Database Users

Reception on the Leo

Haaaiiiii everybody!
Firstly, what a spectacular device. It's gorgeous, the screen is awesome, the performance is great (huge improvement over my last handset (tytn II) - not that i didn't love it like my own child mind), and love the sense UI wrapper thingy for winmo.
I bought the phone from mobiles.co.uk (is this just carephone warehouse? The invoice i got just looks like the ones you get from the shop itself) and i'm guessing it's the stock rom/unlocked, since i'm on t-mobile (UK) and i have the youtube app, co-pilot etc. And it asked me to set the network preset myself when i first turned it on.
My question is related to reception/signal strength. How are you all finding it? I've moved from orange to t-mobile, so i did expect to experience a slight reduction in the quality of coverage - perhaps simply because the urban folklore is that orange have the best coverage. However, it seems to be depressingly poor. My orange handset is pretty much 3 or more bars of HSDPA everywhere in my house. By comparison, the new HD2 is mostly just G (GPRS), very ocasionally 3G or H, and only ever 1 or 2 bars of whatever bandwidth it settles on.
Moreover, it seems to fluctuate strangely. My mental model for mobile signal strength - informed entirely by experience - is that it's related almost entirely to where you're stood. Once you find a decent spot, it tends to remain pretty consistent. However, sometimes with the leo, I'll stick it down on my desk and leave it for a few minutes, in which time it'll build up to perhaps 2 bars of 3G, but as soon as i pick it up, it tends to decrease gradually back down to 1 or 2 bars of G.
According to the t-mobile site i'm in a "Good" signal area for both 2 and 3g - i live near a big town (bolton), not out in the sticks. So i am somewhat disappointed so far. Is there any possibility i have a dodgy handset? or perhaps is this an issue with the radio part of the software install? Can i expect it to get better with future radio releases?
All this is indoors, but i did have a wander around outside for a few minutes earlier today, and the best i could get it up to was 2 bars of 3g.
A friend of mine also has t-mobile, and told me he seems to remember getting pretty good signal at my house, so i'm getting him to bring his android HTC (touch maybe?) round later so we can swap sims about and compare like with like. I'll have a better idea of what's going on then. I'm also aware that orange and t-mobile are almost certainly going to be merging rather soon, and they expect their networks to be one as of next summer, so i'll hopefully be back with my old coverage then, although this is a long time to wait. On a similar note, another reason this is worse than expected, is that i was under the impression t-mobile had more or less completed merging their 3g network with 3, which has the best 3g coverage in the country. Anyone aware of the status of this project? is it behind schedule?
Cheers for taking the time to read this all!
Simon

One other thing i forgot to mention, is that in some cases, it tries to switch between networks so frequently that web-browsing or any other data task is completely impossible. Last night i was lying in bed attempting to surf the web, and it kept changing between 1 bar of H, then dropping down to 0, then changing to 1 bar of 3g, then changing back to H. It was doing this every few seconds at one point.

I dont know where you got the idea that urban folklore says Orange has best network coverage! They are shockingly bad imo...
I actually ended up in a legal battle with Orange due to their extremely bad service/coverage... they were claiming around £70,000 pounds from me/my company after we refused to pay due to MANY shortcomings. Long story short.... i/we won. They didnt get a penny and we got to keep all of our hardware also.
T-Mobile have an extremely fast HSDPA network but again i find their overall coverage to be less then satisfactory.
I am under the impression that both T-Mobile and Orange use higher frequencies in their network and this results in their signals being alot worse at penetrating walls etc when compared to Vodafone and O2. Perhaps more knowledgable peeps could confirm this?
Anyway... back on point... with my HD2 (using Vodafone SIM) i am getting coverage in areas where previously no one on any network got a signal. In one particular restaurant i frequent... everyone else on my table had no coverage what so ever yet i was sitting there browsing the internet.

One other thing to note that may help you with your situation... the antenna for the HD2 is situated at the BOTTOM of the device. Other users have reported fluctuating signals when holding the dvice in their hand although i have no such experience myself.

