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First, let me say that I love this phone. However, I used to get perfect 4g signal in my home with the Photon, and now the signal is touch and go at best. Anyone have the same issue or know of a fix (besides moving)?
Found this post that seems to have some proven methods for samsung 4g (and 3g) signal and speed boosting!!
i can believe it. motorolas are usually the best when it comes to reception. I know on the EVO there was a way to make it more receptive to 4G signals and it worked great..but im not sure about samsungs though.
Read that as well. Photon signals were tops. Photon got signals where no other phone would even dream of trying to pick one up.
That said I am coming from the Evo, so the whole Galaxy thing is new to me..
I get the exact same signal as my photon. I was doubtful at first but I am actually surprised I get 4g in my room. I don't get it with the evo3d. Photon got it and now sgs2 gets it too.
Sent from my SPH-D710 using xda premium
nkd said:
I get the exact same signal as my photon. I was doubtful at first but I am actually surprised I get 4g in my room. I don't get it with the evo3d. Photon got it and now sgs2 gets it too.
Sent from my SPH-D710 using xda premium
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Hello,
So, interm of signal and receiption, Photon 4g and GS2 are about the same?
nkd said:
I get the exact same signal as my photon. I was doubtful at first but I am actually surprised I get 4g in my room. I don't get it with the evo3d. Photon got it and now sgs2 gets it too.
Sent from my SPH-D710 using xda premium
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May be this depends on how strong the signal is. I know my EVO 4G had way better signal than the 3d that I dumped. I have the Photon, and if the signal is great I am coming aboard. The problem is there's no set measurement of how much more or less signal this phone has over the Photon or not. Also hows the regular 3g signal compared to the Photon? I like the fact that there is suppose to be support for the next rev B or 1xdo A signal. This means I can hold the damn phone for a more than a year if I choose to.
I'm a total noob or something cause I can't seem to find [irl.MSL] according to the thread. Little help please?
A reviewer did 'study' of 4G signal strength-reception andnfpund the Photon with the best reception of any Sprint phone.
JBNAquatics said:
I'm a total noob or something cause I can't seem to find [irl.MSL] according to the thread. Little help please?
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Don't think it's there, either... But call 611 and they'll tell you immediately. Can confirm the fix works, at least for boosting signal. Speed seems unchanged, but fine... About 4mbps.
I just switched from AT&T today and got the Evo 3D, figuring I could try it out and probably swap it within the next two weeks if it has bad battery life/the 3D turns out to be just a gimmick. I wasn't prepared for it to have bad 4G reception in areas that are supposed to have good reception. Then I look on Google and apparently the Photon 4G crushes the signal quality of my Evo, so I'm thinking about taking it back.
I'm thinking that I will return the Evo 3D because of signal strength issues (and I hear bad battery life too, although I haven't yet had a chance to test that), and I'm torn between the Photon and Epic 4G Touch.
TL;DR:
How's the 4G reception of this compare to Evo 3D and Photon?
If signal reception is the most important thing to you, go with the Photon. If you are looking for the overall best phone on Sprint, get yourself an Epic 4G Touch.
BTW, I have the E4GT and my 4G reception has actually been very good. I compared the E4GT to the Photon side-by-side and while the Photon had a stronger signal and slight edge in DL speed, the E4GT was just hands-down a nicer phone.
Wimax reception is as good as the EVO 4G not 3D (judging from the signal indicator) but the Epic seems to get faster speeds in the same spot =] - Evo was maxing out at 5Mbps where as the Epic was getting 8mbps same servers, using speedtest.
But yep wimax is pretty spotty you will have to sit in one place where you get coverage and even then it might kick you off. If you really need 4G i would suggest verizon or even att's hpsa, (i think its called?) should be fast enough. If you are looking at the Sprint coverage map there are two indicators dark orange i believe? for indoor service and lighter orange for on street. BLAH!
Horrible. The entire 4G network on Sprint is horrible. They should just give it up and go back to the drawing boards. I hope they announce LTE on the upcoming October announcement.
akarol said:
Horrible. The entire 4G network on Sprint is horrible. They should just give it up and go back to the drawing boards. I hope they announce LTE on the upcoming October announcement.
