Sprint Hero had three bars of reception in the store.

[stevefo]

I went to a corporate Sprint store today to check out the Hero. I was surprised the Hero was getting three bars of reception. All the other phones including the cheap ones had full bars. I asked the sales guy and he just shrugged his shoulders.

[M. L.]

Bars don't mean jot when otcpmes.judging reception.

[bd2bonez06]

some people like cucumbers better pickled

[timeless2]

Bars only count when you are too drunk to count.

[TonyTurboII]

Bars? Why kind of garbage technology do you think this is? GSM?

[wickcity]

Bars are not created equal. But with you noticing the difference, did you place test calls from each phone to see if there were any differences between the phones in terms of call quality?

[illini]

Im not buying this bars dont mean anything, they'er there for a reason. My guess its signal strength. If i have one or two bars my reception is spotty and cracky. If the bars didnt mean anything they wouldnt be there.

[TonyTurboII]

Again, with CDMA, bars are not a measure of the quality of your phone call.

[M. L.]

Im not buying this bars dont mean anything, they'er there for a reason. My guess its signal strength. If i have one or two bars my reception is spotty and cracky. If the bars didnt mean anything they wouldnt be there.

One of my Nokia's has a whooping three bars to show signal strength, the other one has like six or eight. Both are full. Which one is getting better reception?

[Eckono]

I agree bars aren't the mist accurate way to judge the kind of signal you are getting, but when my bars are low(1 or 2) call quality was not as good.

[VolcomPimp]

You have to judge a phone by real world experience. My reception has been
really good but I've had maybe one or 2 calls cut out when it was raining which
likely were on the other end & not mine. Other than that, reception has been really
good. Personally I don't talk a lot on the phone so it's not an issue.
What is an issue to me is where I can & can't use data, and so far I've had zero
issues what so ever. Switched over from the iphone 2g, and I'd get poor
if any coverage on my break at work and almost zero coverage at my friends
house where as now I get perfect signals & very fast speeds. I know EDGE blows
compared to 3g but I'm paying less for far superior service (not to mention way
more features).

[dcdttu]

Wow, did everyone have to slam him for bars rather than giving meaningful feedback? I seriously doubt he posted on here so you guys could beat your chest and flaunt your cellular knowledge over him... Just sayin' :-)

For true reception just go into Settings, About Phone, Status. There will be a readout for Signal Strength in dBm. The 'lower' the number the better the signal. Anything over -100 is getting bad. I say 'lower' because they are negative numbers, so the 'lower' numbers are really higher. -70s to -80s is great, -90s to -100 is good, after that, eh.... -113 to -115 is where you will lose a call.

You can find this screen on almost any CDMA phone for comparison, sometimes by typing ##DEBUG on your handset (I mean T9, not literally typing DATA on your qwerty. :-) I hit ##DEBUG and then Call on my Pre.

Reception is... hard to measure between my Pre and my Hero. Sitting side by side, my Pre will show -85 (good signal) constantly while my Hero goes from -83 to -99 constantly. Either the Pre is rock solid and the Hero isn't, or the Hero's 'algorithm' or display of the signal is more truthful. Personally I seriously doubt the Pre has such a solid signal as wireless is insanely variable and my house isn't best for signal to begin with (in a valley).

That being said, my Hero never really has a problem and doesn't ever cut out more than my Pre, so I'm happy so far.

[Geronemo]

everyone in this thread is saying bars arnt used for reception quality,
i wouldnt know have never owned a CDMA, planning on getting the hero.

if hero has bars on of the screen so what are they used for, what do they signify??
since were all agreeing its not reception quality.
just asking for the sake of knowledge

thanks.

[VolcomPimp]

Why are ppl still arguing about this? I don't think half the people in this thread
understand what the other half are trying to get across.
YES they represent signal quality. Are they accurate? NO
It's an estimate broken down based on the actual dBm signal strength measurement
since most people would have no idea what it meant if they stuck that at the
top of the screen instead of 5 bars.

[mattallica]

Question for you HTC Hero folks, I'm considering dumping my iphone for the Hero, but I also hear that "Android 2.0" is coming out, with phones from Verizon. In the past, there have been OS updates, for Windows Mobile and of course the Iphone. Will there be updates to the Hero for Android 2.0, or will it stay at the 1.5 ?