# Verizon: Signal strength?



## trparky (Sep 3, 2011)

How is the signal strength of this phone versus say... the Galaxy Nexus? One of the things that is slightly bad about the Galaxy Nexus (Verizon, Toro) device is that it's CDMA signal strength and modems aren't as great when you compare the CDMA modem capabilities of it against a Motorola device.

Has Samsung modems gotten better as of late? Is it better in this phone (Verizon GS3)? How does the Galaxy SIII perform in marginal signal areas?

The reason why I'm asking is that I have a Galaxy Nexus right now but the biggest problem is that due to the poor performance of the radios in the phone compared to other phones, I practically have to stand on one foot and whistle Dixie for the phone call to not drop.


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## yarly (Jun 22, 2011)

Modems aren't made by Samsung (along with VIA) in the Galaxy S3 North American Version. They're made by Qualcomm, same as HTC devices and some Motorola ones that Moto does not use their own hardware in.

EDIT: and sony/lg also use Qualcomm...not that anyone cares about those too much.


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## HerbieVersmelz (Oct 31, 2012)

Location... I very rarely have less than full "bars" never dropped a call to my recollection either. Verizon Galaxy Nexus (Toro) in use roughly one year now.

Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using Tapatalk 2


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## HerbieVersmelz (Oct 31, 2012)

yarly said:


> Modems aren't made by Samsung (along with VIA) in the Galaxy S3 North American Version. They're made by Qualcomm, same as HTC devices and some Motorola ones that Moto does not use their own hardware in.


this too. Good info to keep in mind.

Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using Tapatalk 2


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## trparky (Sep 3, 2011)

So you're saying that the Galaxy Nexus and the Galaxy SIII uses completely different modem hardware?


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## yarly (Jun 22, 2011)

trparky said:


> So you're saying that the Galaxy Nexus and the Galaxy SIII uses completely different modem hardware?


Yes

If the phone has a Qualcomm CPU, then it probably has Qualcomm modems 99.9% of the time as well.


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## trparky (Sep 3, 2011)

How is the battery life compared to that of say... the Galaxy Nexus? Because the Galaxy Nexus seriously sucks in the battery department.


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## MistaWolfe (Oct 10, 2011)

Battery life + signal + overall phone = superb

Had a Nex myself. This pretty much exceeds it in every way, besides AOSP compatibility out of the gate. If that makes sense.

Sent from my SCH-I535 using Tapatalk 2


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## HerbieVersmelz (Oct 31, 2012)

MistaWolfe said:


> Battery life + signal + overall phone = superb
> 
> Had a Nex myself. This pretty much exceeds it in every way, besides AOSP compatibility out of the gate. If that makes sense.
> 
> Sent from my SCH-I535 using Tapatalk 2


idk man, results will obviously vary im not doubting your findings one bit. But i will say, my wife recently upgraded to a GS3, on verizon. We share the same plan. Ive since rooted and rom'd it for her, she likes all the custom goodies and such. But my point is, aside from a noticeable, yet not phenomenal, battery life increase, in my opinion the device is not exceedingly better in terms of signal. In performance its better, although again, not shockingly better. I like her device, dont get me wrong.

Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using Tapatalk 2


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## trparky (Sep 3, 2011)

Verizon signal strength is bad in my area, they themselves even admitted that I'm in a "marginal signal area," whatever that means. I'm investigating my options. Get this phone or wait until my contract is up on Verizon (mid-2013) and kick them to the curb.


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## trparky (Sep 3, 2011)

Should I even think about dropping the cash for this phone hoping that it solves my dropped calls issue on Verizon? Or should I just cut my losses, wait until my contract is up, and move to another carrier?


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## SlimSnoopOS (Jan 19, 2012)

I live in a spotty area as well, my average signal (regardless of phone) is -115 dbm. Somehow I still am able to pull down extended LTE but I stay on wifi for faster speeds. If you live in a poor signal area, I highly doubt any phone will provide much difference. Despite my poor coverage, the phone is great and I spend a good bit of time working in areas with far greater reception so it evens out for me.


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## HerbieVersmelz (Oct 31, 2012)

SlimSnoopOS said:


> I live in a spotty area as well, my average signal (regardless of phone) is -115 dbm. Somehow I still am able to pull down extended LTE but I stay on wifi for faster speeds. If you live in a poor signal area, I highly doubt any phone will provide much difference. Despite my poor coverage, the phone is great and I spend a good bit of time working in areas with far greater reception so it evens out for me.


agree totally. And tparky, theres no harm in trying it and returning it if there is a desire to. Verizon has like a 14 day window if im not mistaken..

Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using Tapatalk 2


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## trparky (Sep 3, 2011)

-115 dbm? Yep, I'm very good friends with that number.

As you can imagine, my phone struggles to keep a lock on the signal (I have WiFi at home for data) but even with WiFi on the phone eats battery life while struggling to keep a lock on the CDMA signal to send/receive calls. I've been known to not even get a phone call and then have a Google Voice Mail message appear in my email saying that I missed a call yet the phone registered no missed calls.

I'd have to buy the phone outright because of the fact that I'm still within my contract so that means easily $700. Yet, if I move to another carrier (say AT&T), I can get it subsidized and get the cost down to about $150.


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## SlimSnoopOS (Jan 19, 2012)

Surprisingly I haven't had missed phone calls but I have had a few dropped calls. I've been on a four hour phone convo just fine but then I'll drop a call during a thirty minute conversation smh (shrugs). On my off days at home, I average about 2.5-4 hours of screen on time and maybe 12-18 hours between charges. I consider that very good given my low reception. But for the price of $700 and a soon ending VZW contract, I'd look into how to cut down that cost. This was my last upgrade (I preordered) to keep unlimited so I paid the subsidy. Idk if I would do the same with a $700 price tag given VZW's expensive bill that comes along with it.


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## trparky (Sep 3, 2011)

At this point, if I'm going to end up losing Unlimited Data in the process of getting a new phone, I would want to lose my Unlimited Data in the process of getting service from a provider that provides adequate service in my area.

My thinking is that when I do finally switch to another carrier, the Galaxy S4 will be out and then I can grab a Galaxy S3 on the cheap, real cheap. But that all depends upon the subsidy costs. Maybe the Galaxy S4 subsidized cost won't be that bad. It would be nice to have a phone that's guaranteed to get some decent amount of love from the carrier when it comes to updates.

Granted, if you root and ROM your phone you don't have to worry about OTA updates but after they discontinue your phone as far as updates are concerned you can kiss those regularly scheduled modem firmware updates goodbye.


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## thesoldier (Jan 25, 2012)

MistaWolfe said:


> Battery life + signal + overall phone = superb
> 
> Had a Nex myself. This pretty much exceeds it in every way, besides AOSP compatibility out of the gate. If that makes sense.
> 
> Sent from my SCH-I535 using Tapatalk 2


Wolfe pretty much said exactly what I would say. Battery life is stellar compared to my old gnex and signal is definitely better, but not by a whole lot. I work in a fringe area where it switches between 3g and 4g a lot, and yet 12 hours later I'm still at 60% (with 1.5 hrs screen time). It seems that being in a low signal area doesn't rape my battery like it did with my gnex lol.

I say if you can find one for under $300 then go for it, otherwise you should probably wait til the price drops. I hear the note 2 has badass battery life and signal strength compared to these phones as well.

Sent from my SCH-I535 using Tapatalk 2


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## MistaWolfe (Oct 10, 2011)

Note 2 stomps everything right now, it seems. Me want.

And yeah, I get you on diff devices. I live in the same place and work in the same place. Everything is better. I carried my Nex is one pocket and S3 in another. Original plan was to flip the S3 and keep the Nex. After noticing the battery (and just digging the phone overall) I sold the Nex. I can go all day on a single G3 charge. That was impossible on my Nex.

Sent from my SCH-I535 using Tapatalk 2


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## trparky (Sep 3, 2011)

I can't even go three hours, screen-on time, without having to dive for the charger. It's so bad that I when I get home, I plug it in since I have a charger next to my computer. If I need to go anywhere in my car, it's plugged in in the car as well. Spend some time in a restaurant, I don't even need to be using the Internet, I could just be using Amazon Kindle, down 40% battery. Get in the car, plug it in. This phone is on the charger like an infant on... well, you get the idea. LOL Trying to be politically correct here.


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## trparky (Sep 3, 2011)

Seems that when my contract is up in four month, the GSIII will be the phone to get. I'm just doing research, a lot of research. I want to know what I'm buying so that when I walk into the store to pick that phone out, I'll know it inside and out, forwards and backwards. I'm the kind of person who researches for months before he buys something.

The only thing I'm probably going to end up doing is just rooting it. Hopefully it will just be a process of flashing the rooted image via ODIN, downloading OTA RootKeeper, protecting root, temporarily unrooting it, and then let the OTA update take place and once that's done use OTA RootKeeper again to restore root. I hate to say this but as great as the third-party ROMs are, it would be nice to have a good solid polished ROM again.