Audio Oblivion said:
I dont know where you got the idea that urban folklore says Orange has best network coverage! They are shockingly bad imo...
I actually ended up in a legal battle with Orange due to their extremely bad service/coverage... they were claiming around £70,000 pounds from me/my company after we refused to pay due to MANY shortcomings. Long story short.... i/we won. They didnt get a penny and we got to keep all of our hardware also.
T-Mobile have an extremely fast HSDPA network but again i find their overall coverage to be less then satisfactory.
I am under the impression that both T-Mobile and Orange use higher frequencies in their network and this results in their signals being alot worse at penetrating walls etc when compared to Vodafone and O2. Perhaps more knowledgable peeps could confirm this?
Anyway... back on point... with my HD2 (using Vodafone SIM) i am getting coverage in areas where previously no one on any network got a signal. In one particular restaurant i frequent... everyone else on my table had no coverage what so ever yet i was sitting there browsing the internet.
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Audio Oblivion said:
One other thing to note that may help you with your situation... the antenna for the HD2 is situated at the BOTTOM of the device. Other users have reported fluctuating signals when holding the dvice in their hand although i have no such experience myself.
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Thanks for the response! Interesting story about orange there. I think urban folklore is one of those things that varies from one urban environment to the next. Needless to say, orange has always been pretty strong for me here at home, so i am slightly disappointed with the performance of T-Mobile so far. I'll get my friend down here with his handset and see what the comparison is like, and i'll bear that antenna tip in mind!
I was considering vodafone, but their 3g coverage didn't seem to be as expansive as t-mobiles. Who knows, perhaps they'd have been as bad in my area if not worse? Another thing that swung me in the direction of t-mobile was the data packages. The guy at vodafone told me they offered no increased usage packages for mobiles. Whereas with t-mobile, for an extra fiver a month, i can - at any time, and for any number of months at a time - upgrade from 1gb fair usage to 3. And they will NEVER charge me for going over anyway, just cap bandwidth.
EDIT: forgot to mention the indoors thing. Yeah i'm a physicist by trade, so it did occur to me that operating frequency could be to blame for poor coverage in doors.

I'm waiting for my phone to arrive tomorrow (fingers crossed) so I can't comment on that, but I live in Atherton (which is just down the road for everyone else). My house and around my street is bad for all mobile reception. Currently I am on vodafone with a i900. If I leave my phone on the table I will get 2 bars but when I pick it up it usually disappears all together. I had a HTC Diamond for a day on Orange and that was worse. My friends are on O2 and they seem to get ok signal here, and a few years ago I was on Three which gave me the best signal in my house but was generally worse elsewhere.
I have an old Nokia as a works phone on Orange and that continually out performs my omnia for signal strength.
I was hoping the signal strength in this phone would be good. After flashing my radio in my Omnia many times it made no difference and I did not know the annettene on this was at the bottom of the phone (just like the Omnia). It seems strange to do this.

I can't comment on T-Mobile's coverage (although I did leave Orange a few years ago because of their shocking coverage) but I get generally excellent reception on 3 here in London. Unfortunately, the only place where the reception is bad is at one of the offices that I spend half my week at but 3 have marked that as a network blackspot on their website
If it helps, someone at another site I work at was amazed that I am able to make phone calls standing in the central stairwell of the building which is in the City. He can barely make a call when standing right next to the windows but he's using an iPhone on O2

I have seen no difference in indicated signal strength between my HD and my new HD2. However, what is clear is that the phone sound quality is better on this HD2 - even for the same location and same signal strength - something that is easy to judge at home.
I would guess your issue is to do with the T-Mobile strength in your house, versus the old Orange network signal, rather than the handset. When you do a comparison with your friends handset on T-Mobile do not go only by the indicated signal strength on the handset. It would be worth looking at the band switching issue by direct comparison and also to measure the actual download speed when data connected.
Regarding your H (HSDPA) and 3G switching - I think that you will find that HSDPA only kicks in when you actually have data being exchanged (actual exchange not demand). On all of my recent devices the H only shows when (for instance) a web page is actually in the process of downloading - what you report is not strictly band switching. However, some people do see performence issues when the device keeps truly switching bands (2G/G, and E, to 3G/H). Although a pain some find it better to force the device into a particular band to avoid such an issue - but there is always a consequent possibility of loosing all signal.
I'll be interested to hear how the comparison goes.

