Related
I hope I didn't miss something but couldn't find a clear place with these comparisons. Some things could be back tracked through the 3D forum as there are plenty of 3D comps here but it is way too tedious.
Looking for opinions from folks that are coming straight from the EVO 4G. Also, if you could, please post what rom you were running on the EVO as well. Be as specific as possible. (data, call recpt, etc)
Thanks a bunch!
Coming from Evo 4G running Cyanogenmod 7:
Screen waaaay prettier and a little bigger
Better battery
Much lighter and thinner
Much faster and more responsive
Call quality same to me
Sound same to me
Cell reception same (though it shows fewer bars)
Wifi reception better
Overall worth every penny. You won't regret it.
Sent from my SPH-D710 using xda premium
... And thats just stock rooted. Cant wait to get CM7 on this bad boy.
Sent from my SPH-D710 using xda premium
It blows the original evo out of the water. The extra ram just makes it faster, the extra storage allows more apps, the dual core is noticeably faster, the screen is a lot smoother (fps wise, you no longer see the very tiny lag when you scroll through apps), the screen is just amazing compared to the evo. oh yea and battery is just amazing. There's no competition when it comes to battery life.
I can't compare the data because I lost my 4g a while ago on my evo so can't comment on the speeds since it's been a long time.
Also the fact that its thinner more stylish just gets chicks all wet :x
I've had the Evo 4G since launch. It's going to be my backup in case anything happens to my Epic 4G Touch. I flashed new roms weekly until I settled with CM7 and MIUI 1.85.
3G Reception (I live in SoCal) - Speed and signal strength very similar
4G Reception - E4GT synched a little faster. Speeds varied, but E4GT averaged better speeds.
Wifi Signal - Seems like I can go a few feet further with the Evo, but not a specific test
Call Quality - E4GT is clearer and louder
Speakerphone - E4GT is clearer and louder
Battery Life - Stock E4GT lasts about 2 hours longer than a super battery tweaked Evo - Low/Moderate usage on E4GT lasted 24 hrs
Size/Weight - At first the E4GT felt fragile because it was so light and thin, but it's built well. The back cover actually snaps flush unlike Evo.
These are the major differences. Screen and speed are on a whole new level. The only thing I miss is the kickstand!
What everyone said plus I can get 4G reception at my desk now. The Evo pulled in zero signal. It also connected to 4G in less than half the time.
Let's see, EVO 4G running >
CM7
CM7Nightlies
Miui (Several Builds/Kernels)
SnS Gingerbread (Great ROM)
Kingdom Revolution
Kingdom
OMFGB
OMGB
Rooted Stock
Myn's Warm 2.2
Synergy
Sprint Lovers
SteelROM
MikG (One of the most important Dev's on EVO IMO)
There really is no comparison. The ET feels so many generations of hardware beyond the OGEVO that it's unbelievable at times.
This phone is the titty bounce, woot woot. FTW, etc and so forth.
For me its an overall upgrade in every aspect.
I don't mind keeping this phone for quite some time.
Literally night and day for me. I no longer need to charge my phone after 6 hours.... and 48GB of memory total
Thanks for the info guys. My biggest concern/hope is that I don't want to go backwards in terms of reception. I don't talk a lot on my phone but I do need to be available. The EVO's for me has been adequate for me as a phone (including battery) but I loved everything else about it.
I may give the user reviews another day or so but I am jonesing hard here.
And +1 to MikG!
Reception is definetely inferior on the E4GT (people that claim it isn't are delusional or mentally retarded). There are numerous threads and posts about how the original EVO has better 3G/4G/WiFi reception. I have tested 2 EVOs vs. 3 E4GTs side-by-side and they all show similar results.
However, it isn't by much. The pros outweigh the cons in this case. Get the E4GT and you won't look back.
I'm just hoping Sammy releases an update soon.
akarol said:
Reception is definetely inferior on the E4GT (people that claim it isn't are delusional or mentally retarded). There are numerous threads and posts about how the original EVO has better 3G/4G/WiFi reception. I have tested 2 EVOs vs. 3 E4GTs side-by-side and they all show similar results.
However, it isn't by much. The pros outweigh the cons in this case. Get the E4GT and you won't look back.
I'm just hoping Sammy releases an update soon.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Appreciate your testing but are you relying on the signal bars to determine signal strength? If so, that isn't a proper measurement and can't be relied on.
Like others have mentioned Wi-Fi signal shows 'lower bars' when the phone is the same distance as their Evo but the speeds are greatly improved.
I also picked up the EVO4g on launch and LOVED IT. I was pretty sure that I wasn't going to upgrade for quite some time. Mainly used CM7 but also played around with a few other ASOP roms.
I picked up my ET4g on a whim (and after reading the comparison on engadget) and I have to say that the ET4g is much faster, the signal seems slightly better in my office (that is a bomb shelter and only gets signal if I put my phone in a specific place) and the same everywhere else that I normally got signal.
I am really happy with the ET4g. The only drawback between the two for me so far is that the EVO felt solid in my hand, like I wasn't going to snap it in two or break it somehow. The ET4g seems dainty and fragile. This may be a good thing, and I'm sure once my case comes I'll feel a whole lot better about it. I also am a little annoyed with the button layout swap of the options / home key. I keep finding myself pushing the wrong fracking button.
So even being critical the negatives don't outweigh the positives for me. Now that my ET4g is rooted I love it.
Hope that's helpful!
PS - I'm a female with pretty dainty hands myself so the fragile-ness isn't because I have hulk smash hands.
-A
Ran CM7 with my kernel:
1: The GS2 fascinates me every time I pull it out of my pocket
2: It fascinates me even more every time i unlock it
3: EVO 4g only did for a short time then the battery died lol (battery life was good after gingerbread)
4: Speaker is a lot louder and clearer, the ear piece, people I call can say they hear me much better now.
5: The phone is much faster stock than evo 4g w/ CM7/SavagedZen (which was awfully fast)
6: Camera takes very nice shots compared to the evo 4g
7: WiFI was stronger on the OG evo, no noticable difference with 3g/4g
8: Every time I take the epic out of my pocket im amazed
I too owned an EVO4g since launch and was sceptical about buying this phone.
