Database Users

[Q] Why does the signal antenna on the GS4 suck this bad?

I came over to the GS4 from a Motorola Photon 4G and the cellular signal antenna on the GS4 is nowhere even close to being as good as the Photon's. I am roaming almost all of the time at my house now where before with my Motorola I never had an issue. Is this a known problem with Samsung phones?? Is there anything that can be done about it?

Guess it all depends on perspective. I came from an Evo 3d, the S4 is hands down leaps and bounds better in reception than my 3d.
So from my perspective I have no gripes on the s4's reception.
Sent from my SPH-L720 using xda app-developers app

No issues here either. I came from the GS3 though. Maybe NV is in full effect in your area?
Sent from my SPH-L720 using xda app-developers app

This phone has the best antennas on the market actually. Test the dbm levels not your signal bars. Signal bars show voice not data. Most likely your poor reception is the network not the phone although it could be a bad device but I doubt it. You could be getting a NV upgrade in your area which would be good. Update your prl and profile. Check out s4gru.com for network vision and lte info.
Brought to you by Sprint and the letters GS and the number 4

Same network, Sprint, that I was on a few weeks ago with the Photon. Nothing has changed but the device. Its clearly nowhere near as good as the Photon as far as signal reception goes. I love it though. Just wish the antenna was as good.

jbb2388 said:
Same network, Sprint, that I was on a few weeks ago with the Photon. Nothing has changed but the device. Its clearly nowhere near as good as the Photon as far as signal reception goes. I love it though. Just wish the antenna was as good.
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Where do you live and do you know if Network Vision had been started in your area. If not it could very well have just started in the "few weeks" you claim you swapped from your other phone. In my area specifically Network Vision upgrades began literally overnight and signals dropped to zero for several days. Even more weeks after the upgrades began signal comes and goes as they turn towers on and off testing them.
Sent from my SPH-L720 using xda app-developers app

jbb2388 said:
Same network, Sprint, that I was on a few weeks ago with the Photon. Nothing has changed but the device. Its clearly nowhere near as good as the Photon as far as signal reception goes. I love it though. Just wish the antenna was as good.
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Same here, not even close to the Photon. In fact, sometimes I get the "no connection retry" messages on the s4 at work and home in Omaha and the only time I got that on the Photon was in Backbone State Park, IA! love the phone though!

It will be hard to beat a Motorola phone for signal strength. I had a Photon as well and it always had signal in places other phones didn't. However, with the S3 and S4 I have not had any issues with dropped calls or bad signal. It has been about average.

The Photon is known to get really good cellular reception. That was the case for me, although wifi on that phone is terrible. In my experience, my GS4 gets better voice, data, and wifi reception than any other phone I've had on Sprint. I guess YMMV.
Sent from my SPH-L720 using xda premium

I had the Photon as well until I upgraded to the S4. I haven't really noticed a difference, other than the S4>MoPho.

My wife and I both switched to the S4 from Photon 4Gs and we have both noticed how much better the RF reception was on the old Photons. The S4 is a great phone but it drops into roaming in areas that were never an issue for us before. I've heard a pot of anecdotal evidence, though, that Moto always makes strong RF phones.
Sent from my SPH-L720 using Tapatalk 4 Beta

Its the radio in these samsung phone u are right Motorola,iPhone have Better
radios
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smoke423 said:
Its the radio in these samsung phone u are right Motorola,iPhone have Better
radios
Sent from my SPH-L720 using xda premium
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Don't know about iPhones... My mom and bro both have the i5 and last week when we went to California (LA specifically) for a family trip, I had LTE in areas they didn't and every time they had LTE so did I. Same goes for areas of NYC, they will not have LTE in areas I do. And yes, all of us have Sprint.

My cellular signal is much better than the HTC One I traded for the S4, but my wifi signal is terrible. With my One, I was able to connect to both my 5GHz and 2.4GHz channels upstairs (although 5 had bad signal strength due to range), and 2.4GHz was pretty great.
On the S4, my 5GHz connection is about the same, but it barely registers the 2.4GHz at all. What's up with that?