chris_lyon82 said:
I'm waiting for my phone to arrive tomorrow (fingers crossed) so I can't comment on that, but I live in Atherton (which is just down the road for everyone else). My house and around my street is bad for all mobile reception. Currently I am on vodafone with a i900. If I leave my phone on the table I will get 2 bars but when I pick it up it usually disappears all together. I had a HTC Diamond for a day on Orange and that was worse. My friends are on O2 and they seem to get ok signal here, and a few years ago I was on Three which gave me the best signal in my house but was generally worse elsewhere.
I have an old Nokia as a works phone on Orange and that continually out performs my omnia for signal strength.
I was hoping the signal strength in this phone would be good. After flashing my radio in my Omnia many times it made no difference and I did not know the annettene on this was at the bottom of the phone (just like the Omnia). It seems strange to do this.
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Funnily enough, my phone mistakenly thought i was in atherton the other day - gps indoors being the cause. Interested to hear how you get on when the phone arrives.
jakem said:
I can't comment on T-Mobile's coverage (although I did leave Orange a few years ago because of their shocking coverage) but I get generally excellent reception on 3 here in London. Unfortunately, the only place where the reception is bad is at one of the offices that I spend half my week at but 3 have marked that as a network blackspot on their website
If it helps, someone at another site I work at was amazed that I am able to make phone calls standing in the central stairwell of the building which is in the City. He can barely make a call when standing right next to the windows but he's using an iPhone on O2
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I think it's probably just a case of orange having better reception around my local area than t-mobile unfortunately. All this said, it's not too much of a bother, since obviously i can just use the wireless network for data access whilst at home. Not really gone out and about with the phone yet as i'm waiting for my number to port across.
tony.wheeler said:
I have seen no difference in indicated signal strength between my HD and my new HD2. However, what is clear is that the phone sound quality is better on this HD2 - even for the same location and same signal strength - something that is easy to judge at home.
I would guess your issue is to do with the T-Mobile strength in your house, versus the old Orange network signal, rather than the handset. When you do a comparison with your friends handset on T-Mobile do not go only by the indicated signal strength on the handset. It would be worth looking at the band switching issue by direct comparison and also to measure the actual download speed when data connected.
Regarding your H (HSDPA) and 3G switching - I think that you will find that HSDPA only kicks in when you actually have data being exchanged (actual exchange not demand). On all of my recent devices the H only shows when (for instance) a web page is actually in the process of downloading - what you report is not strictly band switching. However, some people do see performence issues when the device keeps truly switching bands (2G/G, and E, to 3G/H). Although a pain some find it better to force the device into a particular band to avoid such an issue - but there is always a consequent possibility of loosing all signal.
I'll be interested to hear how the comparison goes.
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Interesting - thanks for the info! Yeah i'm leaning towards just relatively poor T-M reception locally as the explanation now myself. I'll bear those tips in mind when testing. My plan was to choose a location in the house where i know my own phone will only maintain something relatively poor, like a single bar on the GPRS band. Then leave the phones side by side in this location and see what they both settle down to. Then swap sim cards around - if they are different - and repeat. Are conventional bandwidth testing sites appropriate for mobiles? or do they involve the transfer of comparatively large amounts of data? Is there an alternative you can suggest if so?
Ah perhaps that's a winmo6.5 difference? I know on my old kaiser, the H is there all the time, even when i've used kaiser tweak to disable the internet/data connection. By that i mean the large H, as opposed to the small letter which appears above the signal bar when the data connection has actually been established. I have wondered why modern phones differentiate between H and 3G, since we're told they are, in reality, the same band. Haven't most providers just upgraded all their 3g transmitters? I'd have thought phones would have always believed themselves to be connected to "H" - in 3g zones - and it would simply be a case of signal determining the sort of bandwidth which can be sustained.
Not sure when i'll get chance to do the test, but i will post back in this thread once it's completed!

Hi,
I know it's an obvious statement but I would imagine it's just down to location. I live in South London, have an HD2 on T-Mobile and get pretty much consistent 3G/HSDPA coverage throughout the house. Downloads are quick and email and weather syncing very prompt.
I've had contracts with pretty much all major service providers and I must say that T-Mobile probably has the best coverage of them all along with '3'...