What I love:
This phone handles .mkv video out of the box! On my evo, I'd try to play a 1.5gig video and it would pixelate and stutter (couldn't watch). The E4gT handles this PERFECTLY!!! NO LAG NO PIXELATION.
This was huge to me as I like to download videos and then hdmi from my laptop to my TV... now, I can just dl directly onto the E4Gt no problem!
Screen- It's vivid... The blacks are rich and the colors are amazing!
Camera- WTF, 1080p!!! Nice!! It's amazing. The color/quality is hands down the best I've seen.
It's much more responsive and faster.
Just a heads up... I sold my evo on craigslist for $200... and with my upgrade I got this phone for free... actually... I got sprint to give me a $50 credit to match wirefly/walmart... so I made $50 (well... only 12 if you could the 38 in taxe).
Go for it.
akarol said:
Reception is definetely inferior on the E4GT (people that claim it isn't are delusional or mentally retarded). There are numerous threads and posts about how the original EVO has better 3G/4G/WiFi reception. I have tested 2 EVOs vs. 3 E4GTs side-by-side and they all show similar results.
However, it isn't by much. The pros outweigh the cons in this case. Get the E4GT and you won't look back.
I'm just hoping Sammy releases an update soon.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I did speedtest on both side by side and the E4GT with one bar is way faster than the EVO with 4bars its not even close Ill do it again when my wife gets home from work with her EVO if you want me to post screen shots
And you're assuming I am using signal bars for my testing why?! I never mentioned that. I am measuring using dB levels.
ker0zene said:
Appreciate your testing but are you relying on the signal bars to determine signal strength? If so, that isn't a proper measurement and can't be relied on.
Like others have mentioned Wi-Fi signal shows 'lower bars' when the phone is the same distance as their Evo but the speeds are greatly improved.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I came from an Evo4G as well and did a signal comparison test using dbs. I cannot comment on 4G but the 3G reception of my Evo is definitely superior but not by a huge amount. Wifi is clearly superior on the Evo. Also after some testing it appears the E4GT is not capable of roaming on the PCS band (bandclass 1) only roams on cellular (bandclass 0) This may not affect many but if your in an area like florida or texas iirc which is straight PCS, no roaming for you!
^^ That! ^^
For me, it's EVO 4G for the win.
I so wanted to like this phone (Epic Touch). The screen is AMAZING. The design is AMAZING (people have commented like "what's THAT?")....in a good signal area, phone noticeably does download pages faster....but not by much. a second or two, which in real world experience means nothing...but it is noticeable.
The battery life.....AMAZING...first smart phone I ever owned that made it through the entire day AND night. Unfreaking believable.
But Data problems....I cannot stand.
The Samsung "glitches" like having to press buttons more than once OCCASIONALY or programs closing out of no where....I could almost live with...
But I NEED data, I use it more that the phone, lol
In an effort to soften all the bad feedback this phone has received, I have compiled a small list of the major complaints that have been mentioned regarding this device and will attempt to defuse them with fact and suggestions. Hopefully this will deter someone from posting the 100th "The Galaxy Nexus screen sucks!" topic.
This post isn't to claim that there isn't anything wrong with the phone, just to have a peek at how a normal device should function. Sort of to give people a benchmark to compare theirs to. More updates to come. Without further ado:
The Galaxy Nexus battery sucks!
There are a couple reasons why you might be experiencing less than favorable battery life. The first is what I like to call New Phone Syndrome. This has several side effects. The first being that your phone is so shiny and new that you can't seem to take it out of your hands. The Galaxy Nexus has a beautiful 4.65 inch Super AMOLED screen that, unfortunately, uses a lot of power. This combined with a fresh battery that isn't calibrated will give you poor battery life. After the initial newness of the phone wears off and you go through a few battery cycles, you should notice an increase in battery life. Depending on your usage, you could get up to a day or more of use. This will vary greatly!
A more legitimate concern pertaining to battery is a poor reception area. When you phone is in a poor reception area, the OS will attempt to alleviate this by routing more power to the radios. This gives the radio a little more juice to try to find a signal and hold on to it. This unfortunately causes a huge battery drain even when you aren't using the device. This will show up as "Android OS" under the Battery menu in settings. Connecting your device to Wi-Fi will not help much either since you still need to be connected to make and receive phone calls. Your only recourse is to stay plugged in while a low reception area or switch to airplane mode. Maybe a future update will lower the power routed, but I would prefer to have a signal than no signal at all.
Under normal circumstances, your phone should drain virtually no battery at all while not in use.
Exhibit A:
{
"lightbox_close": "Close",
"lightbox_next": "Next",
"lightbox_previous": "Previous",
"lightbox_error": "The requested content cannot be loaded. Please try again later.",
"lightbox_start_slideshow": "Start slideshow",
"lightbox_stop_slideshow": "Stop slideshow",
"lightbox_full_screen": "Full screen",
"lightbox_thumbnails": "Thumbnails",
"lightbox_download": "Download",
"lightbox_share": "Share",
"lightbox_zoom": "Zoom",
"lightbox_new_window": "New window",
"lightbox_toggle_sidebar": "Toggle sidebar"
}
The Galaxy Nexus has horrible reception!
Research has been done to show that the Galaxy Nexus gets service at equal or better levels than current phones. There are a couple explanations as to why you might think you are getting worse reception or might actually be getting worse reception.
Signal Bars
The Galaxy Nexus calculates the signal strength and converts that into bars differently than other devices, specifically Verizon devices. What this means is that the Galaxy Nexus gives an ACCURATE bar indictator for signal while previous devices give some magical trickery that usually leads to full or nearly full bars. In actuality, they are using the strength from a different network type, typically EVDO, which is inaccurate as to what your true signal strength is.
AnandTech did an excellent write-up that sheds more light on the situation.
