Nokia N95 8GB, Samsung Focus, Samsung Galaxy S Captivate
Samsung Galaxy S II LTE
Carrier
Rogers
Feedback Score
0
Thanks for the clarification. Given that both readings come from the O/S's own reports we can assume that there is nothing vastly amiss with them. As I said to datmaster, even if these readings are off by a bit, they wouldn't be SO MUCH that the difference you are seeing could be explained by a difference in RF sensitivity between the Nexus and the BB. Yes the BB does have better RF than the Nexus, but it will likely be to the tune of 3 to 5 dB (10 dB at the most). Even taking the strongest signal you reported on the Nexus (-100) and the weakest you reported on the BB (-70) we are seeing a 30 dB difference in signal which CANNOT be explained away by performance differences between the hardware.
It is possible that the Nexus isn't working right. Have you been able to try a Rogers SIM in it? If not, but you have a friend with a Rogers phone, give this a try. Note that when you first put a new SIM (on a different network) into the Nexus it can take a couple of minutes before it finally registers on the network. I was fooled by this when I first tested the Nexus back in November and I put in a Telus prepaid SIM after running the phone with only my Rogers SIM up to that point. If the phone gives really low readings on Rogers as well, then the phone should be taken back for replacement.
Steve thanks for the reply. Unfortunately I don't have a rogers sim card to test out. I'm sure the rogers network would be different. Hence it was my original query if bell and telus share the same antennas. It just seemed so odd to me that I had such strong signals on my telus blackberry and such a weak signal on my bell nexus.
Another interesting thing that I tested out was with my gf's iPhone 4s. We are both on bell with a shared plan. I took her phone to my work place and also experienced weak signals. It seems marginally better than my nexus but not as good as my bb. I'm not able to find anywhere on the phone that tells me what the signal dbm readings are. Its usually at about 2 bars.
I don't know if its because the nexus and the iPhone uses hspa+ and the bb is 3g. I'm not sure if those are different antennas or bands... I'm not too familiar with the ins and outs of how networks or 3g/hspa works. I just thought that maybe if the bell hspa signal is weak, it could at least drop to the 3g signal that seems to be strong like its on the bb. Please excuse my ignorance as I don't quite understand cell towers and signal and bands.
It sounds to me like the Antenna in the Galaxy is shorting to battery or some power on the phone's circuit board.
If you have a short at the antenna it can cause some pretty heavy attenuation into the radio receiver.
Does anyone know what the antenna assembly in the Galaxy looks like?
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I would think if there was a short, I would get bad reception everywhere, but most of the time I get good reception. Its just at my workplace which I spend quite a few hours at the had a weak signal... makes it quite annoying as you can imagine...
Darn I switched to bell thinking... I'll get the same signal and reception as telus so I'm sure I'll be OK... wrong!!!
I would think if there was a short, I would get bad reception everywhere, but most of the time I get good reception. Its just at my workplace which I spend quite a few hours at the had a weak signal... makes it quite annoying as you can imagine...
Darn I switched to bell thinking... I'll get the same signal and reception as telus so I'm sure I'll be OK... wrong!!!
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It's not that predictable. Some radio systems will function ok in some circumstances with antenna problems, then fail badly in others.
Here's a question though - with the worst performance coming out of the Galaxy, compared to the BB, if you make a call do either have the same call quality? At the same time, if you transfer data with both, do you see the same speed and responsiveness (ie: latency)? If so, then it sounds like the Galaxy is just reporting incorrect numbers for reception.
A lot of these devices have an application processor that is divorced from the baseband (radio) chipset. So they have to poll the baseband to get values for the "bars" and -dbm measurements. Depending on how often they poll you may be getting a completely useless value from the baseband in the Galaxy.
Try this: Get a call stared... gab away, and while gabbing away take a look in the technical data area and see what sort of -dbm value is coming up. It may be just the way the Galaxy is metering the pilot/network idle status that is giving poor reception numbers. In a call the phone is talking to the network differently and attempting to achieve a stable talking path usually gives you different reception numbers.
I think your right, I just swapped my sim card of my telus into my Samsung galaxy nexus and the signal is still weak. I guess the radio in the galaxy isn't as good as the blackberry.
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Red 90, you said when you put the Telus SIM into the Galaxy, the signal was still weak...was it just as weak as when the Bell SIM was in it? What about the Bell SIM in the BB (provided the BB is unlocked)? I'm just thinking if this might be a case where one band/frequency is preferred over the other with each carrier, which I believe can be controlled at the core level of the network - i.e. the better penetrating 850MHz band is preferred on Telus and the 1900MHz band being preferred on Bell...This WOULD make a difference despite the two carriers sharing radio resources...
TELUS, Rogers/Fido, SpeakOut, 3, CSL, China Mobile, au by KDDI, Travel SIM UK
Feedback Score
1 (100%)
Galaxy Nexus GT-I9250 Antennae
Originally Posted by frankie5string
It sounds to me like the Antenna in the Galaxy is shorting to battery or some power on the phone's circuit board.
If you have a short at the antenna it can cause some pretty heavy attenuation into the radio receiver.
Does anyone know what the antenna assembly in the Galaxy looks like?
frankie5string,
It is located at the bottom...
Flip around the handset...
The antenna assembly...
Last edited by HC - NO "i"; 02-04-2012 at 12:07 AM.
Reason: Screenshots added
TELUS, Rogers/Fido, SpeakOut, 3, CSL, China Mobile, au by KDDI, Travel SIM UK
Feedback Score
1 (100%)
Originally Posted by toolcube
Red 90, you said when you put the Telus SIM into the Galaxy, the signal was still weak...was it just as weak as when the Bell SIM was in it? What about the Bell SIM in the BB (provided the BB is unlocked)? I'm just thinking if this might be a case where one band/frequency is preferred over the other with each carrier, which I believe can be controlled at the core level of the network - i.e. the better penetrating 850MHz band is preferred on Telus and the 1900MHz band being preferred on Bell...This WOULD make a difference despite the two carriers sharing radio resources...
toolcube,
This is what I think of too. But I also think of the possible case of faulty unit he and some may have got.
Red 90, you said when you put the Telus SIM into the Galaxy, the signal was still weak...was it just as weak as when the Bell SIM was in it? What about the Bell SIM in the BB (provided the BB is unlocked)? I'm just thinking if this might be a case where one band/frequency is preferred over the other with each carrier, which I believe can be controlled at the core level of the network - i.e. the better penetrating 850MHz band is preferred on Telus and the 1900MHz band being preferred on Bell...This WOULD make a difference despite the two carriers sharing radio resources...
I was able to put the telus sim card into my galaxy but not the other way around as my blackberry is locked.
Then you can swap your SIMs all you like and really test it out.
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Originally Posted by HC - NO "i"
Galaxy Nexus GT-I9250 Antennae
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