Ok, so the friend who's also on t-mobile popped round this evening. Didn't have time to do any testing in my own home, as we had an errand to run. However, during the journey i had the phones side by side to make a direct comparison, and also had time to do this briefly once we'd arrived at our destination. No time for bandwidth comparisons yet - just looking at indicated signal strength and band. Important to note that his handset is a G1, running android, so as indicated before, comparing actual "bars" of signal is perhaps somewhat arbitrary and fruitless - who knows what differences there are between the way microsoft and google calculate signal strength.
First thing to note is the H/3G indicator issue. One of the previous posters does indeed seem to have it quite right in saying that 3G only changes to an H whilst a transfer is actually in progress. My handset does sometimes seem to flick from 3g to H whilst i'm not directly making data calls, but i imagine this is some auto sync in the background, either from the weather app, or the facebook app, or the facebook-linked contacts. Whilst browsing, it says 3G all the time, until a link is clicked, in which case it changes to H for the time it takes the page to load, then back to 3G. Not sure if this is just a change in winmo from the last version i had to this or, or an HTC customisation.
In terms of signal/banding the phones were more or less the same, with a couple of notable exceptions. Firstly, at one point during the 30 minute journey, my phone had switched to a full GPRS signal, whereas his was still on 3g, with a fairly weak signal (1 bar). This lasted for about 30 seconds at 30mph, and then the HD2 went back up to 3G. I wouldn't read anything into this, as the two platforms no doubt have totally different strategies when it comes to maintaining network connections and the criteria for switching up to a higher band etc.
The only other interesting occurrence was after we'd arrived. Sat side by side on the couch, my phone was reading 3g with 1 bar of signal strength, occasionally 2, whereas his was a pretty consistent 3. Outside the building we were both more or less full signal. Now, i'm not sure whether we can compare these reported signal levels - as i said above i'd have thought each platform did it a different way, unless there's some standard they all have to conform to. Also, i opened up opera to check something offline, and occasionally my connection dropped down to zero bars. However, this did not disrupt browsing. Didn't even seem to slow it down. Still read H when loading pages, and it was still fast and smooth, and at now point did it drop to GPRS or lose a connection entirely. Interesting because on my old kaiser, zero bars was quickly followed by the searching for connection graphic. In other words, nothing would work with zero signal. Now, i'm not sure whether the signal strength thingy is just calibrated differently on the HD2 (maybe 0 is the new 1) or perhaps the software does a better job these days of maintaining a connection - who knows.
However, only thing to report so far is that indoors, in this particular location anyway, the HD2 seemed to be reading a lower signal on it's indicator than the G1 IF the two can be compared as directly as this.
All pretty qualitative so far, so i'm going to have a go at some bandwidth tests and band comparisons in the more challenging areas of my house when he's next over.
gargon01 said:
Hi,
I know it's an obvious statement but I would imagine it's just down to location. I live in South London, have an HD2 on T-Mobile and get pretty much consistent 3G/HSDPA coverage throughout the house. Downloads are quick and email and weather syncing very prompt.
I've had contracts with pretty much all major service providers and I must say that T-Mobile probably has the best coverage of them all along with '3'...
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Click to collapse
I think that's certainly the primary factor at work here. What i was mainly concerned with, was whether the handset itself was under-performing - i.e. would other phones with t-mobile sims achieve better reception. Strangely, in the past i had always dismissed "signal" as a property of the network rather than the handset. Obviously though, with a few minutes thought, it's easy to see how the hardware is also an important factor. Not all receivers are born equal - even though i imagine these days it's pretty much a solved problem, from an engineering perspective - just like all software to interpret radio signals and hold connections isn't either.

I also went orange to t-mobile, and the speed is way faster. Just your luck really.

arfster said:
I also went orange to t-mobile, and the speed is way faster. Just your luck really.
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It's not really too bad. But yeah, bad luck that really i can only use it for voice calls at home. Even half a mile closer to town though, it holds a full 3G signal, and i too have been really impressed with the speed whilst browsing - much faster than my old orange connection. In truth, it's not important that the data calling stuff works at home, since i have a wireless network. The same is true of all my friends, so i can just connect to theirs whilst over. The data calling is more important when out and about, and in this respect the phone seems to perform really well
So far no sms bug either, but i'm not taking this for granted.

