Database Users

Froyo Reception

One of my main complaints with the Nexus One in general is 3G reception. It's not where it should be when compared to other phones (G1, myTouch, etc.). How are people fairing with 3G reception after the Froyo update? Is it looking better?

No change for me.

Thanks for your input. I do believe the issue is related to antenna placement, i.e. the design of the phone, so I guess this is never really going to be corrected.
It's not a major issue though depending on your area, I suppose.

My reception has improved, actually, an area where I previously got no signal - at lease gives me 1 or 2 bars without going out. That was only in that certain spot though, it was never a problem anywhere else.

Eclair~ said:
My reception has improved, actually, an area where I previously got no signal - at lease gives me 1 or 2 bars without going out. That was only in that certain spot though, it was never a problem anywhere else.
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Is that simply EDGE signal or 3G signal?

No change for me. Still crap reception at my house =\
(-100 dB to -105 dB)

gsvnet said:
Is that simply EDGE signal or 3G signal?
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Oh sadly its EDGE.. but I mean, its something for an area that usually would simply be nothing.

I have slightly better signal as well.

Comes and goes... more fluctuation than before...... other than that, no real problems. Though, I have noticed I can upload a few things with upload links online now.... only music, pics and voice recorder eclipse, but here's to a developer making (or updating) a file browser that includes a plugin for the browser to upload anything...

I actually had a real problem with reception when I never used to.
constant edge connection when I always had 3G or H.
after flashing froyo my reception is better and I'm on 3G a lot more often like I used to be.

My 3G has always sucked on my Nexus.. even at my home I have to use Wi-Fi.
When I try to use 3G a lot of times the icon is present but I don't think I have any connection because if I go to the market it says something like "A network error has occured, retry or cancel" and also, I can't refresh the FaceBook feed.
Does anyone have this problem? Or is there a way to fix it?

Mine have gone up some...
<<--Tethering

noticeably improved here, thou no more "H" doesnt seem to hiccup anymore
p.s loving the froyo so far, better voice clarity also , only thing i miss is trackball wake

How do you guys reach such high speeds ? The highest my 3G DL speeds have hit is 600 kb/s pre-FroYo ...

much better reception for me

My house is borderline edge/3g and i would say it has gotten worse... im seeing more GPRS lately but w/e I use wifi while i am at home anyway...

Mine 3g actually seems worse after updating to froyo/2.2. I'm getting edge in places I used to get 3g but I will do some further testing
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i have better reception, at least on edge. now, i can actually get a signal in my apartment, most of the time, where as before, it was hardly ever.

Everything is working the same, if not better for me AT&T nexus one btw

the new froyo radio is 4.06 and its way better then 4.04, atleast in my personal case. signal is stronger and for once I am actually seeing a little 3g indoors.

Vibrant 3G problem: DL slow and much slower then UL

And download is also much slower compared to other brands. Upload is always very fast (but who the hell needs it fast?). All things are upside down! It must be DL>>UL, but in addition to low DL speed we have DL<<UL !!!
This happen when it's the city with DL/UL speeds are in the 100-1000 Kbps range. If we in the cities with the advanced speeds in 1000-5000 Kbps range everything is normal, the DL>>UL
Do you have such strange unusual DL/UL discrepancy with DL<<UL?
Example of bad upside down DL/UL: 300 Kbps/800 Kbps
Example of good one: 800 Kbps/300 Kbps or 5000 Kbps/1500 Kbps
Have you noticed upside down DL/UL numbers in "bad" tests? DL must be larger
I've ran three Vibrant phones at the same place and time in the city where there is no good 3G speed.
Two of them are unusually painfully slow with download while upload is blazingly (relatively) fast. I was getting 100-300 kbps DL and 800-900 Kbps UL.
High speed UL indicates that we are close to the tower and having good signal but still the download speed unexpectedly sucks
Build date for slow phones is 07/07/2010, will double check tomorrow about faster one.
I use free Speedtest.net application from the Market.
Please do the test !

I get about the same speeds on this as I did on my N900.