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sadly, this is probably a more accurate description of 4g than many of us are willing to admit. i have been trying out the epic for 7 days now in kansas city (
sprint headquarters) and the consistency of 4g is flaky at best. the 3g is worse than my verizon 3g speeds. coming from att i would venture to guess you are going to be very dissappointed with the data. now the epic is a whole different ball of wax. this has to be the nicest phone on the planet. just wish it was with another carrier.
Like the poster before me said. 4G is absolutely terrible in my area. I'm getting 1.4 mbps down on 4G!!!! 3G gets like 200kbps tops. It's ridiculous how terrible the Sprint Network has gotten in the past year.
I did this test last week. I kept switching between EVO and E4GT and checked the 3g and 4g speeds and signal strength and I did not find EVO to be better. I tested it in weak signal areas and strong signal areas, actually E4GT performed better in the sense that it connected to 4g faster then EVO did. I did update EVO's radios etc and tried all different roms.
I did this to know if Samsung Radios as some people complained were not good.
asteetva said:
I did this test last week. I kept switching between EVO and E4GT and checked the 3g and 4g speeds and signal strength and I did not find EVO to be better. I tested it in weak signal areas and strong signal areas, actually E4GT performed better in the sense that it connected to 4g faster then EVO did. I did update EVO's radios etc and tried all different roms.
I did this to know if Samsung Radios as some people complained were not good.
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I did testing with my Evo and came to a similar conclusion.
As far as 3G signal the epic touch is ever so slightly weaker than the Evo but barely noticeable.
Now wifi on the other hand, the epic touch drops wifi signals in areas where my Evo could hold them steady.
I think the samsung radio issue is the LOS issue and not a reception issue. Now if you think that comes from the unofficial kernels or a bug present in stock hardware/kernel is up for debate. I myself have never experienced LOS and have been running stock.
Neither have I
R1ptide said:
I did testing with my Evo and came to a similar conclusion.
As far as 3G signal the epic touch is ever so slightly weaker than the Evo but barely noticeable.
Now wifi on the other hand, the epic touch drops wifi signals in areas where my Evo could hold them steady.
I think the samsung radio issue is the LOS issue and not a reception issue. Now if you think that comes from the unofficial kernels or a bug present in stock hardware/kernel is up for debate. I myself have never experienced LOS and have been running stock.
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I have never experienced LOS on any of the Roms and Kernels I tried, but never responded in those forums, as Its a very very sensitive topic.
if you ask me its both lol.. just because some have a bug, doesnt mean all of them will.. but what I do believe, is that its definately not a hardware issue.. i had no LOS on stock, flashed zedomax kernel, LOS like crazy.. flashed LostKernel, LOS is gone and see an improvement in all my signals (3g, wifi, and phone signals)
I never had a signal issue or LOS issue in the 15 months with the Evo [nor have I ever seen complains on the Evo sub-forum about LOS or signal issues] so I'm not sure what you're talking about.
asteetva said:
I did this test last week. I kept switching between EVO and E4GT and checked the 3g and 4g speeds and signal strength and I did not find EVO to be better. I tested it in weak signal areas and strong signal areas, actually E4GT performed better in the sense that it connected to 4g faster then EVO did. I did update EVO's radios etc and tried all different roms.
I did this to know if Samsung Radios as some people complained were not good.
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did same comparison with buddy's Nexus S 4G & my SGSII... results were totally different. His phone could stream Youtube somewhat steady while my phone was struggling to even load an email. Also, in same location my older Evo4G can stream 48kbps shoutcast where my SGSII constantly flips between 3G/1x and roaming. To be sure I didn't get a dud i got like 3 echanges and all display same crappy radio performance. Sorry, SGSII's radio's are weak as $%@.
Im only a week into my E4GT and I have not Experienced a LOS event.
I can say that since November my 3G speeds have been horrible. Just this weekend was a new low, I averaged less then 50Kbps. After 2am I can get 1.5 Mbps. Doesn't matter if it's my old Mogul, Hacked Incredible (on Sprint), Evo 4g or the E4GT. Sprint is dropping the ball and the iPhone traffic I only going to make it worse.
Welcome to the Sprint SIG Alert.
gedster314 said:
Im only a week into my E4GT and I have not Experienced a LOS event.
I can say that since November my 3G speeds have been horrible. Just this weekend was a new low, I averaged less then 50Kbps. After 2am I can get 1.5 Mbps. Doesn't matter if it's my old Mogul, Hacked Incredible (on Sprint), Evo 4g or the E4GT. Sprint is dropping the ball and the iPhone traffic I only going to make it worse.