Hmm, voice quality is nicer but reception's worse I reckon compared to my Touch HD with the 1.16 radio. Instead of getting "H" for HSDPA reception all the time at work it's flicking between 3G and H.
Also have data connection problems after roaming between 2G (GSM) and 3G (3G / HSDPA) - WM will refuse to connect online until I manually force Flight Mode on and off.
On the 1.48 rom. Looks like they have several bugs they need to fix in the Radio...

aussiebum said:
Hmm, voice quality is nicer but reception's worse I reckon compared to my Touch HD with the 1.16 radio. Instead of getting "H" for HSDPA reception all the time at work it's flicking between 3G and H.
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I see that also, but only when not using it. When it's connected, it sticks on H ......and it's really, really fast - quickest mobile data I've ever seen. Yesterday I'd switched off wifi by mistake, and didn't even realise.

_tangent said:
as indicated before, comparing actual "bars" of signal is perhaps somewhat arbitrary and fruitless
i'm not sure whether we can compare these reported signal levels - i'd have thought each platform did it a different way..
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An analysis I can't really fault. OK,I know my N95 8GB runs off symbian but quite often I'll attempt to place a call when its showing 3 or more bars of "signal strength" for it to drop the call instantly followed by an onscreen message of "network error" which equates to "I have no signal" as its suddenly not showing any signal at all even though my location hasn't changed at all (and yes,I am aware that the signal travels via a "cell" which may have suddenly had to cope with more traffic than its capable of and as a result dropped one of its clients-me!).
I too live in an area where reception is far from ideal (phone works best if I go outside and balance it on top of a fence post behind my shed lol ) and as I travel a lot (HGV driver) I need a network that's pretty robust and o2 seems to be the best I've used so far.
Have you tried using something like a broadband speed test (personally I'm not sure how accurate these are, as you tend to get quite a spread of results if you carry out repeated tests, although in theory you could average them out) such as this one here :http://www.broadbandspeedchecker.co.uk/ which may help you find a baseline for the actual performance on your current network?
Final point to make,again maybe no relation but might be worth mentioning..I play a lot with various sat-navs and have found in the past that it can be possible for one to effect the performance of another one by being in close proximity to it ie: one will get a full lock on sats but the other wont as device A seems to hog any signal and only when A is turned off will B be able to get a lock onto any sats...a situation like that may hamper the initial observations you've made so far over to you

_tangent said:
Funnily enough, my phone mistakenly thought i was in atherton the other day - gps indoors being the cause. Interested to hear how you get on when the phone arrives.
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I've been playing around with my phone now for 2 days and I am happy as my signal is a lot better than my Omnia 1. I even managed to have a phone call yesterday whilst sat down on my couch I do still have the problem though that when I pick up my phone the signal will drop 1 or 2 bars down and if I hold it long enough it will loose signal all together. But like I say it is a lot better than my Omnia and this only happens in my house which has poor signal anyway.
Overall I'm happy with the signal strength so far. I'll see how I get on with it over the next couple of weeks though.

I have just upgraded from a diamond to HD2 and I have found the reception to be much worse in my house than the diamond. The phone keeps fluctuating from 4 bars to 1 and often looses the network all together. My diamond was pretty stable in the same places. Is it possible to tweak the performance or do we need to wait for the next ROM? I have updated to 1.48 UK ROM.

Weaker WiFi with lastest FRF91?

Anyone noticed weaker range for your nexus one with FRF91? I used to be able to pick up my Wifi router everytime I come to the drive way now I can't after the update. Does the new radio affect wifi too?

NexusX said:
Anyone noticed weaker range for your nexus one with FRF91? I used to be able to pick up my Wifi router everytime I come to the drive way now I can't after the update. Does the new radio affect wifi too?
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Are you holding the phone the same way?

Chopes said:
Are you holding the phone the same way?
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He said Nexus One..not iPhone.

Yeah, I have noticed that I have a harder time connecting to networks when I don't have a very strong signal (when I am not very close to the access point). Seems worse than before. And worse than my G1.