Yes, that's what i call "good" case above: the "good" towers, latest equipment and great signal strengths. In such areas my Vibrant is also fine. Problem is in near "bad" towers which are still a majority of the country

seems normal to me since I've had the same type of speeds on both my hd2 and vibrant in areas where 3g quality is known to be poor.
Sent from Samsung Vibrant using XDA App

ryan562 said:
seems normal to me since I've had the same type of speeds on both my hd2 and vibrant in areas where 3g quality is known to be poor.
Sent from Samsung Vibrant using XDA App
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My tests were in the T-Mo shop and we ran different other brand phones, including older ones. All of them were 2-3 times faster on download (and similar or somewhat slower on upload) compared to "bad" Vibrant phones! The one which was "good" Vibrant phone, was similarly fast to other brands.
Same story as i described it above is also in my house where i know the speed range in great details. HD2 shows 800-950 Kbps download speed, Vibrant 250-350 kbps. Near the good tower with 5 Mbps max speeds both of them are equal and work fine, the DL >>UL like it should be. So we probably have some sensitivity issues with Vibrant 3G radios or their settings at low signals

I use the Speedtest dot net application from the Market.
The web based one does not work because needs latest Flash

I have gotten similar dl slower than ul, when my bars are at 1, but most of the time I am very happy with my download speed.
I have gotten over 5Mbs dl with full bars.

The 3G reception on my phone has been quite unpredictable.
I live in the best 3G coverage area in my city. I'm blanketed in T-Mo towers on every side. Inside my house, if I don't touch the phone, I pull down 5Mbps+, and Upload at ~2-3Mbps. It's fast enough to tether and use as my primary connection. Latency is ~35-50ms. I can stream Hulu with no hiccups.
However, if I so much as touch the back of the device with a single finger, the 3G drops until it reverts to EDGE. This is with a silicon case, and I can replicate it every time.
So, that's super annoying. I don't know why this would happen, to be honest.
On top of those problems, I have occasionally run into the issues where my uploads are super fast (~3Mbps), but my downloads are miserable (~0.2Mbps). This usually happens in bigger buildings.

With 3G and 4 bars i get 726/1288 Dl/UL, it has been like that every since I received my phone. Albeit I have only used my phone in a small area so far. Tmobile coverage map says I should be able to take advantage of the HSPA+ speeds, but who knows how accurate those things are.

Have you tried to going in to the mobile network settings and resetting them?
S4X said:
My tests were in the T-Mo shop and we ran different other brand phones, including older ones. All of them were 2-3 times faster on download (and similar or somewhat slower on upload) compared to "bad" Vibrant phones! The one which was "good" Vibrant phone, was similarly fast to other brands.
Same story as i described it above is also in my house where i know the speed range in great details. HD2 shows 800-950 Kbps download speed, Vibrant 250-350 kbps. Near the good tower with 5 Mbps max speeds both of them are equal and work fine, the DL >>UL like it should be. So we probably have some sensitivity issues with Vibrant 3G radios or their settings at low signals
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Sent from Samsung Vibrant using XDA App

ryan562 said:
Have you tried to going in to the mobile network settings and resetting them?
Sent from Samsung Vibrant using XDA App
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I do not see what we can change there besides roaming. The network is T-mob own one.

I've also noticed my up speed is 2-3x higher than my down speed. Kind of strange. I will have to remember to test it more when I am in different areas.

I get the same results sometimes. Most of the times I am getting download speeds greater than 4 Mb/s in HSPA+ coverage. Last night I decided to do a speed test with my Vibrant and my wifes MyTouch Slide. Both of them yielded the same exact results. I tested them 5 times in the same area and all 5 times I got around 350kb/s download and 1100kb/s upload.
Guess it's the network and not the phone.

Tmo 3g speeds...

