so I have a quick question about metal/aluminum covers for the backplate of the s3. do they affect wifi greatly to the point of un-usability?
i really want one but have not done so yet based on rumors that it kills wifi, signal, 3g, etc
Here's a little experiment you can try: cover the entire back of your phone with aluminum foil.
Preferably do this on a weekend at home so you don't look like a fool in public lol
But then just see how it responds for the day, because on some phones it MAY kill the wifi and on others it may not, just like for some S3 s there was a "death grip" report going around where if you held it too hard, the signal would drop several bars.
Related
any body heard of any sort of metal or steel type back for the evo? i really liked the back for the hd2 the solid cool feeling of the metal was awsome and would be a greta feature to add to the evo 4g. make it look and feel more bad ass Lol
As long as you don't want to use your compass... or apps that use it
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Sent via the XDA Tapatalk App
I am no electrical engineer but I decided to have some fun doing experiments. I took a sheet of aluminum foil and placed it behind the phone. The signal strength dropped from -73 to -87. So clearly having metal over antennas will block the signal.
I also recall hearing that is why they removed the aluminum back cover from the first iPhone.
This is just a warning in case you ever do find an after market metal cover. It might hurt your signal strength and in turn battery life.
Pops_G said:
I am no electrical engineer but I decided to have some fun doing experiments. I took a sheet of aluminum foil and placed it behind the phone. The signal strength dropped from -73 to -87. So clearly having metal over antennas will block the signal.
I also recall hearing that is why they removed the aluminum back cover from the first iPhone.
This is just a warning in case you ever do find an after market metal cover. It might hurt your signal strength and in turn battery life.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The solution would be to do what Apple did for the iPhone 4. Use the outer metal rim as the antenna. Honestly, I think it's a stroke of genius.
liquidkernel said:
The solution would be to do what Apple did for the iPhone 4. Use the outer metal rim as the antenna. Honestly, I think it's a stroke of genius.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
and i bet they panted it..
liquidkernel said:
The solution would be to do what Apple did for the iPhone 4. Use the outer metal rim as the antenna. Honestly, I think it's a stroke of genius.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
We will see how it plays out. I am quite sure touching an antenna with your hands reduces its signal. So that design might not work out as well as it would seem.
In my testing I found holding the EVO at different points would increase/decrease the signal. It should be the same with the iPhone.
Pops_G said:
We will see how it plays out. I am quite sure touching an antenna with your hands reduces its signal. So that design might not work out as well as it would seem.
In my testing I found holding the EVO at different points would increase/decrease the signal. It should be the same with the iPhone.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
iphone 4 metal frame is surrounded the top section is the main area where they have placed the antenna circuit the rest is the design flow. so it will work good enuf, I am not trying to compete with Evo or anything bad about evo just telling you something. evo for sprint is still the best .. the Ball is in sprin't court now its up to them how they continue with it such as by updating to 2.2 and how fast these things will count.
Pops_G said:
We will see how it plays out. I am quite sure touching an antenna with your hands reduces its signal. So that design might not work out as well as it would seem.
In my testing I found holding the EVO at different points would increase/decrease the signal. It should be the same with the iPhone.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
There is in fact a warning in the documentation that came with the EVO, which states that placing your fingers on the portion of the phone left of the LED flashes, may interfere with your signal. I don't recall if it's in the Getting Started guide or the main user manual.
fazzy said:
iphone 4 metal frame is surrounded the top section is the main area where they have placed the antenna circuit the rest is the design flow. so it will work good enuf, I am not trying to compete with Evo or anything bad about evo just telling you something. evo for sprint is still the best .. the Ball is in sprin't court now its up to them how they continue with it such as by updating to 2.2 and how fast these things will count.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Oh I wasn't trying to make this an EVO vs iPhone debate. Just a general observation about antennas. It was also a problem I noticed on the EVO. Your hand/body will reduce the signal if placed in certain locations. I have seen this happen on TVs that are grabbing signal from the air, radios, and cordless phones.
So all I am saying it putting the iPhone's antennas on the outside might not be the stroke of genius people think it is. Not to mention it would be difficult to hold that phone without touching 2 different antennas at once. That might cause cross interference.
Hmm maybe I should start a thread specifically for antenna discussion, this title is a little misleading, and we went off into a tangent.
I mean, I'd be happy with a plastic back cover that FIT RIGHT
phinnaeus said:
I mean, I'd be happy with a plastic back cover that FIT RIGHT
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Click to collapse
I heard this in another thread, but I am not seeing it. My back cover sits totally flush and looks great. Did I get lucky, or is there something else I'm missing?
phinnaeus said:
I mean, I'd be happy with a plastic back cover that FIT RIGHT
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Someone else posted somewhere that they put a piece of paper (folded once?) between the battery and the cover, and that pushed the center out enough to bring the outer edges flush.... could try that.
