0.2-0.5. With the Pixel I see LTE and have used it for a few phone calls expecting it to drop or not be heard on the phone but I had no problems. I don't use LTE for voice calls. Data speeds are now about 2-3 mbps. 20 mb app took about 10 seconds to download. That would have taken several minutes with the 5X. So in my experience much better signal using Verizon UDP.

Out side the house didn't notice any issues but at my house **** reception which is normal so I had a service extender that my galaxy 5 used just fine my pixel don't like it thought . But now that I can use wifi calling with this phone don't matter

So far it seems to be about on par with my Nexus 6 which had better signal than any other phone I've used. My 5x would drop to 3g in certain spots in my house and was a pain tethering occasionally. The pixel has been great.
Google store pixel on vzw

Not happy with cell reception. My HTC One M9 gets better signal. Drops from 4G to 3G then nothing until I cut the radio off and then back on. Flashed most recent radio from verizon software with no difference.

For me Nexus 5 works in subway tunnel on first 3 staitions from home without problem. I can talk whole time, but on pixel i can't do the same thing. Nexus 5 is so much better. Better reception, same display size with same resolution but more ergonomic, wireless charging, screen casting (which works everywhere not only on google chromecast like pixel does), easy to open and replace battery or anything and it's 3 years older then Pixel. Feels like Google degraded in those 3 years. Released nexus 6 which sucks, then nexus 5x which bricks itself in an instant, and 6p which does same thing plus bends like a b**ch
Google should have just released Nexus 5 again with amoled screen, better specs and 100% Same visually, that would be absolutely AMAZING.

WiFi strength, range, and throughput

Rate this thread to express how you think the Samsung Galaxy S8+'s Wifi performs. A higher rating indicates that it has excellent range, throughput, and signal strength. Like when you're taking a dump in the bedroom upstairs, do your videos have to buffer or do they come through without interruption?
Then, drop a comment if you have anything to add!

I find that there is no buffering, good wifi signal all over my house. Home router is a big part of that.

This is the worst part of the phone byfar. Wifi extend much further than it did on my Nexus 6 but it extends it so far that my connection could be at 50k and remain connected. This causes the connection to appear stalled but really it is just buffering.
I have turned on WiFi switching and then advanced WiFi switching but both options are subpar. They almost never like the strength of my wifi signal.
Sent from my SM-G955W using Tapatalk

good wifi signal all over my house

im at the edge of the garden, some 100m away and still getting good WiFi netflix without buffering on an older linksys E3200

i get enough lag that playing online MOBA's on wifi is awful.

i killed tupac said:
i get enough lag that playing online MOBA's on wifi is awful.
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That might be because of your network? I'm playing Arena of Valor another MOBA and I have no lag at all with a constant 60fps gameplay