OK, so before this phone I previously had a vibrant and then the mytouch4g. I live in a so called 4g area. The nexus s seems right in line with my vibrant and I can get a tick under 6mbps down. The upload here is faster on my nexus than the vibrant or the mytouch, at around 1.7mbps. The mytouch at Max could pull about 7.5mbps. I can't remember if I ever got more than that. I'm not making this threat to complain about the speeds of this phone.
My question is, if this phones radio can get a theoretical Max of 7.2mbps download, is that an unrealistic number even when the tower can pump out higher speeds? For example, the mytouch has a Max of 14.4mbps but even in a 4g area it never pulled down close to that. I'm thinking the speed of the radio is like alot of things where you have the theoretical Max and then you have the functional limit. Am I wrong saying that? Has anyone gotten a 7mbps download speed off the phone? Or conversely, if anyone has owned a g2 or mytouch4g, have you reached speeds anywhere close to those maxes? Is tmo even pumping out that much bandwidth yet?
Sent from my Nexus S using XDA App

Jayrod1980 said:
OK, so before this phone I previously had a vibrant and then the mytouch4g. I live in a so called 4g area. The nexus s seems right in line with my vibrant and I can get a tick under 6mbps down. The upload here is faster on my nexus than the vibrant or the mytouch, at around 1.7mbps. The mytouch at Max could pull about 7.5mbps. I can't remember if I ever got more than that. I'm not making this threat to complain about the speeds of this phone.
My question is, if this phones radio can get a theoretical Max of 7.2mbps download, is that an unrealistic number even when the tower can pump out higher speeds? For example, the mytouch has a Max of 14.4mbps but even in a 4g area it never pulled down close to that. I'm thinking the speed of the radio is like alot of things where you have the theoretical Max and then you have the functional limit. Am I wrong saying that? Has anyone gotten a 7mbps download speed off the phone? Or conversely, if anyone has owned a g2 or mytouch4g, have you reached speeds anywhere close to those maxes? Is tmo even pumping out that much bandwidth yet?
Sent from my Nexus S using XDA App
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closest ive gotten on my nexus is 6.5 down and 3 up

Wow that's an amazing upload speed!
Sent from my Nexus S using XDA App

Jayrod1980 said:
Wow that's an amazing upload speed!
Sent from my Nexus S using XDA App
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And i by no means live in a small city.
Corona is 30-40 mins from LA, population like 160,000 people. so it isnt some podunk town

Damn you live in corona and get those speeds? I'm down in temecula, but on ATT. I see around 3 Mbps but have been thinking of switching.
Anyway theoretical max is most always limited by the backhaul to the tower, depending on how many T1 or more connections it has. But you should be able to get pretty damn close to max if all things were right in the perfect conditions.

RogerPodacter said:
Damn you live in corona and get those speeds? I'm down in temecula, but on ATT. I see around 3 Mbps but have been thinking of switching.
Anyway theoretical max is most always limited by the backhaul to the tower, depending on how many T1 or more connections it has. But you should be able to get pretty damn close to max if all things were right in the perfect conditions.
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ya the speeds out here are pretty damn good

You will definitely run into the limit of the processor using SpeedTest.
You can show this if your home DSL / cable is fast enough. I get 17-19Mbps down and .9mbps up over WiFi through my DSL (Free, in France, ASDL 2+, and I live 800m from my CO in Paris, I'm using WiFi N from an AirPort Extreme) using my MacBook Pro (core i7, 8GB RAM so it can take it. ), running SpeedTest to a Paris server in Chrome. Using the same WiFi, I can get up to 8.5mbps down and .9 up on my Nexus S, connecting to the same server through the SpeedTest App.
I therefore know that while my connection can support much higher speeds, the phone's hardware/software can't handle them. For reference, an iPhone 4, right next to the NS, pulls up to 6.9mbps down. My N1 can do about 6.5 at best, and my old faithful milestone at stock clocking couldn't do better than about 4.5. Given that the Hummingbird processor in the NS is at 1ghz, and the hardware-similar iPhone's A4 (the GPU, much better in the NS as a SGX540 versus the iPhone's SGX535, isn't engaged at all by speedtest) is running at roughly 750-800mhz, those scores seem to indicate that the processor is the bottleneck with this test on these devices. Idem for the N1 versus the Moto - it is generally 1.4x to 1.5x faster with most CPU kinds of stuff compared to the Milestone, and the 6.5 to 4.5 ratio tends to follow that. I can't tell you why the N1 is slower consistently than the iPhone 4 at this test over WiFi, but it most definitely is.
Over 3G, I get wildly variant service all over Paris. I've seen up to 6mbps with the iPhone 4, the NS, and the N1, and up to (still) about 4.5 with the Milestone.
3G radio signal is something else entirely - the Moto is by far the best, then the NS, and then you have to fall a long, long way before you get to the iPhone and the N1.