Jye75 said:
Someone else posted somewhere that they put a piece of paper (folded once?) between the battery and the cover, and that pushed the center out enough to bring the outer edges flush.... could try that.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That fix worked for me. Probably could be solved with a thin piece of foam glued to the inside of the cover too.
phinnaeus said:
I mean, I'd be happy with a plastic back cover that FIT RIGHT
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
i've modded my cover to fit perfectly, and solidly. i'll post a thread later tonight.
So what about the HTC Legend with the aluminum unibody? Do they use the whole body as a antenna?
Pops_G said:
I am no electrical engineer but I decided to have some fun doing experiments. I took a sheet of aluminum foil and placed it behind the phone. The signal strength dropped from -73 to -87. So clearly having metal over antennas will block the signal.
I also recall hearing that is why they removed the aluminum back cover from the first iPhone.
This is just a warning in case you ever do find an after market metal cover. It might hurt your signal strength and in turn battery life.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'm an electrical engineer, and I will confirm this. Perhaps someone could attach the metal back to the antenna somehow, though. That would be interesting.
I've had my European Desire Z since launch, however recently reception has become very poor for no apparent reason. I'm also noticing the phone getting a lot warmer (often while not doing any cpu-intensive tasks)
I'm only getting 0-2 bars instead of 4 in my house. I'm also getting similarly crappy reception all of a sudden at a place I visit often, ~2 hours away from my home.
I've tried flashing different radios, wiping cache/dalvik, rolling back to "known good" ROMs such as CM6, but nothing seems to work.
help?
I know this is a long shot, but here it is......
One time I dropped my G2 off my table and I have the bodyglove case for it ( rubber case). When I picked it up it looked fine, worked and everything but I noticed that my reception was cut in half, I tried flashing new radios, Roms, kernels everything, but nothing seemed to help. I thought I really messed something up inside the phone from the fall. I finally took the rubber case off to look and see if maybe my sim was out somehow and noticed that the bottom left corner of the phones outer housing at the keyboard had come apart just a millimeter or less, so i push the phones housing back together and instantly my phones reception came back full strength and has been great ever since, so I am suggesting maybe checking to edge of your phone to make sure the housing hasn't slightly come apart. I couldn't believe that little gap in the housing had such a impact on my phones reception, you could barely tell it had come apart, but it did.
Okay joemm, your suggestion was quite helpful. After enabling 'numeric signal' so that I have a semi-precise indicator of the actual reception I'm getting, I've noticed that I can get it to go up to -65 (which would be 4 bars of course) by supporting it in a certain way and applying some pressure. However, when the phone is 'left alone' it would routinely drop all the way to -105 (zero bars)... sort of like a reverse iPhone 4
So far I've been unsuccessful in detecting any parts of the casing that have come loose, unfortunately. I'll keep trying - it seems like the fix to my problem should be similar to the one posted above (and hopefully would not require me prying open the keyboard housing!)
I was searching around on ebay for some back covers for my mum's s3 and saw these back covers and they are made of aluminum! These remind me of the backplate on my Captivate, which is strong and sturdy. Thinking of picking one or two up for my mum as a gift . What do you think?
Some people say that will affect, decrease or at least damage your phone because of the signal that'll get interrupted into this case.
Signal drop is a fact, but damage the phone is a dream i think, so i have brought two of them, but at 15usd
It's a known fact that you will suffer a drop in signal, which pretty much is a no brainer. However, at the same time it's not as bad as people claim because only half of the phone is covered. It still creates a Faraday cage like effect and it will effect your signal strength...ie...having full bars does not mean it's at 100% signal strength. It is possible if you're in a good area that you can put these aluminum covers on and still have full bars, however, you will suffer dBm's...
This makes all the difference for those times where you need every bit of signal you can get to connect....
So I guess it all depends on your location. If you're in the city with cell phone antennas located everywhere, you'll be fine. If you're in the boon docks in the middle of butt crack hicksville....you may want to think twice about it..... common sense really...
SkzBR said:
Some people say that will affect, decrease or at least damage your phone because of the signal that'll get interrupted into this case.