I also came from the Photon to the G S4, it has huge difference in reception. I knew I would loose some signal when I decided never to buy another Moto again but this hurts! I can sit in my house in Lincoln NE and I'm lucky if I can keep a signal long enough for the phone to ring the other line. Most of the time I get the Sprint Error code.

Go back to the photon. Problem solved.
Sent from my SCH-I545 using Tapatalk

Very very poor reception with brand new Note 3 in my house.

Just bought a Galaxy Note 3 with Verizon and the signal was pretty good until I got home.
I've been getting 1-2 bars on 4G LTE, (Which is 10-15% of the time). A good 20% I have 3G with 1-2 bars.
The rest of the time I do not even have 3G.
When i have 4G LTE the speedtest is 1.37 down, 0.20 MBps up. When I have 3G its 58 kbps down and 208 kbps up.
Completely baffles me.
Signal strength is -99dBm.
Any suggestions? I'm about to go return it and go back to my Galaxy S3 with US Cellular.

I'm not sure I qualify to post in this thread, but I am in a similar situation.
Bought a Note 3 (SM-N9005) in Europe, Romania, running on Vodafone. I have noticed weird signal variations in places where my old Galaxy S2 had no problem, both at work and at home.
Signal reception would drop from 1-2 bars HSPA+ to no signal at all, when my Note 3 reads as not registered on network.
Signal strength varies from -75 dBm to -110 dBm (when I'm close to no signal at all). I have baseband/build number N9005XXUBMJ1.
Have even contacted local Samsung office and they suggested I simply factory reset my phone to try and fix problem with poor reception.
I have googled this poor reception issue and so far found that people are complaining about it only in the USA. Maybe as time passes and more Note 3 units are sold, more people will report this.

I smell a modem update coming sometime soon because I am also experiencing worse signal than At&t in the Philadelphia area(data and voice) where Verizon holds the market share for towers around here, and there's many of them...

nmeseth said:
Just bought a Galaxy Note 3 with Verizon and the signal was pretty good until I got home.
I've been getting 1-2 bars on 4G LTE, (Which is 10-15% of the time). A good 20% I have 3G with 1-2 bars.
The rest of the time I do not even have 3G.
When i have 4G LTE the speedtest is 1.37 down, 0.20 MBps up. When I have 3G its 58 kbps down and 208 kbps up.
Completely baffles me.
Signal strength is -99dBm.
Any suggestions? I'm about to go return it and go back to my Galaxy S3 with US Cellular.
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+1
Thinking about returning/exchanging mine. Seems to have gotten slightly better the past few days, but still poor compared to my note 2. Thinking about taking it back to Verizon this week. Anyone know how the return/exchange process works? If I exchange it and still have problems then what are my options? Or if I return it do I get my upgrade back? Can I then repurchase it and have another 14 days to test and potentially return it?

My Note3 signal is poor too (much worse than my 4S) .

The signal and reception is horrible and comparable to my samsung galaxy nexus. It's disappointing.
Sent from my SM-N900V using xda app-developers app

AlecRobertson said:
My Note3 signal is poor too (much worse than my 4S) .
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Bsmith0731 said:
The signal and reception is horrible and comparable to my samsung galaxy nexus. It's disappointing.
Sent from my SM-N900V using xda app-developers app
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Sent from my SM-N900V using Tapatalk 2
+1 mine hasn't gotten any better and I'm hoping a software update helps a bit. The good news is that it only affects me when I'm in low signal areas like my home(especially downstairs) where I constantly lose service completely and have to wait and hit resend when sending texts. With my thunderbolt and Note 2 I always had at least one bar of 1x or 3g. Disappointing

Sounds like I'm not alone. I didn't see this thread earlier and posted my own. My experience is pretty much what you guys are saying. As long as I'm in a good signal area everything's fine, but when in low signal areas it's in and out, if at all. These are the sane areas where my Note 2, Razr, Bionic, etc. all worked fine for calls and even had data to some degree.
Sent from my SM-N900V using Tapatalk

samsung note 3 reception
Hi is the Samsung note 3 poor reception a 4.3 issue?