San Fernando Valley here.
Never seen more than 3Mb/s on the NS on the down side, usually 1.5-2Mb/s on the up. My N1 in the same locations routinely pulled 4Mb/s down, about 1.5-2Mbs up. Highest I recall ever seeing is 4.4Mb/s on the N1 down.
One thing I've noticed with the Speedtest app is that the default server for me, Los Angeles, is often very slow for all devices. I can pull faster speeds if I test against Bullhead City or other Az cities.
I concur with @big_adventure that the phone's software seems to limit it rather than the wireless technology. I'm on a 30Mb/s FIOS line at the house, the laptop gets 32 down, 20 up, the Nexus S on the same WiFi node maxes out 12Mb/s down and 7Mb/s up.
I'll try to run some tests today to see if my N1 can still get the 4Mb/s speeds it used to average at my office. I'll also run some tethering tests and see what the laptop can pull over the tether for comparison.

running speed tests on a mobile phone, the bottleneck is ALWAYS the mobile hardware. the combination of cpu, memory type and speed, are ALWAYS the bottleneck when speed testing on a phone. so its the whole package that matters. maybe the nexus 1 has slower RAM memory but faster CPU, but the iphone 4 has slower CPU but faster memory, etc.

I'm getting 2.7-3.8mbs download and ~1.7 upload(never seems to change much) here in different parts of North Dallas.

I just did about a dozen tests between the two phones (Nexus S and Nexus 1), from my office, where I used to get 4.0Mb/s on the N1 in Speedtest app on the phone.
I ran a couple of tests against 3 different servers (Los Angeles, Lake Havasu, Bullhead City) on each phone, and again on my laptop tethered via wifi hotspot to the Nexus S.
I threw in a few extra tests on the NS after a reboot of the phone (to swap the sim back and forth between the two phones).
The results were pretty much the same for each method.
I peaked out at 2.9Mb/s down on both phones, and 2.8Mb/s on the tethered laptop.
Upload speeds more interesting, the Nexus One maxed out at 1.3Mb/s on every test to every servier, the Nexus S got 1.7Mb/s on every test to every server, and on the tethered laptop as well.
Both phones show full bars and 3G and I used the Antennas app from the Market to confirm that both phones were connected to the same cell tower.
Perhaps not the best field testing, but good enough to show me that if either phone has an advantage over the other, in my area, it's actually the NS because it's getting 40% faster uploads and comparable downloads.
It also shows me that my fears that the NS wasn't getting the 4.0Mb/s I am used to in this location is not because of the device, it seems to be a change in the quality of service here.
As a final point of interest, I ran the same tests using my iPhone 4 on AT&T. Averaged about 1.9Mb/s on the down, 1.0 on the up. This was interesting because this phone was averaging 2.6-ish down last time I tested it here. It seems that both AT&T and T-Mo aren't serving up what they used to here near the Van Nuys Airport.
This also speaks to what I've said consistently about T-Mo vs AT&T...when I can get service from T-Mo it's much faster than what AT&T gives me, but the problem with T-Mo is too many areas that I can't get signal from them around here where AT&T is available on the phone.

No working GPS? No problem. No froyo? No problem. Bad reception? Problem

First off I'd like to say I'm thankful for everything the devs here do. I've tried the 3g fix and it didn't do anything, so now I'm just curious if there is anything else out there that fixes it.
I'm on the newest DL09 and the problem is still there. Bad reception. I'm serious when I say I get full 3g bars maybe 1% of the time, and I'm dead center in a verizon 3g area. I've never seen a signal jump around as much as on the fascinate. It will switch between 3g and 1x constantly throughout the day, and when it's on 3g it looks like the bars are dancing all day long because they just jump around.
My original Droid will have a steady 5 bars pretty much all day. Fascinate...not even close. It's getting ridiculous actually. I can download updates for apps on my droid no problem, but I actually wait til I get home on my wifi to download updates on my fascinate. I constantly get "stuck" loading a page on the net because of the ridiculous reception.
Now my question is...is there any fix out there that actually works that I might have skipped over? Good reception is a HUGE thing, especially when I'm dead center in a 3g area, and the fascinate doesn't have it. I'm thinking about selling it in the next few days because it's absolutely crazy.
People complain all day long about the GPS and no froyo...and I'm actually confused as to why many do not complain about the reception. That's the biggest issue with the phone IMO.
Thanks for any help.

