I have had my new Desire for 2 days now. It is the telstra version (australia) (which also has the non working GPS).
I am using my postpaid telstra sim in it which was previously in my blackberry 9700 which is NEXTG capable.
I have found the reception to be noticeably poorer. My BB would show full 5 bars and would never drop a call or have any issues with calls breaking up and being unable to hear the other person. The actual 'bars' was about 2 out of 4 for the android. it is 5/5 for the BB. The android signal strength meter shows anywhere from -90 dBm to -105 dBm in the same spot. My BB9700 shows -70 dBm !!! in the same spot with the same sim!!! -70 is as good as it gets.
for example today, i had trouble maintaining a conversation for more than a few minutes without it breaking up and having to repeat myself a few times. This happened at least on 2 separate phone calls with the desire. Granted, it never cut the connection completely.
i got sick of it because i was on call and had to be able to be contactable 100% so I swapped the sim in to the BB and continued on my conversation – 30 minute conversation without a hint of an issue.
I have always found the BB to be the ultimate in the phone department – but i was seduced by the pretty screen and graphics of the Desire and also the integration with google apps – which i use a lot of.
I also note that people have been complainng about the nexus one over in the US of A regarding the reception quality too. I bet it is the same thing.
The call quality is quite good though. The speakerphone is crap though.
The other bits of the phone are great – screen, speed, apps, and everything else everyone said was good... though i havent heard anyone complaining about the reception
Just want to know if anyone else is having similar experiences and if it is just me. Can ppl with phones that can show signal strength objectively (i.e. dBm measurements) look into a comparison? and also state what network you are on?
Im now thinking it is too unreliable to use as my primary phone... which is too bad. I hope it is a matter of a software update or somesuch to fix this. The price one pays to be an early adopter.
I suspect this applies to your Desire?
bloody hell... same thing happened when i tried what that dude did... pick up the damn thing and the signal goes to hell
devastating.... this is sad.
It's because the antenna is at the bottom, and you're most likely covering it with your hand when you pick it up.
It's quite worrying this sort of hardware design flaw wasn't spotted by HTC. I too can confirm it happens on mind has well....at least I know how to hold it now!
This thing really is a nexus one+sense huh? It even copies the 3g coverage issue.
I just tried that and found the same problem...that is really a big problem.
hi, even if that shown in the video partially occurs to me as well I can't say I'm noticing any difference with my old handset (touch hd)
I have currently got an O2 simcard in my desire with GPRS reception only.
I do not have that issue, will try with my orange 3g sim as well.
Has anyone a work around or advice for this?
Held tight in the palm I lose bars, held to the head I don't - enough of a different grip when actually using for a call. Cupped in the fingers rather than the palm, no loss.
I have the sim free desire bought from UK, and I'm using the optus prepaid sim. There is no problem for me at all.
Maybe update the radio would fix the issue, but it seems no radio update atm.
Sent from my HTC Desire using the XDA mobile application powered by Tapatalk
HTC Desire Bad reception Solved!!
Hi All,
I recently bought a second hand HTC Desire and had the same thing: Bad Reception.
I tried EVERYTHING, Rom's, Radio's, Task-killers, etc. but I found the reason was something completely different!
Now my Desire has FULL 4 bars reception: What did I do?
Remove the battery cover, take out the battery, unscrew the two small Torx screws at the bottom left and right.
These two screws hold the antenna cover which is actually the antenna itself!!
You will find two spring-loaded contacts at the left of the phone on the circuitboard: these are the antenna contacts. Pry them up al little bit and clean them with some alcohol.
Now clean the two grey contact surfaces in the antenne. Do not use any scratching tool, but use a small pencil eraser!! The surface will stay a bit grey, but this is normal.
Now you are done!
Put the antenna back in place (bottom first) and put the 2 screws back.
Boot your phone and you will have good (4 bar) reception like before.
If you want to check?
Before you do anything "dial" *#*#4636#*#* , choose "Phone Information" and look at the signal strength.
The lower the number of dBm the better the signal.
Same as: the higher the ASU the better the signal.
Do the same after cleaning and you will see the result.
Succes to you all!
Extra: The antenna is at the bottom of the phone, poor design choice, we all know.
However:before -when holding the phone- the Signal Strength went from -103 dBm tot -119 dBm and then to 0, meaning losing the connection completely.
Now, the reception at the same location when holding the phone goes from -79 dBm to -85 dBm still holding 4 bars and having good reception.
My guess is that with all the Desire's these contacts corrode over time, so cleaning does help to get the phone back in it's original condition..
Satbeginner said:
Hi All,
I recently bought a second hand HTC Desire and had the same thing: Bad Reception.
I tried EVERYTHING, Rom's, Radio's, Task-killers, etc. but I found the reason was something completely different!
Now my Desire has FULL 4 bars reception: What did I do?
Remove the battery cover, take out the battery, unscrew the two small Torx screws at the bottom left and right.
These two screws hold the antenna cover which is actually the antenna itself!!
You will find two spring-loaded contacts at the left of the phone on the circuitboard: these are the antenna contacts. Pry them up al little bit and clean them with some alcohol.
