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Hi,
I am looking to buy Samsung Galaxy Nexus and upgrade my Verizon contract. I didn't see good reviews for this phone. I heard lot of complaints about poor signal reception, call quality and battery life (reviews like PCMAG and others). I am not too worried about the camera but if the signal and call dropping is real problem, then I don't think it's worth considering this phone.
Anyone experienced any issues? If so, is there a fix?
Please help me making a decision.
Thanks,
Kala
i havent had any issues with call dropping or anything like that
signal in my area is very very strong (full LTE coverage, full bars) so i cant comment on that part
I get full bars of 4G where I live, and 30mb/s, but then again I live in Manhattan.
Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using xda premium
Not sure where you're looking at reviews, but Verizon, Amazon, Best Buy, and WireFly all average ratings of 4+ out of 5.
FWIW, I live in OKC and came from an LG Revolution that always had full strength. My Gnex seams to normally have 2/3 out of 4 bars, but I've never lost signal and get the same speeds I did on the Revo.
I've never had a dropped call on this phone. I live in Tucson and I get 2-3 bars of 4g usually at around 20mb/s.
Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using Tapatalk
The thing that messes measurements up for people, and has unjustly lead to a poor reputation, is:
1) Non-4.0 phones never report LTE signal strength. They will always show CDMA signal strength. Since the LTE network is a lot patchier than it should be given the low frequency it operates on, people assume the 10db difference is due to phones. It is not (google AnandTech Galaxy Nexus if you want to see an exhaustive test). Switching the phone to CDMA-only will put it on-par with other devices.
2) The phone uses considerable hysteresis (averaging the signal over a period of time) when calculating its signal strength. You literally have to two phones next to each other and wait for 10 seconds for the GN to accrue enough data to give you an accurate reading. Most phones will give you the last reported strength, so you'll see the dbm reading change every half second based on slight changes in angle and atmospheric conditions.
The Nexus is at least as good as the OG Motorola Droid (the only phone I've compared it to side-by-side), with a variance of +/-3 dbm, which is probably within the margin of error for these things. And at least in my experience, it will NOT drop a call. I've held calls in areas that had almost no signal (zero bars, -120dbm reading), and while the call got choppy when I ducked under some steel structures, it didn't disconnect. Having used AT&T, T-Mobile and US Cellular recently, I don't know if it's phone or network, but it's impressive.
Just make sure you close apps with ads on them through multi-tasking button (swipe them away), turn GPS off, turn 4G off and battery will last you an entire day with texts, calls, web serving and playing apps. No dropped call or signal issues, camera doesnt focus that well even after touching the auto focus. I would buy this phone again in a heartbeat.
I had two of these. The first wouldn't charge. It also kept loosing the 4G signal. This meant dropped calls and messages not being sent. I picked up a "New" replacement and the phone charged fine. The dropped signal issue persisted with the new device. BTW, I'm in Albuquerque NM.
I tried several radios, but to no avail. The call quality isnt very good either. I really wanted to keep the phone, but have no use for a device that will only work flawlessly on 3G. I was even willing to sacrifice call quality because I don't talk very much on my phone.
Google the Nexus and connection issues. You'll get a grip of links to read about signal loss. The problem seems to be area specific. You may have no problems. I now have the Galaxy Note. Works well, but ATT is slower than VZW in my area (No LTE). The call quality is the best I've ever experienced. Now waiting for ICS.
Steve
A far as call quality goes, on the Verizon GNex, it's really awful. I often find myself asking people to repeat themselves a lot more than I should. My old Samsung Solstice (feature phone) had much better call quality but then again that was on AT&T. Also until it's fixed you have to deal with people on the other end of the conversation occasionally not being able to hear you, its happened to me twice now.
Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using Tapatalk
You are insenuating it is the network that affects your call quality.
It is not. I don't think anyone will argue that a feature phone is better as a phone, than a smartphone is, as a phone. Call quality is not the reason you buy a smartphone.
I have had nothing but problems w the lte gnex. In side by side comparison between the gnex, Droid 4 and the stratosphere the gnex will say -120 dbm while the others will b in the -75 to -85 range. On top of that the othe to phones hold on to 4g much better. In places where the nexus has -120 dbm 3g signal pulling 500kbs the other 2 phones have nearly full 4g bars pulling 25mbs. On top of that the nexus can take up to 10mins to switch from 4g to 3g and vice versa while the others take 30 secs max. The gnex is the best phone I've had but after 2 replacements and trying every radio combo available I just cant deal with this BS any more
I have similar experience. While I can receive a signal about 80% of the time with the 4G network, while I am on that network, my call voice quality is horrible. What I hear is fine, what other people hear from my voice is unacceptable. I have been on Verizon tech support, many days and hours trying to get this resolved.