Have you actually tried contacting Verizon about it? It sounds like you've got an antenna issue, which should be pretty easily addressed with a phone swap.

AlexDeGruven said:
Have you actually tried contacting Verizon about it? It sounds like you've got an antenna issue, which should be pretty easily addressed with a phone swap.
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My friends has the same issue, and I've seen people complain about it before. So I think it's a fairly common issue.

brian85 said:
First off I'd like to say I'm thankful for everything the devs here do. I've tried the 3g fix and it didn't do anything, so now I'm just curious if there is anything else out there that fixes it.
..
Thanks for any help.
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I'm assuming you tried the reprogramming codes?
http://www.ehow.com/how_4532332_reprogram-verizon-phone.html
probably the 1st thing you tried, but just checking. I know for me, i went from being in the -102 range (1 bar) to -89 range (2 to 3) at work. Also at home i went from -92 to -51 (MAX)

You did option 2 correct?

Just did option 2 and it seems to have done nothing. Going back and forth between -96 and -101

If you dont see people compalining about reception, its largely due to the fact that the phone doesnt really suffer from reception issues. If I were you, I'd call verizon and make a formal complaint about the hardware restricting your usage, I'm sure they will work with you.

I'm a sales rep at a Verizon corporate store, 4 of my co-workers have Fascinates and we ALL experience a MAJOR difference in signal quality compared to co-workers with Droid X's and Droid 2's...
There's a five page thread on droidforums (fascinate section) about every single person in that thread having reception issues on the fascinate. And if you do a "fascinate reception issue" search on google, there are threads everywhere about that.
I just have a feeling everyone is focused on froyo and GPS so that's why reception isn't brought up much. I highly doubt, with as many people that have this problem, that it's just a problem on some of the galaxy s phones.

agreed bro i lose signal from my bars are really sporadic

BlackHoleSlam said:
agreed bro i lose signal from my bars are really sporadic
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Yeah it's very frustrating.
What's even more frustrating is even when I get 4 full bars I only get -89 on the mobile signal widget..that's far from max reception.

I've never had reception problems per se but I have full bars and 73 dbm. Also for some reason my 3g download rate is nerfed. Earlier today on speed test got 63 kbps and 462 ping dunno why. Mostly hovers in the 300kbps range
Sent from my sch-i500 using dl09 supah clean

AlexDeGruven said:
Have you actually tried contacting Verizon about it? It sounds like you've got an antenna issue, which should be pretty easily addressed with a phone swap.
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I've had two phones now, and they both have very poor signal strength. Comparing my Fascinate to a friends Droid, sitting just a few inches apart, he had a dbm in the mid to high -70's, while mine was in the high -90's.
If you're in a solid coverage area, it gets fine reception and you're not likely to see the problem, but as you travel into a lower signal area, the Fascinate trails off very, very sharply. Even though I live in an area with supposedly blanket coverage, my house is towards the bottom of a small hill and I typically get zero or 1 bars on the display, every once in a while 2, but it'll drop back to 1 or 0 as soon as I pick the phone it.
The Fascinate does have a very week antennae design.

I rarely see 3 or 4 bars...come to think of it, I don't think i've ever seen 3 or 4 bars. This is when I'm in an area which should definitely have excellent coverage.
OP: do you have actual symptoms of poor signal like slow down/up load or dropped calls?
My speed tests when i have 1bar 3G are about 800Mbits up and 500Mbits down. Never dropped a call (rarely make calls, though). I have read that some folks suspect that the Fascinate has reporting issues? I don't know...but since I'm not seeing horrible speeds I've tried ignoring the fact that its always reporting 1-2 bars.
Kind of similar to the TWoS thing. I chased this one for a little bit too before dismissing it as a reporting issue (for now).