Defective Device
I know it's a tough pill to swallow that your brand new $200 - $700 device may be defective, but it might be true. If you are constantly getting dropped calls and data issues where in the past you had not, there could be an issue with your device. You first stop should be to phone up, if you can get enough of a signal lol, your service provider. Explain the situation to them and see what they can do for you. You may have to get your device exchanged a few times but don't give up! Your device should be free of any reception issues and this is NOT an issue for every device!
Exhibit B and C:
The Galaxy Nexus has a horrible screen!
The short answer is no, it doesn't. The long answer is that the Galaxy Nexus has a beautiful 4.65 inch HD Super AMOLED display. Many will complain that it has pentile-based display but honestly, this is hardly noticeable unless you are using it at an extremely low brightness setting. If you are having display issues including weird lines, etc, your device may again be defective and you should try to exchange it not post a "The display sucks!" topic. It won't help much.
The camera sucks! It takes fuzzy pictures! - provided by skynet11
Learn to wait for autofocus before taking your snapshot, and learn how to tweak the other settings properly, and you'll have crystal clear photos.
Exhibit D - Some photos taken by KangXi
http://db.tt/RtmP1Ws7
http://db.tt/w5UFFOJR
The GPS Sucks!
After the Galaxy S GPS debacle, many people are rightfully concerned that the GPS in the Galaxy Nexus would be subpar. Fear not! I can safely say that the GPS is rock solid. This could vary based on carrier and location, but generally you should see similiar results. If your GPS is taking ages to lock or you aren't getting a lock at all, again this could be a hardware or even a software issue. Troubleshooting is your best bet, probably a replacement device.
Outdoor:
http://db.tt/aHx2GhYT
http://db.tt/vwFsBWNC
Indoor (six+ story building)
http://db.tt/49NNdDm9
http://db.tt/V5SsiHxY
More to come...
if you load a low-resolution picture on a HD, of course it suck. thats why i switched all my WP to HD *must be over 1200 res.*.
as for signal, perfectly fine on my GN, and battery life.... still cant beat my friend's 4s. same game but my battery die faster....
The exhibit A has a lot of wake lock time ... While the screen was off
gogol said:
The exhibit A has a lot of wake lock time ... While the screen was off
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That's just frequent syncing.
gogol said:
The exhibit A has a lot of wake lock time ... While the screen was off
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yup, probably my things syncing in the background but the battery only drained 4%. Total awake time was an hour out of the six hours. 28 minutes of that I was actually using it.
Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using XDA App
I lose less than 1% an hour on my LTE device (on WIFI, haven't tested it on mobile data yet)
That was stock, doesn't perform as well on UV kernels for some reason
Thanks for this myths debunked thread. I'd like to add one:
The camera sucks! It takes fuzzy pictures!
Learn to wait for autofocus before taking your snapshot, and learn how to tweak the other settings properly, and you'll have crystal clear photos.
Has anyone seen John Connor?
skynet11 said:
Thanks for this myths debunked thread. I'd like to add one:
The camera sucks! It takes fuzzy pictures!
Learn to wait for autofocus before taking your snapshot, and learn how to tweak the other settings properly, and you'll have crystal clear photos.
Has anyone seen John Connor?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Oh yes! I was going to mention that. Mind if I take your quote? Give you credit of course.
what's this about looking in the mirror and saying "galaxy nexus!" 3 times?
Good write up. Now what about the low volume issue? Is it widespread? GPS issue as well?
i wouldnt call the volume being low a myth...it is rather low, but then i'm coming from a phone that has stereo speakers on the side of the phone rather than the back...where it sits therefore muffling the sound more from a low starting point :|
Exhibit A is not a good example cause you were on Wifi the whole time. A lot of people throughout the workday will not have access to wifi and wifi is known to have less battery drain on standby.
I wonder if the low volume is hardware related at all. With past phones(that had Sense stock of course), anytime i'd try out an AOSP based ROM the volume was always noticeably quieter then on Sense. Devs would always attempt fixes but no matter what it wasnt the same. It makes me wonder how the volume would be on this phone if it had Sense.
jhuynh said:
Exhibit A is not a good example cause you were on Wifi the whole time. A lot of people throughout the workday will not have access to wifi and wifi is known to have less battery drain on standby.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I've gotten nearly the same drainage on mobile date which is why I mentioned the fact of being in a bad reception area will kill your battery. I can do another test on mobile data and post another shot.
I will do a screenshot of the GPS and post that, as I get rock solid GPS.
My phone is normally on vibrate (I don't like my phone making noises) so I really can't speak to that. When I do have the volume turn up, I haven't had any issues with it.
Updated with GPS. Anyone is welcome to add other topics and I can add them.
Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using XDA App
Your list is pretty spot on, but don't underestimate the "signal" problem (although I won't call it that henceforth). While I don't think there is a signal reporting problem, as you pointed out, there does seem to be lower performance out of this phone compared to some of the competition, specifically in areas of weaker signal in terms of maintaining a data connection and handing off between 3G/4G. That has been my experience.
Your assertions are in line with reported information from AnandTech, and I agree that some people's problem is a perceived problem due to "Signal Bar goggles" or ignorance to signal reading reporting between phones. But there are still legitimate concerns about data handoff between EV-DO/LTE as well as this phone's ability to hold signal in weaker areas. Those are real issues for real people. There are plenty of examples, myself in included, who see their Nexus fail to keep LTE where other phones do not, and fail to keep 3G where other phones do not. When I'm in a good signal area, my phone performs simlarly to HTC Rezound, Charge, Razr, Thunderbolt, and my old OG Droid. But put it in a fringe area, and the performance differences become more clear in both ability to hold the LTE or even 3G signal as well as data rates.
Maybe there's nothing "wrong" with the phone, it's just not as "good" at these things as some other phones (and that's certainly allowed), but just don't write it off yet as nothing wrong with it.
I've also seen my GPS on a few occasions have me somewhere miles away (even up to tens of miles away) from my actual location. When it's locating me 60 miles north of where I actually am, even with WiFi on, I'm calling shenanigans. I've had the phone for a 9 days and it's happened 3 times so far. Just something I'm keeping an eye on.