From what I have read above, I have to agree with everyone that is trying to say that this is not a network issue. I agree. it is the phone, plain and simple. I used the Galaxy S II, and that is possibly the best phone I have ever owned. That was on the Sprint network. I had to switch to Verizon because where I moved, I had no Sprint signal. When I switched to Verizon, that phone was not available. I chose the Nexus. I should have waited for the S3.
I don't know what to do at this point. 4 months of phone replacement, SIM card replacement, PRL updates, Phone OS updates, etc. Verizon is calling me back again tomorrow in the continuing saga of call quality diagnostics...
I will try to keep everyone up to date, if you are interested.
No problems here. After the 4.0.4 update the random reboots stopped. Calls have always been clear, and even clearer after the update. Recently upgraded my wife's phone to a GNex and same deal - no problems. Were in and out of 4g in the Puget Sound area and switching is not an issue. Happens fast and for the most part flawless. Only on a few rare occasions does the phone seem confused and stop getting a data connection for a few minutes.
Sent from my Xoom using xda premium
bad radio?
I have had issues with outbound call quality. The person on the other end says I sound like Charlie Brown's teacher, Wawahwa wa wawwa. First time it happened I went to Verizon and they swapped out the SIM. Good to go for a couple weeks then it started again. Back to VZW and they sent a replacement phone which i transferred the second SIM to. Great for a few weeks and back to VZW for a THIRD SIM. This morning I got the OTA 4.2.2 and Im back in class with Charlie. Im wondering if its the radio at this point...ideas?
the issue is the radio.
I 100% hated this phone.
I had it for almost 2 years and I've been threw 3 of them, all had the worst call quality Ive ever seen in a phone. to the point it couldnt even make a phone call. random screeching sounds, dropped calls, I would hear the person but they wouldnt hear me. I had to take it back for the USB plug on it breaking, had a REAL bad screen once where it would burn in after being on for not even 10 secs. Nothing but problems
I have real strong signal strength in my area so having on these issues is un called for and NOT looking good on verizon.
I hated this phone so much I ended up buying a GS3 on ebay and never looked back
I do NOT recommend this phone to anybody.
I have a Verizon Galaxy Nexus and am looking for an upgrade. I love my Gnex but my phone has a terrible signal just about everywhere, but it is especially bad at my house . I went down to my local corporate VZW store to check out some phones today.
I compared every phone side by side with my Gnex, both showing the signal strength in dbm and asu rather than relying in bars. To my surprise every phone was within 4-5dbm of the Gnex. I looked at the LG G2, Moto X, Note 2 and the Droid Maxx. Surprisingly, the G2 consistently had a worse signal than my Gnex when comparing dbm....
My main upgrade motivation was better signal strength... my trip to the store popped my upgrade bubble.
astraelraen said:
I have a Verizon Galaxy Nexus and am looking for an upgrade. I love my Gnex but my phone has a terrible signal just about everywhere, but it is especially bad at my house . I went down to my local corporate VZW store to check out some phones today.
I compared every phone side by side with my Gnex, both showing the signal strength in dbm and asu rather than relying in bars. To my surprise every phone was within 4-5dbm of the Gnex. I looked at the LG G2, Moto X, Note 2 and the Droid Maxx. Surprisingly, the G2 consistently had a worse signal than my Gnex when comparing dbm....
My main upgrade motivation was better signal strength... my trip to the store popped my upgrade bubble.
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Your store must have some terrible reception. My HTC One had much better reception and any motorola phone did as well. As per LG their radios seem weak as well...
We know how much you like to stream, ahem, "videos", and so cellular data is mega-important. Rate this thread to express how you think the ZTE Axon 7's LTE performs. A higher rating indicates that it's fantastic: throughput is excellent and signal strength is top-notch.
Then, drop a comment if you have anything to add.
I was on my way up northern Michigan and my wife drove for a bit and I compared the axon to her Moto G (2016) and it they both had to about the same signal. Both had issues shedding weaker towers. Now that we are up at the cabin both phones have very similar signal. So I think the axon is at least as good as a Moto G (2016).
runderekrun said:
I was on my way up northern Michigan and my wife drove for a bit and I compared the axon to her Moto G (2016) and it they both had to about the same signal. Both had issues shedding weaker towers. Now that we are up at the cabin both phones have very similar signal. So I think the axon is at least as good as a Moto G (2016).
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On what network?
murkwell said:
On what network?
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cricket (att)
Now that I am back at a keyboard I can expand a bit. I was testing via running speed tests. When I first started the Moto G was destroying the Axon. I started getting a sunken feeling, but then I noticed the Axon shifted off a tower only getting HSPA ("4G") to one using LTE so I reran a few speed tests and the Axon trounced the Moto G, as it was still stuck on the under performing tower. So that's when I thought maybe a rural roadtrip, with an iffy signal to begin with, wasn't the best way to test this. Once we arrived at the cabin we both had between 1 and 2 bars of HSPA connection that would only work in specific corners of the cabin effectively. Seemingly the same.