I'm pretty sure that Verizon has improved the reception with the MJE update... I haven't had any issues since then.
Sent from my SM-N900V using XDA Premium 4 mobile app

MJE fixed the issue and my Note 3 signal is almost as good as my Note 2 was...still sad tho because the Note 3 should be better in every category and its not.

Yeah signal and radio hardware needs improved by Samsung considering they are the biggest phone manufacturers.

jpknuuti said:
You can find interesting information about mobiles’ and tablets’ reception performance from:
www.devicereception.com
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I am only seeing the galaxy s5 under Samsung phones, not a single other device. Do you have a link to the Note 3? Thanks
Also still have my reception issues and dropped/missed calls. I will likely send it in under warranty sometime next month and temporarily use my old thunderbolt. I would just purchase the Note 4 first but I'm holding out for the Note Edge, hope Verizon gets it by November.

forzamilan79 said:
Hi is the Samsung note 3 poor reception a 4.3 issue?
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no, i recently brought a note 3 4.4.2 yesterday and i got 2 bars on three network, on my old note 2 i had full bars everywere in the house, i'm going to see if it improves when i go outside.

Sprint Signal issues?

Just wondering if could be faulty unit or Sprint signal problems but i've been getting dropping signals randomly inside of my house, and also friend telling me that they called me but i never them calls, if more ppl like me?
Sent from my XT1575 using Tapatalk

I'm on Sprint JC and I've gotten slightly lower speeds in my living room than my Note 3 ,but still very solid 4G , But my city has strong Sprint LTE..
I've had no interruptions no sputters.

ttkyles said:
I'm on Sprint JC and I've gotten slightly lower speeds in my living room than my Note 3 ,but still very solid 4G , But my city has strong Sprint LTE..
I've had no interruptions no sputters.
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Click to collapse
Do you think should I request an RMA for my phone? Or maybe is Sprint side
Sent from my XT1575 using Tapatalk

Just helped my girlfriend's mom with her new phone today (she's not had a smartphone before). I was very pleasantly surprised and happy for her that her phone registered 10-12 dBm better signal than my S6 (S6 and MXP both on Sprint right next to each other on the countertop).
Edit: I don't know that it would make a difference, but maybe just verify as an easy check, see if it is set to LTE. Her phone was initially set to Global, for some reason (it worked either way, but I didn't pay attention to signal before switching it to LTE).

I think Global is for aloud the phone to be selecting either LTE, 3G or 1x based on the signal, so if we switch to LTE only as soon I move to LTE ill be losing data
Sent from my XT1575 using Tapatalk

Radios on Verizon

Any of you guys on Verizon any info on signal strength? Does the phone connect up to LTE and hold on to it in the tough spots?

wooddale said:
Any of you guys on Verizon any info on signal strength? Does the phone connect up to LTE and hold on to it in the tough spots?
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Yes, from my experience, the phone connects up to LTE and holds onto it in tough spots. It is pretty good at holding on to 3G as well.
Also, the Nexus 6P supports VoLTE on Verizon (as long as you have the "Advanced Calling" feature added to your account.

quitepossibly said:
Yes, from my experience, the phone connects up to LTE and holds onto it in tough spots. It is pretty good at holding on to 3G as well.
Also, the Nexus 6P supports VoLTE on Verizon (as long as you have the "Advanced Calling" feature added to your account.
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Thanks got a few more days before mine gets here the antisapation is killing me. I was a little Leary of the radios.

wooddale said:
Thanks got a few more days before mine gets here the antisapation is killing me. I was a little Leary of the radios.
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Our house is a pretty bad spot for signal strength, data and call quality in general, GSM signal seems to be better than CDMA according to my informal surveys. We have Verizon (obviously) with contracts ending in December and have been thinking of switching to T-Mobile or Fi for call quality at home among other things (like money ).
Anyway, the 6P is holding onto LTE signal in the house, and I just called my wife from the house and the call quality was excellent. She on her HTC One M7 (soon to be a 6P, most likely) and me on my 6P. I'm very impressed.