I'm not in the camp of people losing data completely for extended periods of time, and for those people, I would suggest a phone exchange. I think my device is behaving as designed, and there is just possibly some questionable performance issues compared to some other phones. For that reason, I'm keeping mine and being hopeful of updates addressing these concerns.
Uh the whole reception issue is a reality. It has nothing to do with reception bars etc. I have losr data connection numerous times and a few dropped calls in the los angeles and orange county area. And its ****ing frustrating.
The camera is meh. In many occasiosions its doesnt focus properly, so you get fuzzy pictures. Though the ipone4/4s and galaxy s2 devices are obviously better.
The gpu so far sucks. Its been underclocked, and ppl see lag in their live wallpapers, and especially in emu's like n64 and psx. Hopefully a good overclock will help this issue.
The battery is very lame, but i think that was a given because of 4g, i get some extra life by turning that off.
b15love said:
Uh the whole reception issue is a reality. It has nothing to do with reception bars etc. I have losr data connection numerous times and a few dropped calls in the los angeles and orange county area. And its ****ing frustrating.
The camera is meh. In many occasiosions its doesnt focus properly, so you get fuzzy pictures. Though the ipone4/4s and galaxy s2 devices are obviously better.
The gpu so far sucks. Its been underclocked, and ppl see lag in their live wallpapers, and especially in emu's like n64 and psx. Hopefully a good overclock will help this issue.
The battery is very lame, but i think that was a given because of 4g, i get some extra life by turning that off.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I never said the reception issue isn't real. The myth is that all devices suffer from this problem. My suggestion was that if you are having a bunch of problems that there might be a problem with your device.
Camera, I refer to the OP.
GPU, could be an issue with the high resolution and large screen. Probably will be optimized in the future. I'm running 4.0.3 and it's very smooth.
Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using XDA App
crankerchick said:
Your list is pretty spot on, but don't underestimate the "signal" problem (although I won't call it that henceforth). While I don't think there is a signal reporting problem, as you pointed out, there does seem to be lower performance out of this phone compared to some of the competition, specifically in areas of weaker signal in terms of maintaining a data connection and handing off between 3G/4G. That has been my experience.
Your assertions are in line with reported information from AnandTech, and I agree that some people's problem is a perceived problem due to "Signal Bar goggles" or ignorance to signal reading reporting between phones. But there are still legitimate concerns about data handoff between EV-DO/LTE as well as this phone's ability to hold signal in weaker areas. Those are real issues for real people. There are plenty of examples, myself in included, who see their Nexus fail to keep LTE where other phones do not, and fail to keep 3G where other phones do not. When I'm in a good signal area, my phone performs simlarly to HTC Rezound, Charge, Razr, Thunderbolt, and my old OG Droid. But put it in a fringe area, and the performance differences become more clear in both ability to hold the LTE or even 3G signal as well as data rates.
Maybe there's nothing "wrong" with the phone, it's just not as "good" at these things as some other phones (and that's certainly allowed), but just don't write it off yet as nothing wrong with it.
I've also seen my GPS on a few occasions have me somewhere miles away (even up to tens of miles away) from my actual location. When it's locating me 60 miles north of where I actually am, even with WiFi on, I'm calling shenanigans. I've had the phone for a 9 days and it's happened 3 times so far. Just something I'm keeping an eye on.
I'm not in the camp of people losing data completely for extended periods of time, and for those people, I would suggest a phone exchange. I think my device is behaving as designed, and there is just possibly some questionable performance issues compared to some other phones. For that reason, I'm keeping mine and being hopeful of updates addressing these concerns.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
This post isn't to claim that there isn't anything wrong with the phone, just to have a peek at how a normal device should function. Sort of to give people a benchmark to compare theirs to.
Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using XDA App
I see. So the title " The Galaxy Nexus has horrible reception!" Is not a myth and is partially true
Hello everyone.
So I bought this phone this past Friday and been having a blast with it. I bought the 2100mah verizon/samsung extended battery yesterday to have a bit better battery life with it. I have patience with battery life, so I'm ready to try anything.
Here's part 1 of my post (radio): So I'm on 4.0.4. I have the radio that comes with it. I noticed I can only get 1-2 bars (rarely 3) of signal at times. I read that the best way to post about this is in dBm so here are mines: -100 to -120 80% of the time. This is on 3g/4g/wifi. And it's rarely on 4g, it is always jumping to 3g. My mom has a thunderbolt and to test, I saw the thunderbolt had better dBm and always had a 4g signal, 3-4 bars constant, rarely 3g. I'm in Miami, Florida if it matters, which is a strong 4g area. When it's on 3g it gets very good signal, 3-4 bars and -80 dBm. Though sometimes I noticed my wi-fi gets 4 bars for like 10 minutes and returns back to 2 bars.
Anything I can do as far as the Radio, some people have fixed it with a new sim card but before I go get one (are they free?) let's see what I can try? Perphaps a new radio?
Part 2: Alright now as for the battery life. Here are my phone "stats": (screenshots are posted at the bottom of post for battery)
-4.0.4 Stock ROM nothing changed, just an unlocked bootloader.
-WiFi on when at home, off when using 3g/4g.
-NFC On.
-No syncing, everything updates when I open app (twitter, weather)
-Gmail is set to push, atleast I think so. It notifies me of a new email every time.
-48% Screen Brightness
-Signed OFF from Google+
That's it I believe, if anything else is needed let me know.
I have the XDA version of BetteryBatteryStats, so I guess I have the tool to fix it just need to pinpoint what the problem is. I'm draining at 2%-3% per hour with wi-fi, and no usage, just idle. Again this is with 4.0.4 update. I'm seeing people's battery life becoming awesome with some tweaking, so would like assistance on that.
Here are my screenshots:
Day 1 with ext battery on 4.0.4:
Day 2 with ext battery on 4.0.4:
Have you confirmed that you have the new radios installed?
I515.09 V.FA02 / I515.FA02 (or could show as I515.10 V.FA02 / I515.FA02)
You probably did that, but just wanted to be sure.
I have: I515.09 V.FA02 / I5I5.FA02
I appreciate the help!