Its a small price to pay for the overall awesome update, but In my house I only get 3 bars. Up until 91 I could get the full 4 bars. Its definitely worse for me.
I've been with android since the g1, and every firmware update has been 3 steps forward and 1 step back. But hell that's still a net gain so I'm happy. Now if the next firmware update drops me to 2 bars right next to my router....

im with you on this one. My router is on the main floor and when im next to it i get the 2 and on occasion 3 bar symbol. Go upstairs and my bars drop to 1 bar firm! I did just come off of the 85b and nothing was different then either. Maybe its time for a new router. Im gonna buy an up to date router and see if its different. Is yours possibly old?

Well this is a universal problem, with my hosp wifi network as well as my home and my gf. So yeah... oh well, I am still happy but still boosting the Wifi range might be good.

Weak WiFi Signal

(Search feature is down but I don't remember seeing anything about this)
It seems like the wifi signal is really weak on my Nexus S (stock, MoDaCo rX, and Cyanogen alpha). The only time I get full bars is if stand right in front of the router. Sometimes it will drop a bar or two even when I am in the same room as the router.
I'm out of the country at the moment and unable to test it with my network at home to compare performance to the N1 or MT4G I used to have. Can I get some feedback from other users about their wifi strength? I might have to find a way to return/exchange the phone from here before the end of the remorse period if it's a problem unique to my device.

c_licious said:
(Search feature is down but I don't remember seeing anything about this)
It seems like the wifi signal is really weak on my Nexus S (stock, MoDaCo rX, and Cyanogen alpha). The only time I get full bars is if stand right in front of the router. Sometimes it will drop a bar or two even when I am in the same room as the router.
I'm out of the country at the moment and unable to test it with my network at home to compare performance to the N1 or MT4G I used to have. Can I get some feedback from other users about their wifi strength? I might have to find a way to return/exchange the phone from here before the end of the remorse period if it's a problem unique to my device.
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Actually have it listed as a known issue in the FAQ after seeing an article pop up from Androidcentral.com shortly after launch.
But, yes, I can confirm this. I'm literally sitting right next to my router and have a full three bars. If I move to the couch, it'll switch between 2-3 and if I go into my bedroom, it'll do it from 1-2. I'm in a relatively small apartment, btw lol.
Interestingly enough, while the graphic displays a weaker signal and testing from market apps does indeed show a weaker signal, I don't really notice much in the way of speed loss or instability.

Yap, same here.
If i go to about 30 ft away, i'm done...no wifi!

unremarked said:
Actually have it listed as a known issue in the FAQ after seeing an article pop up from Androidcentral.com shortly after launch.
But, yes, I can confirm this. I'm literally sitting right next to my router and have a full three bars. If I move to the couch, it'll switch between 2-3 and if I go into my bedroom, it'll do it from 1-2. I'm in a relatively small apartment, btw lol.
Interestingly enough, while the graphic displays a weaker signal and testing from market apps does indeed show a weaker signal, I don't really notice much in the way of speed loss or instability.
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Yea, just read your thread (slapping myself on the wrist for posting too soon). Unfortunately, it does seem to cause some instability for me as it occasionally disconnects completely due to the low signal.
Do you think this is the same for all devices and has just gone unnoticed for those who don't heavily rely on wifi. Or would an exchange be my best option at this point? Not sure how much of a hardware vs software fix this would be...

No issues here. The reception isn't great, but it's a phone. Small WiFi card. Maybe my expectations are too low, but I feel like 30-50 feet through the walls and/or floors of a house/apartment is pretty reasonable for a device like this. Of course, as always, the more obstacles (physical barriers and electronic interference) the signal has to go through to get to your phone, the worse the reception will be at any given distance, so there are a lot of potential influencing factors.

zorak950 said:
No issues here. The reception isn't great, but it's a phone. Small WiFi card. Maybe my expectations are too low, but I feel like 30-50 feet through the walls and/or floors of a house/apartment is pretty reasonable for a device like this. Of course, as always, the more obstacles (physical barriers and electronic interference) the signal has to go through to get to your phone, the worse the reception will be at any given distance, so there are a lot of potential influencing factors.
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That's why it's such a handicap not being able to test it on my home network at the moment where I could compare it to my experience with my previous android devices.