TheloniousMunch said:
Our house is a pretty bad spot for signal strength, data and call quality in general, GSM signal seems to be better than CDMA according to my informal surveys. We have Verizon (obviously) with contracts ending in December and have been thinking of switching to T-Mobile or Fi for call quality at home among other things (like money ).
Anyway, the 6P is holding onto LTE signal in the house, and I just called my wife from the house and the call quality was excellent. She on her HTC One M7 (soon to be a 6P, most likely) and me on my 6P. I'm very impressed.
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Thanks been on Verizon forever I'm north in Wi and TMobile gets voice here but no data.Verizon and USCell are the only 4G here and I have to be on a network extender here in the cabin to get calls. Once I get on the main roads I get an assortment of 1X 3G 4G and no signal. Verizon is the best by far though. I have went through a lot of phones because some just did not work. Although they have been getting better I have been sticking with Moto because of the good radios. I'm on a Nexus 6 now which is good but I couldn't control myself p6 came out had to get it. Got about another week to wait kicking myself in the butt for not ordering sooner its killing me lol. Thanks again

Better than the N6, which I had previously.
Sent from my Nexus 6P using Tapatalk

hsj1906 said:
Better than the N6, which I had previously.
Sent from my Nexus 6P using Tapatalk
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WOO now that's what I'm talking about I also have Nexus 6 second best phone I have had here for signal best was Note 4. Great signal but no development I ended up selling it for $800 couldn't pass that up.

I seem to be hold LTE at my house much better than my G3 or iPhone 6. Usually I drop down to 3G in most parts of my house, but LTE holds everywhere except the basement now.
Sent from my Nexus 6P using Tapatalk

Moto G4 4G LTE issue

Hello,
I bought the unlocked Moto G4 from best buy last week to use with ATT. I started the phone initially without any sim card in it. Next time i restarted i put in the sim card and it detected as att sim card and everything seems to work until when I notice that when i am in my office building I only see H and not 4G LTE. I had Nokia 640 earlier which was ATT go phone and i was getting 4G LTE on it in my office building. And I have also got LTE earlier on other phone in same building. I checked the APN settings and they looked ok since I am getting 4G LTE at most of the places. chatted/talked to ATT and they are of no help, they are saying that since its not ATT and unlocked phone, there is no guarantee that you will get lte everywhere and may be the antenna could be weak on the phone. But I am just not sure if I got a faulty piece or what. Since even the lower end lumia 640 was giving me lte in my office building. I am not sure if I should just return and get another piece or just return it for this issue.
Any help is much appreciated..

There are several good apps on Play that show you cell signal strengths and such. Do a search in Play for "cell signal info" and try one of those apps. It will at least give you a place to start and a comparison tool to compare phones.
Sent from my SM-T530NU using XDA-Developers mobile app

I own a G3 and a Moto X Pure, I am on AT&T and have noticed the past few days LTE seems very... umm, weak I guess... at least in the Minneapolis/St Paul area, and my phone was falling back to HSPA+ way more often than "normal" this week (I travel here every week). I thought I was crazy but maybe there is more too it than that. I do know that AT&T has been doing lots of upgrades recently and rolling out LTE-A, or at least some kind of LTE upgrade, in some areas. Back home my LTE speeds consistenyl went from 20Mbps to 70Mbps down and 5Mbps to 25Mbps up in the last couple of weeks.
Best thing to do would be get a signal strength app, like LTE Discovery or Network Signal Info, and compare it to another phone on the same carrier in the same area and band (LTE Discovery will tell you the LTE Band you are using). Remember that not all phones report it the same, it can be wildly different, but it might give you some insight.
My point is, it may not be your hardware... and Moto's in general are known for really good signal reception. Just do some due diligence before returning it, but if you feel it is hardware, but all means exchange it.

thanks guys..will try it out..