I know this isn't an empirical test. I wasn't comparing the actual db numbers or anything. But to my eyes, Axon is about on the same level as the Moto G (2016). I don't know how good the Moto G actually is but I remember reading it had good signal when I was originally reading reviews for it.
Once again this was all tested on the Cricket (via AT&T) network.
Up in Canada on Rogers and am having severely low signal rate. Cannot find service in any basement ive been in throughout the city. Signal of around -120dBm inside buildings. The signal seems very erratic and jumps from 96-143dBm extremely quick. I seem to think there may be a modem problem with this network. If anyone else is on Rogers please chime in on your findings.
The signal strength is worse than my s4, I checked the db and it is 5-10db worse, but occasionally will jump to being on par to the s4. Tested on tmo lte, neither phone was being held. Not sure how the rating is 4.5/5 as a reddit post agrees that there is some issue.
The signal quality is definitely not stable, had a few minor call drops if I am not in certain parts of my house and inside stores which can be tough on signals but it's nowhere near as strong as my other test phones such as the S5, Note 4, and S6 Edge+. I was dropping calls earlier this week and switched back to Note 4 and I was able to talk everywhere w/o dropped calls. This is on Tmobile and signal is decent in my area. Then on WIFI strength, the Note 4 beats it by 20-30% throughput. That's a 2014 device.
My problem with all these Chinese brand phones is they have great specs but software is lacking. Looks like I maybe back to my workhorse Note 4.
So I used this phone to drive Uber in Los Angeles all last night and had some pretty major problems.
GPS Signal would randomly shift positions so Google Maps would keep rerouting during trips. This didn't always happen, but happened enough to be annoying.
I'm pretty sure I lost a bunch of trip requests because they just never got through to my phone.
This is either because the OS wasn't allowing the notifications to come through correctly, or because of the network performance.
Interestingly I was streaming podcasts the entire time which came through fine for the most part, but they would cut out every once in a while if I ended up in areas with 1bar (which happened often last night).
This is a pretty major problem for me, I don't know if something like Cyanogenmod will fix me not receiving requests, but the cellular and GPS performance are very clearly performing poorly.
Edit:
Cellular performance is now much better after the update.
I would say it's on par with average smartphones (I still lose reception where most people do), and it no longer just drops and stays of signal for no good reason.
GPS performance is OK, it tends to shift around while I'm driving a bit (thinking I'm on the street next to me).
Antenna Strength
Has anyone been able to confirm that this is due to a bad physical design of the antenna and not a software issue?
I was ready to buy this device until I saw these reports of bad signal strength
Hi guys,
Can any European users comment on radio signal performance? Could the issue be limited to the US version?
joaste said:
Hi guys,
Can any European users comment on radio signal performance? Could the issue be limited to the US version?
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To asnwer my own post, it seems some amazon.de customers are returning the phone due to very poor reception.
I was soooo looking forward to buying this phone and am shocked that ZTE would put it on the market with such a problem. Time will tell if it is hardware related (which it probably is), but most likely my money will go to another brand. I sooo wanted good sound :crying:
EDIT: please, any feedback from European customers?
There are some reviews about the cellular strength on a german forum (android-hilfe.de/thema/empfang-des-axon.792336/) but without any comparison to other phones.
Radio Performance
The Pocket Now review of the Axon 7 mentions potential radio issues and compares it to other phones.
Axon 7 Signal Strength
It doesn't look good.
I wonder if the new "Mini" version of the phone has the same issue and if not, perhaps they corrected a hardware flaw.
There is a new software update for the Axon 7 coming soon. I hope it addresses the signal strength issue, but I wouldn't hold my breath. We may have to just wait for the Axon 8.
when new software coming.
((RayDar)) said:
The Pocket Now review of the Axon 7 mentions potential radio issues and compares it to other phones.
Axon 7 Signal Strength
It doesn't look good.
I wonder if the new "Mini" version of the phone has the same issue and if not, perhaps they corrected a hardware flaw.
There is a new software update for the Axon 7 coming soon. I hope it addresses the signal strength issue, but I wouldn't hold my breath. We may have to just wait for the Axon 8.
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When new Axon 7 update coming? any link for that please
Note 3
Cellular: -93 dBm
Wifi 5ghz: - 46 dBm
Axon 7
Cellular: -118 dBm
Wifi 5ghz: -59 dBm
Can't perform an LTE speedtest on the Axon 7. It won't hold a connection long enough. Web pages constantly fail to load.
Signal strength is significantly worse than my 3 year old Note 3. So much so the phone is unusable at home.
I commented elsewhere on this as I'm mainly sending the phone back because of the very poor camera and the disappointing audio.