alot of routers no longer have external antennas reducing the possible range. just an idea but who knows

c_licious said:
Yea, just read your thread (slapping myself on the wrist for posting too soon). Unfortunately, it does seem to cause some instability for me as it occasionally disconnects completely due to the low signal.
Do you think this is the same for all devices and has just gone unnoticed for those who don't heavily rely on wifi. Or would an exchange be my best option at this point?
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I'm not sure either way, actually. It may be something that can be fixed with a software update or tweak considering that the Nexus One(which has a noticable stronger signal) and the Nexus S seem to be pretty close in model number(BCM4329EKU86 Nexus One vs BCM4329GKUBG Nexus S).
I couldn't find a tear down that detailed the WiFi chip found in the Galaxy S devices which would be more useful for a comparison. So, I guess, my point is that it may be something a relevantly unnoticed flaw in the device itself and exchanging it might not do anything.
I guess this is our trade off for a working GPS unit?

I dont think its based off of root, i'm on stock, and the same thing happens to me!!

The Nexus S uses a low power wifi chip, which is thought to be the cause of this (VERY well known) weak wifi reception issue. Google "Nexus S weak wifi".
You can verify it easily by running a wifi sniffer (e.g. "Wifi Analyzer" from the market). The NS's reception drops quickly with distance from router. This isn't the router's fault.

ravidavi said:
The Nexus S uses a low power wifi chip, which is thought to be the cause of this (VERY well known) weak wifi reception issue. Google "Nexus S weak wifi".
You can verify it easily by running a wifi sniffer (e.g. "Wifi Analyzer" from the market). The NS's reception drops quickly with distance from router. This isn't the router's fault.
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Definitely isnt the routers fault. I have two MTS, my original G1 and N1, Two Laptops a PS3 and a PSP.
This is the only device that struggles to find a signal.

jspookss said:
Definitely isnt the routers fault. I have two MTS, my original G1 and N1, Two Laptops a PS3 and a PSP.
This is the only device that struggles to find a signal.
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I am a former G1 guy myself, it had a very strong signal, Nexus S not so much. It is making me a bit irritated. It is an important feature sine I prefer to use wifi instead of 3G. It's much faster.

I have the same issue. When I turn on wifi the status icon takes about 20 seconds to turn from grey to green and on top of that even in the same room I don't get full bars. This really blows.
Sent from my Nexus S using XDA App

WiFi Drops out

Hey,
Ive just bought a acer Iconia a500 recently, every thing seemed ok until recently. Owned it about a week or so.
Basically my router (netgear wnr2000) is in my room upstairs, if im in that room everything is fine browsing etc.
However the minute I move away from that room the signal strength drops down, which is normal. But if i go downstairs to the living room, the connection is unusable, then it drops out takes a few mins to reconnect etc.
I've never had any problems before with any wireless devices ive got in that room, the xbox is in there currently and plays on Live fine etc. Ive got 3 laptops, HTC Desire, Samsung Galaxy S, 2 iPod touches etc so I dont believe its a router issue.
Ive had a play round with the router settings just incase, put on unused channels etc
Anyone else had any similar experiences? Anyone found any fixes?
Thank

yes take it back. Mine did this out of the box on the living room i dint had any wifi i had to be near the router in my room to have any internet. Just to be sure of things get wifi eye or something like that from the market and watch the signal if it goes un and down like crazy its the A500

My first A500 did that and the second was a wake-up from sleep too much problem. The A500 is one update away from awesome, but would be nice if they patch the current issues now, rather than wait for a 3.1 update.
Some folks are not having any issues, which makes me wonder if bad batches.....

Maybe like the glue issues with iPad 2 Rush. Maybe it is bad batches...

cointel said:
Maybe like the glue issues with iPad 2 Rush. Maybe it is bad batches...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Definitely makes more sense than a general firmware issue now, since more folks would be hollering if a general issue for all devices.

Is it just me os is the wifi awful on TF?