How far off are you on strength from the T-Bolt? I think it's the 4.0.4 radios and I'll get into why I think that. Note that the following isn't scientific and I haven't really tested it, so don't spread this like it's fact. I live in a really strong 4G area, so in general I haven't noticed a difference with any of the various modems (I've tried them all). I will say that I worked for a week once in an area with poor Verizon coverage, and I noticed that the 4.0.2 radios worked better for me than the 4.0.3. Like, no coverage with 4.0.3 after upgrading to it, so I whipped my laptop out and pushed the 4.0.2 radios and got from zero bars w/ coverage to 1 bar. I don't know how the 4.0.2 radios compare to 4.0.4, but you might give that a whirl.
In general, I think that radio hype is just that, hype, and there's a reason why a slew of radios never make the final cut, but with Verizon trying to patch 3G/4G connectivity, I do think it's worth trying some other radio's out to see what they do in your area.
I hesitate to say the following because I have NOT paid that much attention or done significant testing on our radios, which is something I've done with previous devices. So do NOT take this as gospel, rather with a healthy dose of salt.
In my limited observation with 4.0.4, at least in my neighborhood/area of Birmingham (I have an LTE tower practically in my back yard), the 4.0.4 radios ARE weaker. With 4.0.2 radios for example, I want to say I got -70dBm on CDMA/1X in the house and usually -72dBm to -75dBm on LTE in the house. Right now, typing this thread on 4.0.4 with the phone showing 5 bars, I just checked my strength on LTE and it was registering -94dBm here at the house when I rolled onto CDMA, it showed -75dBm. When I rolled back onto LTE, it showed -75dBm (displaying 5 bars the entire time) then went to -87dBm a few minutes later. This is with the phone sitting on it's normal spot on my desk.
Random, first thoughts with 4.0.4:
1) We know that Verizon requested "updated" display bars for 4.0.4
2) There could be an issue in 4.0.4 with dBm updating/display. I haven't been at the house all day, I have roamed around, but I doubt very seriously that my real signal strength on LTE was really -94dBm here at home. When I say I have an LTE tower in my backyard, I'm literally talking about 1/4 of a mile away, on top of a hill.
3) 4.0.4 is not always registering/reading signal strength correctly, which is causing devices in a weak area to fall off of 4G and onto 3G when the issue isn't really with the tower, physical hardware, or the modem package, but on the way 4.0.4 is interpreting the signal information it's pulling in (based SOLELY on watching the signal range I just observed on LTE). That said, it easily could just be the tower this afternoon. AGAIN, take it all with a grain of salt.
I recommend trying the 4.0.2 radios, at a minimum. I would list them, but I don't know our radios off the top of my head yet (too much Vibrant info is still in my brain). Search for them, they're easy to find. BE SURE to push the CDMA/LTE radios paired together. Like, the 4.0.2 radios together, 4.0.3 radios together. Do NOT mix and match.
Generally speaking for people in good LTE areas, I think the 4.0.4 radio package is GREAT. I've noticed zero slow down. Yeah, -87dBm (which is what I normally see here at the house) IS "weak" and it SUCKS to have wrong bars displayed but I haven't noticed any slow down on the network. I think slightly scaling down LTE strength is what has helped improve battery life. CDMA radio strength does not appear to have been affected, which is what you're gonna be on in rural areas anyway so unless you're on the fringe of LTE signal like the OP, I don't think this radio package is anything to complain or be worried about.
---------- Post added at 03:17 PM ---------- Previous post was at 03:06 PM ----------
Also, in my experience as someone that travels all over for work, the only time that "weak" signal drains battery is when you're on the fringe of no connection and the OS is boosting power to the cell antenna's. On the old/real signal indicator, this was when you had a connection to Verizon with 0 bars and it was boosting you to 1 bar. I'm not comfortable stating a -dBm range because I can't remember what I observed and I didn't write it down. If you already have 1 or 2 bars (again, on the "old" signal indicator) you really don't see a boost given to the radios. By "boost", I mean you can click on the battery graph and see where signal strength went up and battery consumption did too, while your phone sat in the same place. I have a screen shot of this that I will try to find, and update this post with.
Looking at your screen shots, I don't see that affect. In general terms, your battery life looks "fine" "normal", whatever we want to call it. Bear in mind that our LTE GNex's don't get the same life as our GSM counterparts.
Edit:
Found the screen shot I was talking about. This was on stock 4.0.2 in my hotel room one night in a rural area. The night before I had data/sync on and noticed that when I woke up my battery was about dead. I knew it was due to signal strength since I was used to losing about 8% over night. So the following night I turned off data/sync and let it run over night, not wasting the opportunity to watch what would happen to battery life with and extra boost to the radio to get improved signal strength along with removing app/data activity from the battery consumption mix by keeping data/sync off. If I remember correctly, I went to bed @ 100% and woke up 7 hours 44 minutes later with something like 72% battery. Not only did the phone boost the power to the cellular antenna, but this activity also kept the phone from sleeping properly. I'm GLAD smart phone's can do this, but at a minimum, it turned a roughly 8% battery drain over X period of time into a 28% battery drain.
I hope my info/experiences haven't confused things further for you.
CDMA Input
So what have others found about CDMA battery life?? Mine is poor no matter what ROM or Kernel I seem to try to run. I also have attempted under voltages in SetCPU to see if that helps. Any feedback is greatly appreciated. Peace.
photolarry said:
So what have others found about CDMA battery life?? Mine is poor no matter what ROM or Kernel I seem to try to run. I also have attempted under voltages in SetCPU to see if that helps. Any feedback is greatly appreciated. Peace.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You need to define "poor". Everyone's use is different as are their apps. If you truly have poor battery life no matter what, look at the three things that are always probably the same. 1) Your physical battery. Is it defective? 2) The apps you use. Perhaps you have an app that is acting up and syncing like crazy or wasting CPU cycles. 3) The area you live in. Do you have poor signal strength?