Now clean the two grey contact surfaces in the antenne. Do not use any scratching tool, but use a small pencil eraser!! The surface will stay a bit grey, but this is normal.
Now you are done!
Put the antenna back in place (bottom first) and put the 2 screws back.
Boot your phone and you will have good (4 bar) reception like before.
If you want to check?
Before you do anything "dial" *#*#4636#*#* , choose "Phone Information" and look at the signal strength.
The lower the number of dBm the better the signal.
Same as: the higher the ASU the better the signal.
Do the same after cleaning and you will see the result.
Succes to you all!
Extra: The antenna is at the bottom of the phone, poor design choice, we all know.
However:before -when holding the phone- the Signal Strength went from -103 dBm tot -119 dBm and then to 0, meaning losing the connection completely.
Now, the reception at the same location when holding the phone goes from -79 dBm to -85 dBm still holding 4 bars and having good reception.
My guess is that with all the Desire's these contacts corrode over time, so cleaning does help to get the phone back in it's original condition..
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I did the same thing when I was struggling with poor GPS - opened the phone and bent all contacts a little bit. Confirm that my (or my wife's more accurately) Desire now has outstanding GPS, 2G and 3G signal. This screenshot shows the two contacts mentioned by Satbeginner.
It is worth mentioning though - if your phone is still under warranty and has never been opened this procedure will void your warranty - you have to break a seal on one of the two screws to remove the antenna.
EVO Brethren,
My signal will bounce from 4 bars to NONE and back to 2 then 4. Apparently it does so during calls too because I can't talk more than a few minutes before it'll drop. At work it'll bounce from 2 to NONE all day which just drains my battery like mad.
I'm using the latest radio and have tried reflashing it. I'm pretty sure this has always happened even on the older radio. Is Sprint service really this terrible or is there something I can do to fix this?
I can't help you with your problem, other than to say that it won't happen when you are within good service coverage.
I have the same hyperactive signal bar inside my home where I get terrible service (3 bars max when the moon is just right). The signal with jump to full bars and then drop to one or zero.
I would assume that it's the radio trying to boost your signal by cranking up the power. It probably works for a second before the phone realizes that to maintain more than 3 bars of service, the radio would require a nuclear reactor to power it, and therefore promptly lowers the power to the radio.
I have no idea, thats just my guess. When I'm in great coverage it has no problem holding bars, bad coverage - crazy dancing routine.
I've seen posts that discuss the data issue, but not with detailed meter readings. I've been here with the Epic4g and my Verizon Samsung Droid Charge side by side, both using 3G. Generally, the Charge reads around -98 dBm and the E4G reads around -101 dBm, but they both fluctuate. At almost the same signal strength (and sometimes the exact same) the Charge's data is perfectly usable, fast even, yet the E4G is completely unusable. It will make clear phone calls without dropouts, but data is a no-go. I realize they are different networks, but isn't dBm dBm? I've taken the E4G around to a few areas and i've noticed that data starts to become usable around -91 dBm. I also see it sometimes fluctuate back and forth rapidly from -106 dBm (no bars) to -64 dBm (full bars) sitting totally stationary.
On occasion when i'm in the house (normally around -101 dBm) i'll notice the E4G lose service altogether, and every time it comes back it's at -64 dBm (full bars) for around 5 seconds before reverting back to -101 dBm. So unless the signal meter is giving false readings, this phone is actually capable of great reception???
The reason for the tedious post is that i'm trying to decide if it's worth exchanging for another one. I want to believe that either I got an exceptionally bad one and that the exchange will be worth it, or that the data/reception issue really is software related and will be fixed, therefore making it worth forfeiting my 14 day return period. I bought it through Letstalk.com, so unless I let them hold $600 as ransom money, they won't cross ship an exchange (understandably). This means possibly 2 weeks without a phone which would be really difficult, but worth if it I scored one that functioned even a bit better. I was going to leave Verizon specifically for this device and I really want it to work out.
TIA
I work in a large office building that just happens to be in a 4G LTE coverage area. Unfortunately due to the size of the building and amount of concrete between me and the outside I get little to no coverage in the building. Its actually funny because I got better reception in the building before the LTE towers went up, back in January. Anyway, I've noticed that as long as I leave my screen turned off, my phone will get a couple bars and 3G. Soon as I turn on the screen the bars I have slowly drop to nothing, but I don't (usually) go to "Searching for signal". Even if I only have one or two bars with the screen on I can't make calls or send/receive txts. Anybody else experience this? I've tried several modems and it happens on AOSP and TW ROMs.
I just bought a used Z5p with broken rear cover. Cover is easy to change but it seems that this phone has some problems with signal quality also. First it got only 0 to 2 bars on 3G. No signal on 4G or GSM.
I changed the upper and lower corner antenna modules and the RF cable. Now it can get 1 to 2 bars of 4G. 3G is changing constatly between 0 and full signal. GSM still 0. All data still very slow. Galaxy A5 with same sim gets 8/1 from speedtest and Sony 1/0. Both show similar two bars 4G, -105 - 110 dBm.
Is there something to try still or should I just scrap it?