Maybe I am being paranoid, but sometimes I wonder if cell carriers some how optimize their LTE signal to work better with their own phones. I have noticed this on T-Mobile when I always seem to get a stronger signal with a T-Mobile branded phone than with a third party unlocked device.

heap1 said:
Maybe I am being paranoid, but sometimes I wonder if cell carriers some how optimize their LTE signal to work better with their own phones. I have noticed this on T-Mobile when I always seem to get a stronger signal with a T-Mobile branded phone than with a third party unlocked device.
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Click to collapse
LOL... No, carriers have the ROM modified to make the icon show more bars on their subsidized phones. They can't actually throttle 3rd party phones on the same plan as a carrier branded ones, legally at least.
Sent from my Motorola XT1575 using XDA Labs

acejavelin said:
LOL... No, carriers have the ROM modified to make the icon show more bars on their subsidized phones. They can't actually throttle 3rd party phones on the same plan as a carrier branded ones, legally at least.
Sent from my Motorola XT1575 using XDA Labs
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Click to collapse
That's what I thought., although I still wonder why I usually get a better LTE signal with T-Mobile branded phones. This seems to be especially noticeable since I have upgraded to Marshmallow. Recently, I have or have owned a T-Mobile LG G4, an LG G3, an Axon Pro, and a Moto X Pure. As a rule I have noticed the signal strength being stronger on the T-Mobile branded phones.

heap1 said:
That's what I thought., although I still wonder why I usually get a better LTE signal with T-Mobile branded phones. This seems to be especially noticeable since I have upgraded to Marshmallow. Recently, I have or have owned a T-Mobile LG G4, an LG G3, an Axon Pro, and a Moto X Pure. As a rule I have noticed the signal strength being stronger on the T-Mobile branded phones.
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Actual signal strength or the icon? LTE Discovery usually shows the truth...
Sent from my XT1575 using Tapatalk

This is based on readings from LTE Discovery, not the number of bars the phone is displaying. I suppose you could also come to the conclusion that LG phones have a stronger radio signal than other phones.

I'm having the same problem with both of my g4's in my area and seattle international airport... if it's not working there... then where will it work?
kevin347 said:
Hello,
I bought the unlocked Moto G4 from best buy last week to use with ATT. I started the phone initially without any sim card in it. Next time i restarted i put in the sim card and it detected as att sim card and everything seems to work until when I notice that when i am in my office building I only see H and not 4G LTE. I had Nokia 640 earlier which was ATT go phone and i was getting 4G LTE on it in my office building. And I have also got LTE earlier on other phone in same building. I checked the APN settings and they looked ok since I am getting 4G LTE at most of the places. chatted/talked to ATT and they are of no help, they are saying that since its not ATT and unlocked phone, there is no guarantee that you will get lte everywhere and may be the antenna could be weak on the phone. But I am just not sure if I got a faulty piece or what. Since even the lower end lumia 640 was giving me lte in my office building. I am not sure if I should just return and get another piece or just return it for this issue.
Any help is much appreciated..
Click to expand...
Click to collapse

AlexanderJohn said:
I'm having the same problem with both of my g4's in my area and seattle international airport... if it's not working there... then where will it work?
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Click to collapse
Yeah well I ended up keeping the phone. Someone else in the same building also reported lower quality signal with even Iphone and moto g4, all other areas we are getting lte so guess, i took my chances.

AlexanderJohn said:
I'm having the same problem with both of my g4's in my area and seattle international airport... if it's not working there... then where will it work?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Using "nxtgenphone" APN? Sometimes LTE doesn't work unless you do
Sent from my Motorola XT1575 using XDA Labs

I ended up calling att and they provisioned my line for lte. Fixed both phones.
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