The biggest drain on your battery is ALWAYS going to be your screen, and data/sync. In my personal use, my biggest drain is: Screen Brightness 100%, Netflix running, Audio 100% through the speaker. This equals about 30% per hour with the Verizon Extended Battery depending on what all else syncs in the background...with a live wallpaper.
Undervolting is a misleading thing. People will disagree with me, but when you look at power consumption tables, undervolting does very little. When our phones display battery % remaining, it's not based on the actual juice left in the battery. It's a calculation based on charts that the phone manufacturer (probably Google in our case) took from the hardware manufacturer and put into play that basically says that at this Processor Speed (X), this Level of Power Consumption Occurred (Y). It happened for this Amount of Time (Z) and then it compiles that data and solves for an amount of power used giving us a percentage of remaining battery life. In general, this is VERY accurate. However, there are no values programed in to account for undervolting...or OVER clocking for that matter. For example, if you're overclocked to 1350MHz, then Android is going to use the values for 1200MHz. If you put a timer on your battery life, you'll see a longer run if you run your phone until it shuts itself off. But it's not THAT big of a difference. All the while when your watching how quickly your battery bar drops with your use, you can't see a a measurable difference.
In my experience with undervolting, doing so got me maybe an extra 5% boost in battery life. I can't equate that to a time because again, usage is different. In general, a 5% swing in a charge cycle can be easily accounted for by other things. Does your processor use more juice @ 1200MHz with normal volting compared to 1200MHz undervolted? Absolutely, but undervolting isn't going to get someone hours of extra battery life, especially when our screens usually account for 60%+ of our battery consumption. All said and done, undervolting results in gaining us very few percentage points in terms of what percentage of battery life our processors consumed.
Seems like the kernel and rom do make some difference not just apps. I use AutoStarts to prevent a mess of them starting upon boot. I am sure the screen takes a ton of it. But I am convinced that it depends on voltages and kernels too. Since I notice differences.
I recommend trying the 4.0.2 radios, at a minimum. I would list them, but I don't know our radios off the top of my head yet (too much Vibrant info is still in my brain). Search for them, they're easy to find. BE SURE to push the CDMA/LTE radios paired together. Like, the 4.0.2 radios together, 4.0.3 radios together. Do NOT mix and match.
Generally speaking for people in good LTE areas, I think the 4.0.4 radio package is GREAT. I've noticed zero slow down. Yeah, -87dBm (which is what I normally see here at the house) IS "weak" and it SUCKS to have wrong bars displayed but I haven't noticed any slow down on the network. I think slightly scaling down LTE strength is what has helped improve battery life. CDMA radio strength does not appear to have been affected, which is what you're gonna be on in rural areas anyway so unless you're on the fringe of LTE signal like the OP, I don't think this radio package is anything to complain or be worried about.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Ok KWK, but there's a trade off here. If I try the 4.0.2 radios, that some people reported bad battery life on, it's just because it had a bad trade off for SOME
people right? So that means 4.0.2 radios could be good for me and result in better battery? Can I be on 4.0.4 and have the 4.0.2 radios?
Anyone know where to find these 4.0.2 radios and how to flash?
As for the battery life part of my post, what do you guys think I should try doing in betterbatterystats? A recent thread on here: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1483829&page=3 (Go to page 3 and last post) He got his life fixed. So that's nice to know there's tweaks that can be done. Any suggestions? Look at the http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1488680&page=6 thread too. "draining at 1% per hour in sleep mode & how are you doing it?"
I disagee with your comment about old 4.0.2 radios since 4.0.4 (FA02) radios have improved signal reception. It is possible that maybe it affects battery, but I kind of doubt it. Based on all the research so far, seems mostly screen eats it a lot as well as how you use all the apps on the phone as mentioned above. I mean isnt this a matter of some electrical engineering info (ie voltages etc) and how to tweak such things? I have CS degree but admit my hardware knowledge is not greatest.
Ugh, I'm in a mess now, lol. I called Verizon yesterday and followed their usual "signal solution" got me to 4 bars of 4g. Turned on WiFi - 2 bars, turned it off, back to 1-2 bar 4g that last for 30 seconds.
I'm starting to think it's the sim card.
Any suggestions for battery life? Seems my phone can't sleep. It's down to 83% after 5 hours. And all I've done is send 2-3 text messages. Do I turn off NFC for a start?
edit: Now I'm at 4 bars wifi. Goddam radios, they are so random, we'll assume the phone is trolling and continue to the solution.
bump for the night scary how fast it got to page 2.
let's get these issues fixed!
If your phone is searching for signal, then your battery life is already sucking it up. A "stronger" radio that uses a little more juice won't cause more drain than your phone will cause by throwing everything it can at the phone antenna. Just look at my screen shot from before...28% battery drained in 8 hours...an additional 20% due to the phone trying to keep a signal.
Like I said about your original screen shots, your battery life doesn't seem to be that "off to me". Just push different radios, and try them for at least a day.
Okay will do. Where can I find these other radios and how do I flash them?
Lastly, anyone here an expert on fixing phone isn't sleeping? Seems to be my major idle battery drain.
Icey34 said:
Okay will do. Where can I find these other radios and how do I flash them?
Lastly, anyone here an expert on fixing phone isn't sleeping? Seems to be my major idle battery drain.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You can find the radios here:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1481095
If you have the 4.0.2 radios, you can flash that ZIP in Clockwork Recovery Mod.
It will take a few minutes so leave it be and don't do a battery pull.
Well I have the 4.0.4 radios, does that change anything?
edit: after looking at that link you provided, are those even radios only? Seems like a bootloader & radio update from 4.0.2 -> 4.0.4. And I'm already on 4.0.4. But with horrid signal.
I have had the best results with the 4.0.4 radios but you mention you are already on them.
You can try flashing some older radios but I am not sure that will help your signal issues.
As far as finding out why you are having deep sleep issues, you can use Better Battery Stats to narrow down wakelocks.
With that said, if the phone is constantly in an area with poor signal, that will cause unnecessary battery drain as well.
Where can I find these older radios?
edit: I'd like to try the 4.0.2 radio.
