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 am not one who has run into the LOS just yet, and here's to hoping I don't.
However... I do have terrible signal pretty much inside anywhere. Outside or in the car I have had pretty decent signal everywhere I have gone. However whenever I am inside pretty much anywhere I get 0-1 bar at best, and often even roaming does not function.
Is anyone else experiencing anything like this?
Is there any development for fixes for improved signal/antenna? Is this even possible?
Thanks a lot for everyones time.
That sounds pretty bad. I did notice that the Epic 4G Touch's signal strength is often 1-2 bars lower than the Evo and Evo 3D. This does include inside locations, so I've resorted to using Google Voice for texting and Groove IP for phone calls when I have Wi-fi.
Maybe take the phone to a store that has the same phone in stock and compare signal strength?
I just got this phone a few days ago switched from Verizon and this thing is always roaming im outside at a dog park and its roaming this cant be sprints service im guessing horrible signal strength.
Sent from my SPH-D710 using XDA App
thedeadletters said:
That sounds pretty bad. I did notice that the Epic 4G Touch's signal strength is often 1-2 bars lower than the Evo and Evo 3D. This does include inside locations, so I've resorted to using Google Voice for texting and Groove IP for phone calls when I have Wi-fi.
Maybe take the phone to a store that has the same phone in stock and compare signal strength?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Bars are not a comparison of signal strength between phones you have to look at dbs
Sent from my Samsung Galaxy S2
I just got the phone a couple days ago and I was having the same issues inside my house. I could not even get the xda app to load. I took out the default proxies and it has helped, at least it feels like that to me.
Sent from my SPH-D710 using XDA App
This is a well known issue that's been talked about since its release. Hopefully it will be on the list of things they try and fix in they first OTA update along with LOS and Android OS
Not saying this applies to everyone, but I figured out why the particular E4GT I was testing had such jumpy signal levels. I was doing side-by-side comparisons with an Optimus S using menu->settings->about phone->status.
It appears the E4GT has very little granularity with signal strength reporting. It only goes by increments of 5 dBm, whereas the Optimus reports signal levels at a granularity of 1 dBm.
For E4GT, -106 dBm = 0 bar, -101 dBm = 1 bar, -96 dBm = 2 bar, -91 dBm = 3 bar - 86 dBm = 4 bar, -81 dBm = 5 bar, and -76 dBm = 6 bar.
Problem in my main test area is the signal is somewhere between -93 dBm and -98 dBm according to the Optimus S. Whereas the Optimus S can react to small changes in dBm with equally small changes in reported signal strength and "# bars", the E4GT tends to like jumping from -91 dBm to - 101 dBm and back. It only reports certain discrete levels and it appears to be rounding up and down (based on side-by-side signal comparison to Optimus S) They both go up and down at roughly the same time, but Optimus S does it smoothly over time. E4GT just does the signal change reporting very abruptly with 5-10 dBm jumps.
Second thing I noticed is hand and phone positioning really affect the signal strength. The antennae/transmitter appear to be at the bottom hump on the phone. If I place my hands over that area holding the phone normally I can go from 3 bars (-86 dBm) down to 0 bars (-106 dBm). Data starts getting very iffy at -106 dBm but still kind of works, just real slow. If I hold the phone in the middle or near the top, I almost always get the same or better signal. I also found the phone gets the best signal when it is held flat, rather than perpendicular to the ground. In fact the best signal I get is when I'm not holding the phone at all, and instead lay it flat on the table.
Again, I'm not saying every phone behaves this way nor am I saying this explains everyones' signal issues. I'm just relaying my experiences.
BTW the signal levels when laid flat on a table side-by-side to the Optimus S is very comparable, almost the same (minus the lack of granularity). However when I'm holding both phones, the E4GT has generally 5 dBm worse signal, sometimes 10 dBm if I'm holding normally and covering the bottom of the phone.
That is very interesting sfhub.
I really hope the OTA has some bearing on these issues. I really wish it would come out sooner than later. I have another week or so to decide to keep this phone or not and really don't know regardless of if an OTA is released whether i will keep it or not.
There is a lot to like and a lot to drive you crazy about this phone.
I am facing a weak wifi problem since I bought it, it was refurbished and it had android 2.3 and htc sense 3.0. i updated it with 4.2.2 r11 .
The problem is that when i sit with the router then it only get full signal, if i move even 2,3 steps signal drops and after 5 meters there is no signals.. laptop and other mobile works fine with the same router so no problem with the router.. so is it the battery cover problem or IC is weak??
i have tried one thing and it even works but it is not a proper solution.. what I did is I connected a small wire with the terminal of wifi which is under batter cover and it is so thin that it easily came out of battery cover.. it increased wifi signal power.. so any one knows what could be the problem be? THANKS IN ADVANCE..
Could be a multitude of things.
Loose battery cover
RIL
ROM
- Sent from Guy's Phone
-"I chose to be smart. I chose an Android device" - Guy
So I have a problem with the range of my wifi, my ipad mini will say it has full signal but with my htc one x, even when it is 2~3 meters away from the router it still wont say it has great a signal. This wasn't the case when it had its stock rom. Any ideas?