I originally was upset about the reception but came to realize that the office building I work in is built like a bunker. Other then when I am in the center of the building I get good reception, at my desk near a window I get 1-3 bars. However anytime other then when I am in this building I almost always have full bars.
However I have noticed that when I am in my office what ever bars I get my friends droid gets one more. But when it comes down to that it isn't Verizon...again the problem is with Samsung.

Hey guys,
what if I did option 1 instead of option 2 in *228 reprogramming?
On another note, my 3g indicator constantly disappears in verizon hotspot areas, it is really quite the annoyance.

Are you on a stock kernel?
Sent from my USCC SCH-I500..

Negative, I'm on Dl09 supah clean with adry's 12/30 test kernel.
Sent from my SCH-I500 using XDA App

The reception for my Fascinate isn't spectacular. I don't know how it ranks among smart phones, but there is a definite difference between it and my chocolate 8550. In known holes in vzw's coverage I occasionally lose signal, but I don't use it as a phone enough to drop many calls.
However, I spend the majority of my time in strong signal environs, so it doesn't really come up as an issue for me, and I just accept it. It will be a decision factor for my next phone though.
Maybe others have a similar situation: worse yes, but liveable.
Swyped w/ XDA App. When in doubt, mumble.

I have noticed the signal over the past 24 hours has been jumping all over the place like Verizon may be running tests or something. The drop being very consistent intervals of no bars but still 3g.
Sent from my SCH-I500 using XDA App

My brother has Fascinate as do I and out of the Box his got 2 more bars than mine and his almost always has more signal.
Remember this was before I started rooting and all that.
Sent from my SCH-I500 using Tapatalk

Signal Strength vs. GNex

Having a hard time finding info on this... anyone actually measured an increase/decrease vs. their GNex? I'm not talking about bars, but in dBm/ASUs or whatnot.
I was able to successfully order one today but am wondering if I should cancel. I primarily will use this phone to tether on the TMobile plan and while overall coverage with my GNex is adequate, I often find myself in situations indoors (various restaurants/cafes, etc) where it's a bit fringy and slow. Fortunately I live in a 42 HSPA+ area (downtown San Diego) so I imagine that will help some.

I don't have hard numbers for you, but based on my experience the last week its about the same if not marginally better. Nothing mind blowing though.
Sent from my Nexus 7 using xda premium

El Daddy said:
I don't have hard numbers for you, but based on my experience the last week its about the same if not marginally better. Nothing mind blowing though.
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Hmm... are you seeing an improvement in your data speeds at least - ie. in a marginal area wear you might have gotten 1 mbps, you now get like 1.5 or 2?
If I'm not looking forward to much of an improvement here coupled with the glass back it might be best to sit this one out. OTOH I *did* get one and should be able to at least resell what I paid for it so it might not hurt to try...

brandall10 said:
Hmm... are you seeing an improvement in your data speeds at least - ie. in a marginal area wear you might have gotten 1 mbps, you now get like 1.5 or 2?
If I'm not looking forward to much of an improvement here coupled with the glass back it might be best to sit this one out. OTOH I *did* get one and should be able to at least resell what I paid for it so it might not hurt to try...
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Yeah data speeds are much higher. At work where I usually have one or two bars I now get ~10Mbps with the N4 as opposed to the Gnex I'd have 3-7Mbps. At home where I have a great signal; I went from 7Mbps with the Gnex to 19Mbps with the N4.
I'm on T-Mobile BTW.
Edit: The performance increase from the Gnex to the N4 alone is enough for me to recommend the upgrade. It absolutely flies!
Sent from my Nexus 7 using xda premium

El Daddy said:
Yeah data speeds are much higher. At work where I usually have one or two bars I now get ~10Mbps with the N4 as opposed to the Gnex I'd have 3-7Mbps. At home where I have a great signal; I went from 7Mbps with the Gnex to 19Mbps with the N4.
I'm on T-Mobile BTW.
Edit: The performance increase from the Gnex to the N4 alone is enough for me to recommend the upgrade. It absolutely flies!
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Awesome! Thanks for sharing... I'm a remote web consultant, so this basically this seals the deal for me. I'm rarely in situations with no signal, just places that it's a bit too slow that I tend to avoid. Usually in the best spots I see about 8-9 mbps so I'm looking forward to the increase in speed, which sounds like it may put me close to what I get on my home network.