Update 1: So today I powered it on after having it off from 7:00 AM to 2:45 PM. It's been idle, checked email for replies on this post and this is my battery:
Something is eating up it's idle time.
I noticed on the way back to my House it picked up a strong 4G signal for 5 minutes or so. Still looking to find where the 4.0.2 radios are. Noticing a stronger WiFi signal though, and the usual 4bar 3g. All I can find is the post from adranalyne about the radios from 4.0.2 -> 4.0.4. Something I was thinking about: If I flash 4.0.2 radios, say they are bad and I need to go back to 4.0.4 would that require a whole new flash of 4.0.4 or are there seperate radios?
Here are the betterbattery screenshots: (I have for last unplugged and charged not sure where it needs to be)
I too have an LTE Galaxy Nexus and have been switching from franco's and lean kernel in an attempt to gain battery life. I have a feeling you're not going to get much better battery life with LTE turned on. I've turned off sync and LTE overnight and the best I've gotten in deep sleep is about 1-1.5% an hour. That's all after hunting down all my unnecessary wakelocks and shutting them down (GTALK_asnyc, etc) and keeping my running programs to a minimum (email, lightflow, and weather1 are the only ones ever running besides stock apps with sync on weather1 on a 6 hour cycle)
All of the two day battery life posts I've seen all seem to be GSM phones, and typically I've been getting a full day pretty comfortably...
8 hours while sleeping + 8-13 hours of light to moderate usage (1-3 hours of screen time generally)..all with about 10-25% remaining at the end of my long days
That's excellent. But one problems: (1) I can't even get a 4g signal, at most for 5 minutes in an area that I regularly get it. I have a thunderbolt next to me running 3-4 bars. I know the GNex has a bad radio, but sheesh I atleast want to have SOME 4g.
Been trying to find a radio, can't find one though, if you can link one that'd be appreciated.
Anything you see there in betterybatterystats I should shut down, and do they start backup after boot? I see the GTALK thing you were talking about on mines too, how do I get rid of it?
edit: just a few hours after my first post today:
On JB 4.1.1 and the wifi reception seems horrible (compared to multiple other devices, iPhone, iPad, various computers around the house) I am struggling to pull in one or two bars where everything else has 3 or full bars.
Anyone else notice this? For that matter cell reception isn't the greatest compared to the iPhone 4s (wifes) as well. New to the device as of last week, enjoying it, just a little miffed at the poor reception....and very quiet alerts/speaker phone.
I'm at a loss here, but I know something is wrong for sure. I'm familiar with the low signal strength 'problem' on LTE networks as described at rootzwiki's thread entitled "This is why your Verizon Nexus signal "sucks" " I do not understand it inside and out, but I know enough to be at least 80% sure that this is not my issue. That thread describes a low signal strength, as in the dBm, but my problem is actual performance. I'm not comparing numbers (at least not on LTE networks), but results.
The problem is pretty bad, and pretty consistent. Without fail, my signal strength will be butchered, and with it data and even voice/text service will be unreliable or non existent inside any building. Not just some buildings, but any building. If I'm in a 4G area, I almost always lose the 4G, and it's switched to 3G with very poor performance (even for 3G standards). If I don't loose the 4G, the speed test results are horrid. I've had several cases where inside a building I still have 4G but the speeds might be 500-700 Kbps down/up or even worse, but when I step outside into the parking lot, 10-15 Mbps down 5-15 Mbps up. I realize structures absorb wireless signals and sometimes it can be pretty bad, but this is too much and too frequent to just be normal wireless signal degradation. It also doesn't seem to be the area because I've traveled through these areas before with my droid charge and I've never experienced issues anywhere close to this bad with my charge.
Some examples; the first time I noticed it was in the Greensboro, NC 4G area. Specifically at the Travel Centers of America about 10 miles east of the greensboro's border. When I first pulled into the truck stop (I drive a strait truck with a sleeper) I was pissed because my phone was on 3G, and I looked this area up before I came here on verizon's detailed 4G coverage map. This very truck stop was sitting in a dark maroon 4G area, NOT an extended 4G area. So I was angry, but I figured that there was an issue with the network, or the storm coming through was causing problems. Later the storm passed and I noticed (while walking back to my truck) that I was getting a strong 4G signal and good speeds, 5-10 Mbps down and 5 ish up. But as I sat back in even just the driver seat the signal strength dropped, and so did the speeds. I did a lot of tests later outside. I was performing speed tests at different locations all over the parking lot and I noticed the closer I got to the trucks, the poorer the performance. When I was inside my truck, and back in the sleeper, 4G was gone completely, taken over by a very poor 3G signal with slow speeds. I found that if I had my phone mounted on the windshield I was able to get reasonable 4G speeds, but still only a fraction of what I was able to get outside in the parking lot.
Another similar case happened in the Washington DC area at a walmart (Landover, MD). This time the 4G stuck even in the sleeper, but speeds were 2-3 Mbps down and about 700 Kbps up. While outside, however, 15 Mbps down and up.
Here I sit at another truck stop. This time, however, I'm in an extended 4G area (which of course means I have 3G) and I'm comparing my 3G signal strength to my Charge's signal strength. I know what I said earlier, but from what I understand about that "issue", gingerbread phones and earlier would give the CDMA signal strength because they couldn't read the 4G signal strength, but ICS and later can and so it displays the LTE signal strength. So wouldn't that mean that if you are in a 3G area, you can, in fact, accurately compare signal strength since they should both be displaying the CDMA signal strength? If that's the case, then what I'm getting is -100 dBm on my Galaxy Nexus and -87 dBm on my charge.
Something is most definitely wrong with my phone, but I don't know if it has anything to do with the Vicious JB stock rom I installed or not.
Vicious JellyBean 4.1 V5 is the version I installed, and I realize now that I did not install the latest (4.1.1 V1) but nonetheless I could not see it reported anywhere in the changelog, or any of the replies to the thread that there were very noticeable problems with the radio performance. I'm just at a loss and I really hope someone's reading this going "ah, I know exactly what that problem is". Although I'm never lucky enough to have a well known problem happen that there are fixes readily available for
Thanks very much for your time and help!