Welcome to the Sprint SIG Alert.
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MOGUL! The phone that started it all for me! You STILL have that thing?
you guys think the network issues are due to all the new iPhone users on the network? Sprint had a record day and I am sure there network is bogged down. Pretty annoying.
FWIW, this past Saturday while working extra work, a co-worker who has an EVO 3D and I decided to test our phone's Internet speeds.
Both his 3D and my SGSII had FULL BARS. Only difference was that I am on PRL 00001 which has me roaming on Verizon and his had the stock PRL.
We both went to www.speakeasy.net/speedtest and chose the same server (Washington DC).
Here were the average speeds after 3-5 runs of it:
EVO 3D - 500kbps/150kbps
SGSII - 2.2mbps/520kbps
I think Sprint's ****ty signal is the cause or aggravating any LOS issue our phones might have.
Sent from my Samsung Galaxy S II Epic Touch 4G WTF BBQ
I loooooove the phone super fast videos buffer with ease hands down the best phone i had and ive went through a evo evo 3d photon and iphone 4 BUT the signal and bars (maybe i should say lack there of) is a bit of a issue for me with the photon i had full bars 95% of the time now is there anything i can do to increase it or is it a phone issue
Sent from my SPH-D710 using xda premium
Get used to it. Lots of threads about this.
I got the Epic Touch 4G today and I have the same exact concern. Great phone but signal strength is not good in weak coverage areas. My Photon pulls a good signal everywhere, even in weak coverage areas. I might be returning this Epic Touch 4G. I'll give it a few days and see.
Don't let the signal bars fool u. They can be programmed differently. The epic touch might show one bar while the photon shows four bars but they have the same signal strength. To find the signal strength on the epic touch its under settings, about phone, status, and then look for signal strength. Compare that number to the photon's number.
Sent From My Evo Killer!!!
musclehead84 said:
Don't let the signal bars fool u. They can be programmed differently. The epic touch might show one bar while the photon shows four bars but they have the same signal strength. To find the signal strength on the epic touch its under settings, about phone, status, and then look for signal strength. Compare that number to the photon's number.
Sent From My Evo Killer!!!
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-76 dbm 0 asu
I dont know much about sig stregth reading is that good?
Sent from my SPH-D710 using xda premium
Do we even know what those bars are measuring? I have the feeling that some phones measure 2G and some measure 3G...2G (voice and text) being a far strong signal. I seem to recall from my Evo4G days that the stock rom measured 2G and CM6 measured 3G and this caused an endless amount of complaints about signal strength regardless of the fact that nothing was actually any different.
Or how about how when I went from stock, which uses 6 (?) bars and on 00001.PRL I get 3-4 bars...but on Starburst which uses the AOSP 4 bar meter I'm at 4 bars almost constantly?
My point? Ignore the bars. If you aren't looking at the signal strength in dbm you aren't looking at anything particularly useful. If the phone works for you then I'd say things are likely fine. On standard Sprint PRL (which oddly hasn't been updated in almost 2 or 3 months?) I get 0-2 bars on stock ROM...the phone and data still work almost perfectly.
and -76dBm? that's fantastic. The closer you can get to 0 the better.
My photon drops calls in the same areas my ET4g does, I don't think there's much of a difference in signal strength personally between the phones.
Yeah don't pay attention to the bars. Ill have 1 or 2 bars and make crystal clear voice calls with no dropped calls and send texts and data works fine so....if that all works, then what is there to worry about?
Sent from my SPH-D710 using XDA App
I have compared a photon to my epic touch and while the photon had two more bars the signal strength was the same. Running speed test shows similar results as well.
lafester said:
I have compared a photon to my epic touch and while the photon had two more bars the signal strength was the same. Running speed test shows similar results as well.
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Same here, my buddy has a Photon and while it does roam less often, it also shows the same dbm while showing 2-3 more bars. If I have any service at all I can call, text, and browse with my Epic Touch. My Evo Shift would drop service at my parents house and show 40% time without signal....this phone never loses service when I visit them.
Sent from my SPH-D710 using xda premium
rruss said:
-76 dbm 0 asu
I dont know much about sig stregth reading is that good?
Sent from my SPH-D710 using xda premium
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-76 is good. -65 is the best signal strength. Just compare those numbers to that if the other phones. Ignore the signal bars uptop.
Sent From My Evo Killer!!!
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.