I have had my TF for six weeks now and I have to say that my experience with the wifi connection is awful. My eeepc picks up loads of signals that the TF does not see and I have lots of connection problems when I travel. I have read that this is to do with USA channel restrictions which if true is bulls**t as i bought the TF in the UK and travel in Europe! For a non three G tablet wifi is essential.
Is there anything that can improve the wifi performance?

Actually I am finding it seems to beat my iphone, ipods, iPad, and my wife's Dell laptop. Saying that because when I sat in the living room with my iDevices I pretty much couldn't connect to the router all the way across the house period, it would connect but basically be worthless. My wife's laptop is almost hte same, she gets crappy speeds in the living room. I find that my Transformer shows like a 65% signal in the living room and I get great speeds. My Playbook while I had it for 2 weeks also was noticabely better at connecting to my router and speed from the living room.

My gut says to get ahold of another TF and try it. You may have a defective unit.
I've had no problems with wifi on mine. Admittedly, I am in the US.

roundhay said:
I have had my TF for six weeks now and I have to say that my experience with the wifi connection is awful. My eeepc picks up loads of signals that the TF does not see and I have lots of connection problems when I travel. I have read that this is to do with USA channel restrictions which if true is bulls**t as i bought the TF in the UK and travel in Europe! For a non three G tablet wifi is essential.
Is there anything that can improve the wifi performance?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
hmmm. i have to say the wifi on my TF is much better than on my laptop and on my phone. Maybe you have a dodgy unit

Actually the Wifi on my TF is has a better range then my notebook which has a intel 5300. My router is sitting downstairs in the living room, and I am able to stream (Plex) to my bedroom which is one floor above.

dorino1 said:
You may have a defective unit.
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Click to collapse
I agree.
I had the GTab, the Archos, the Elocity A7, twice the Nook Color, plus the MyTouch and Samsung Galaxy S phones... and my TF has the best wifi connectivity of them all.
It connects quickly and stays connected. Today, in fact, I had to go to a local hospital and the TF connected automatically to the hospital's open wifi without my intervention.

mine is nearly flawless,but remember your not gonna see 5ghz signals because the TF is 2.4 only

My router is on the second floor of my house & I have no issues in my basement.
I'll be traveling next week so it might be a different story in a hotel.

agreed my TF is far better than my htc phone in wifi connectivity

Mine is good enough, but I did notice a bit of a dropoff in signal strength from the wifi driver in 3.0 to the driver in 3.1.
Sent from my Transformer TF101 using Tapatalk

The TF seems to favor some router channels over others. Try changing channels ( take it off auto).

My wifi actually worked very well on STOCK but now that i am on custom rom, it is much worse...
Before, i got very high signal from my router but it is not more the case.. I am waiting for on update of the wifi version....

It is not just your Tablet. No need to RMA at all.
The radio in the Transformer is just not that good.

mamaroro said:
My wifi actually worked very well on STOCK but now that i am on custom rom, it is much worse...
Before, i got very high signal from my router but it is not more the case.. I am waiting for on update of the wifi version....
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
My experience with custom ROMs is from mixed to poor... something always breaks. I would go back to stock.

Since updating to HC 3.1, my wifi has been horrible. Actually, it seems to get worse after every update that asus has pushed. It's not really an issue at home but when I'm at work and I can't move closer to the router, it's a problem.
It used to be TF 3.0 >> iphone 3gs > dell mini 9hackintosh with Leopard OS
now, Dell mini 9 snow leopard > iphone >>TF 3.1

I haven't had any issues with reception. It had a weird connection issue when trying to access my friend's tethering (unrooted, he pays Sprint for it). But I think it was actually the software one one end or the other, not the actual device.

I have a UK TF too and my wifi works brilliantly.
So far i have used it in UK, Germany, Switzerland and Czech and haven't had any troubles.

I set the router to channel 13, and my HTC Desired picked it right up, but the Transformer didn't. I then reduced it to channel 12, still no luck - then i reduced it to 11 and then the Transformer could see it.

Use the 'WiFi Analyser' app to check out the best wifi channels available in your area and to ensure that you aren't using overlapping channels from other equipment and neighbouring signals.
You'll be surprised when you see that the 'auto' selecting wifi hardware will almost always select the same channels which just get overloaded with interference.