Bippity, boppity, bump!!
Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using xda app-developers app
I suggest you upgrade to the AOSP version that was released a couple of days ago. I have been running it for about 20 hours with very good results.
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1797996
JB issues?
Soundfx,
I've noticed some strange data problems as well. I've only had my nexus for 3 days. The first thing I did was throw a JB ROM (actually, about 9 of them to try them all out) on the device. (Vicious was one of them) What I noticed was that pretty consistently, about 5-10 minutes after the flash, my phone would go from having 4 bars of LTE to no signal at all. My connection would drop completely. Although I didn't figure this out until the latter flashes, I did remember having connection issues when I tried going to the play store or the internet on all the ROMs. I'd have to switch of LTE, and then I'd start working again. At first I just figured that I'm in some sort of LTE dead zone or something. But it seemed strange that my connection would drop completely and I couldn't get it back for 30-60 seconds.
SO, this morning I took my device back to stock. Unrooted ICS from Verizon. And although I wasn't at home for more than a minute to do testing, it appears that my connection problems have gone away. So I'm wondering if it is a radio issue for JB roms. All that to say that I don't think your problem is just the vicious rom. If you wouldn't mind, I'd suggest you trying another ROM and seeing if you have the same issues.
I figure it could be a few things for my own issues, which could be similar to yours:
1. Toro JB roms just have radio issues. (Seems like more people would be clamoring on this forum though if that were true, and I haven't seen any other than you)
2. I have a bad piece of hardware. (Running my stock ICS rom should shake that out.)
3. I live in a verizon dead zone and will experience drops no matter what ROM I use. (Again, stock ICS should shake that out for me.)
4. Gnex has inferior radio hardware, and there is nothing to be done about it. (Doesn't seem likely.)
ALL that to say that, while I don't have an answer for you, I seem to be experiencing similar problems, and I'm trying to figure it out too.
I'll keep you updated as I hone in on a culprit of my problems. (IF I can)
JR
stickerbob said:
I suggest you upgrade to the AOSP version that was released a couple of days ago. I have been running it for about 20 hours with very good results.
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1797996
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You say "the AOSP" version that was released, but what exactly does AOSP mean? I know what it stands for, Android Open Source Project, but every jelly bean rom I've seen (or most) has AOSP in it and I guess I don't grasp it's actual meaning.
The only thing I know for sure is that I want stock stock stockity stock stock! When devs build roms they tend to always have some sort of a bug or two, and I just never feel like they are stable enough. So I want as stock as I can get! Which is why I installed Vicious Stock JB.
I just really don't know though...I know the nexus apparently has radio problems anyway, but...I guess I can just try the latest roms and see what happens. Are there any radios that I can install maybe that would fix this? :\
whozamazinka said:
Soundfx,
I've noticed some strange data problems as well. I've only had my nexus for 3 days. The first thing I did was throw a JB ROM (actually, about 9 of them to try them all out) on the device. (Vicious was one of them) What I noticed was that pretty consistently, about 5-10 minutes after the flash, my phone would go from having 4 bars of LTE to no signal at all. My connection would drop completely. Although I didn't figure this out until the latter flashes, I did remember having connection issues when I tried going to the play store or the internet on all the ROMs. I'd have to switch of LTE, and then I'd start working again. At first I just figured that I'm in some sort of LTE dead zone or something. But it seemed strange that my connection would drop completely and I couldn't get it back for 30-60 seconds.
SO, this morning I took my device back to stock. Unrooted ICS from Verizon. And although I wasn't at home for more than a minute to do testing, it appears that my connection problems have gone away. So I'm wondering if it is a radio issue for JB roms. All that to say that I don't think your problem is just the vicious rom. If you wouldn't mind, I'd suggest you trying another ROM and seeing if you have the same issues.
I figure it could be a few things for my own issues, which could be similar to yours:
1. Toro JB roms just have radio issues. (Seems like more people would be clamoring on this forum though if that were true, and I haven't seen any other than you)
2. I have a bad piece of hardware. (Running my stock ICS rom should shake that out.)
3. I live in a verizon dead zone and will experience drops no matter what ROM I use. (Again, stock ICS should shake that out for me.)
4. Gnex has inferior radio hardware, and there is nothing to be done about it. (Doesn't seem likely.)
ALL that to say that, while I don't have an answer for you, I seem to be experiencing similar problems, and I'm trying to figure it out too.
I'll keep you updated as I hone in on a culprit of my problems. (IF I can)
JR
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thank you kindly sir, and I will give a few other roms a shot just to see what I can find out and report back!
I tried flashing a few different roms; Liquid TORO Alpha 6, Vicious CM10 Toro, and Vicious JB 4.1.1 v1. All three of them as soon as the phone booted up showed the exact same poor 3G signal quality in the back sleeper while I'm in a dark maroon 4G area. Although I don't think I did a proper rom installation. They roms definitely installed, but it upgraded and installed over what I had...which I didn't realize it would do at all. I'll try doing it properly rom installation with a JB toro rom and then I'm going back to stock ICS to see what it looks like. I'm actually, right now, back at the truck stop that I originally noticed this problem. I'll post back.
I tried flashing back to stock 4.0.4 ICS build with the most recent radios, then I tried EK06 EK05 radios. It was the same across the board. No matter what rom/radios i use, the signal quality was the same. I lost service completely inside the building and in the sleeper it drops to 3G with incredibly poor signal quality :\ -100 dBm -120 dBm I'm going to try and get a new SIM card. if that doesn't solve it...then I guess it's time to look for a new phone :\
It seems like the developers are in a holding pattern until new radios are leaked. If it's that bad, there's no real harm in sticking w/ ICS until we get radios. Some really sweet things have been done by the community in the meantime.
Sent from my Xoom using xda premium
well I already had vicious 4.1 installed with my apps and all that stuff and it's the same across the board. So I'll be sticking with this until something pops up I guess :\ I'm still definitely going to check about getting a new SIM card; it's the only option, short of another phone, that I can try at this poing. -shrugs- :\