The radio however is the worst I've had since 3G was launched. I've been all over Brussels today and barely seen a 4G signal. I'd forgotten 3G existed until today. I managed to get the Axon to connect to 4G by toggling the mobile data on and off but it quickly went back to 3G.
My bedroom is in the basement but thanks to a nearby base station I get four bars 4G on my Honor 7. The Axon get one-two bars on 3G.
I'm bailing out now. I'm not waiting for a software update to fix the radio and I'm not sure the camera *can* be fixed, it's that bad.
The lovely screen apart, the A7 is a downgrade from the much cheaper Honor. Shame.
Grey Axon 7 purchased from Amazon Germany.
LTE: Nexus 5X: -105 dB, Axon 7: -113 dB
Forcing 3G on both phones: Both about -95 dB.
European version
Indoors in a café. Both of our phones are on the same network using the same base station. The Nexus 5x shows -106dBm on LTE while the Axon 7 shows -111 dBm on HSPA and is unable to load a page.
A bad camera, broken audio and a weak radio now seem a heavy price to pay for a nice screen and a top of the line chip.... it was too good to be true.
When I was walking home from campus today, I had 4G with a maximum of 2 bars missing (one missing most of the time, sometimes full bars) 90% of the 3km trip. Don't have any other LTE phones to compare it to, so take that with a grain of salt.
Hello I have a Google store bought xl and live next to 4 of their antennas. My cell constantly has poor reception. Around -120 dBm . But if I use network signal refresher I can get a closer tower that gives -84 dBm . But within a minute or two I get kicked back to the further antenna. I used a cell site mapping app and see where they are and I have a large glass building in my way of all but the strongest one .. my question is how do I force my phone to only use the best antenna. And what is the pertinent info in the cell mapping app to understand maybe the best one maybe has more static or other signal issues.. thank you for your help
I'm seeing the same thing on my Pixel XL from Verizon and changed SIM card still bad.
After researching what a cell phone looks for to maintain a current connection to a tower I believe it is the rsrq .. this is the quality of the signal . So in my network signal info lite app of the various antennas in my neighborhood under the raw tab in the app I am always connected to the antenna with the lowest rsrq number . Regardless of the dBm strength or rsrp .. I now understand why my phone kicks me off a stronger signal that shows more bars for a tower with better quality. I live near 2 freeways and have multiple Verizon towers around me and I believe the strongest one is constantly being used by traffic on the freeways as they travel into and out of its range there for causing tons of degradation in signal quality. Hope this helps someone .
Same problem with my wife and I. New Pixel and Pixel XL on Verizon. Their solution was to buy a $295 Verizon booster. My rear-end! My Nexus 6 was the same way, but every phone before these were fine. I live in the middle of one of the busiest cities in metro Boston. The damn things don't work in our own apartment, wifi calling or no WiFi calling.
I will prefix this msg by saying I love Android and really REALLY wanted the Google Pixel to shine on Verizon. With that said, the truth is Verizon is garbage when it comes to Android phones. Your phone is good and will work well on most other carriers other than Verizon. Time to stop drinking the cool aide and believing that Verizon is anything but unreliable at best. Get your amazing Pixel off off Big Red and begin experiencing what it can do.
Cailynz said:
I will prefix this msg by saying I love Android and really REALLY wanted the Google Pixel to shine on Verizon. With that said, the truth is Verizon is garbage when it comes to Android phones. Your phone is good and will work well on most other carriers other than Verizon. Time to stop drinking the cool aide and believing that Verizon is anything but unreliable at best. Get your amazing Pixel off off Big Red and begin experiencing what it can do.
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Click to collapse
Verizon is the best in our area and basically the country! My pixel xl works fine on verizon. I got a new sim back when i got it to make sure and its been great! Not one hiccup!
so is there some type of app or mod that will give option to lock on a specific tower??
My 6p had stellar 4g cellular reception nearly everywhere except when in a hole in the country.
My Pixel XL is awful even when tower is close by. Pretty much -110db or worse, rarely better.
Would like to know of possible working solutions? Recall on 6p one particular Radio seemed to perform best.
Help appreciated, thanks.
Just curious if anyone is coming from an S7 or S7e on VZW and whether the cell reception is better, worse, or the same. We live in a rural area that has "so-so" cell service and we have found there are areas where we drop calls sometimes while driving (we have S7E's) Just curious if the cell reception is better, worse, or about the same. Thanks in advance!
same exact situation here in rural area and I need verizon just for that fact and I was just on s7 edge. The pixel 2 XL is as good or better at holding the current signal and not switching and dumping phone calls. Seems great so far. I do have one spot where I lose total cell service near me and with the P2XL it still does, apparently just a hole with no service, not the phone's fault. You should be happy switching from that s7 edge to the new pixels. I'm absolutely loving this phone.