Signal drop is a fact, but damage the phone is a dream i think, so i have brought two of them, but at 15usd
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
My Dinc2, like everyone else's, has terrible reception. (relatively speaking). About a week ago, it went from tolerable to dropping calls like crazy. The db use to be in the 90's, but it has since pegged at 105 and stays there no matter what - indoors or outdoors, unless I'm downtown where a tower is almost in sight. WHY did this degradation happen? I flashed from the 320 radio to the 312, no change at all. I am running the Magnolia ROM, after having tried the others. The reception was doing fine up until a week ago....
Yesterday, I put my flashlight in my pocket, which has a magnetic base. When I used it later, I noticed something stuck to the magnet... it was a "U" shaped piece of metal. It was very defined, then it occurred to me it wasnt a U, it was a C. The "C" from the "HTC" on the back cover. The H and the T were already gone. So I wonder... if these being metal had anything to do with the antenna being in the back cover? Could these tiny pieces of metal be contributing to the reception? Or their loss being a determent?
If you have the metal HTC letters on your back cover, could you check your db rating then pop them out, and check it again? Strange request I know... but all in the name of science!
I would give anything for the Dinc2 to have Motorola like reception.... it's almost perfect, except for that.
I know it is a long shot, it was just a thought. The metal loading of the cover may or may not have anything to do with the reception... from what I've read the aftermarket covers do not receive as well as OEM's, so who knows.
if i took off back cover and dial *#4636#*#* i found the "db" became 105 and i put it back it goes normal,that means the antenna was integrated in back cover,so you can try do to it to find if the problem cause by back cover and order a new cover over the Amazon.
I have had this phone since May of 2011 and I never noticed that the HTC on the back cover had the metal inlays!!!!! Wow!!!! Anyway, I don't want to pop mine out but I did the same by removing the back cover and the db's also jumped to 105 for me when I did that.
Pop off your back cover and grab some tweezers or a small flat head screw driver. You'll see 4 gold prongs on the back of your phone. 2 near the camera and 2 in the bottom left corner. Gently bend those up a little bit, being careful not to break them off. Now grab a pencil with a good eraser. Look at the inside of your back cover and you will see yellow/goldish lines that line up with the prongs you just bent. Rub these lines with the eraser. Personally I would do this with my phone turned off, but that probably doesn't really matter. I suspect your reception will return to normal.
The metal letters have nothing to do with the antennas. They're located near the middle of the thinnest section of the back cover. The plastic would be thicker there if any metal or wires were running close enough for them to do anything.
Sent from my ICS Dinc2
I wasn't even having trouble with mine and did this and worked great. Thanks for the tip!!!
I bent the tabs, I tried the foil trick, I tried up and down grading the radio, and with the cover on at my house, I'm looking at 105db. I borrowed a Verizon Samsung network extender which plugs in the wall and internet router, and when I'm within 10 feet of it, my phone registers about 70db. However, it makes my GPS location about 75 miles away!
So I'm a loss... I'm grasping at straws here trying to not give up on the Dinc2.
My guess would be that a new back cover is in order then. Do you know anyone that has a Dinc2 that you could try swapping covers with?
If that doesn't work then maybe the magnet damaged your phone. Magnets can do some weird things to electronics.
Sent from my ICS Dinc2
So i bought a metal bumper case(the ones which only cover the side of your phone) from the company called luphia(?)
Very nice case but i found out it keeps decreasing my signal range for my wifi which really sucks because my wifi is on the other end of my house and my room is on the opposite end. The moment i put the case on, the signal gets unstable where it keeps disconnecting and reconnecting from the wifi, which is really annoying.
Anyways, is there any way to at least decrease the signal interference without abandoning the case? I thought about drilling it but its aluminum and I don't have the necessary tools for it.
If i should drill it, where should I? Im pretty sure the wifi module is located somewhere on the top of the phone but idk if the antenna itself is on the sides or wut.
ZeeSmilez said:
So i bought a metal bumper case(the ones which only cover the side of your phone) from the company called luphia(?)
Very nice case but i found out it keeps decreasing my signal range for my wifi which really sucks because my wifi is on the other end of my house and my room is on the opposite end. The moment i put the case on, the signal gets unstable where it keeps disconnecting and reconnecting from the wifi, which is really annoying.
Anyways, is there any way to at least decrease the signal interference without abandoning the case? I thought about drilling it but its aluminum and I don't have the necessary tools for it.
If i should drill it, where should I? Im pretty sure the wifi module is located somewhere on the top of the phone but idk if the antenna itself is on the sides or wut.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That's one of the reasons I had to ditch mine: reduces signal by 4-5db. I doubt drilling would help, but I were to do it, it would be on 4 edges. You can remove screws and try with bottom and upper parts off to see which one reduces signal more (while watching signal in 'about phone' or 'test' menu.