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## trparky (Sep 3, 2011)

Or I might not even root it at all. I really only used root to make backups of certain apps like Google Authenticator but it seems that I was able to grab the secret keys out of the SQLite Database File so I can restore that without root.


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## yarly (Jun 22, 2011)

Just curious, but how would you restore that without root when it's on a part of the OS that needs root permissions for writing to?


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## trparky (Sep 3, 2011)

I figured out that you can open the Google Authenticator sqlite database to retrieve the secret keys using an SQL query against the database. You can then take those secret keys and input them manually into the Google Authenticator app.

Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using Tapatalk 2


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## trparky (Sep 3, 2011)

For the vast majority of the things I do on my phone, I don't need root at all. Yes, root is a nice thing to have but for me I've recently discovered that I've been using it less and less as of late.

AOSP based ROMs are great, don't get me wrong but I guess that I've become like a lot of other people that have grown weary of constantly having to fix or tweak something and that they just want their device to work. I think I've finally reached that point in my Android life. Don't get me wrong, it was cool playing with different ROMs, tweaks, and kernels but I think I've reached the point where the cool factor has died off.

So a Galaxy S3 may very well be in my near future.

Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using Tapatalk 2


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## yarly (Jun 22, 2011)

Hmm, so you manually input them into the app and then install the app on the device I am guessing? Yeah, I never was much for flashing even when I started with Android. I basically stick to stock compiled AOSP on my Nexus with a few additions I make. Android ROM/Kernel developers care way more about features and pushing out updates under pressure of their users for me in general. Many users might like that, but I do not. If it were up to me, I'd make developers unit and functional test anything they add to ensure they don't break anything already there. However, development speed would slow to a crawl, lol.


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## trparky (Sep 3, 2011)

Although I did find something here that seems to make rooting the phone a bit less dangerous.
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1739426

Sent from my Nexus 7 using Tapatalk 2


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## yarly (Jun 22, 2011)

It's not hard to root, though I can only speak from experience of rooting my friends S3 for AT&T remotely with ssh and adb. Never dealt with verizon.


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## terryrook (Jun 10, 2011)

First gnex had handover issues. 2nd was excellent, signal strength was awesome. Sadly I broke it and all they could offer me was an s3, the signal on this s3 is solid....like og droid solid but I do miss my gnex, im trading my wife the s3 for the nexus....I miss it that much, touchwiz roms are ok and development is picking up, the specs for the s3 crush the nexus, battery, quad core processor, 2 gigs of ram, 1.4 mhz processor......but I don't care, I miss my nexus. If the s3 and the gnex had a baby it would crush all other phones imho. Oh btw, I'm a verizon field tech so if you want actual knowledge just hit me up.

Sent from my SCH-I535 using RootzWiki


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## terryrook (Jun 10, 2011)

Also the stock touchwiz isn't bad, if you say your over rooting the s3 or note 2 may be what you need. I will never stop modding, theming, creating, making it better. That's my s**t! Android por vida! Plus the chicks you get from fixing their phone's. ..you know, android groupies? Well maybe someday.

Sent from my SCH-I535 using RootzWiki


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## yarly (Jun 22, 2011)

terryrook said:


> quad core processor, 2 gigs of ram, 1.4 mhz processor......but I don't care, I miss my nexus.


North American S3 is a 2 core Qualcomm CPU phone. The international 9300 version is 4 core exynos. Just a small nitpick


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## trparky (Sep 3, 2011)

I'm going to be going to AT&T anyways to escape the bad coverage that Verizon has.


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## terryrook (Jun 10, 2011)

yarly said:


> North American S3 is a 2 core Qualcomm CPU phone. The international 9300 version is 4 core exynos. Just a small nitpick


oh thanks man makes makes me feel even bettrer about bssically stealing my wifes nexus and giving her this thing. The crack on many nexus screen is so small I should try and fix it but I cant seem to find the glass by itself...its either 300 bucks with the digitizer or nothing at all. I miss my nexus ns n, I'm going through withdrawls. I fashed 4 tw roms yesterday...think I might try aosp today. Sorry to whine to you but at this point ill cry to whoever will read my ranting.

Sent from my SCH-I535 using RootzWiki


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## terryrook (Jun 10, 2011)

trparky said:


> I'm going to be going to AT&T anyways to escape the bad coverage that Verizon has.


good luck. I've worked for att and Verizon. Ve rizon has the best standard's in the industry. Att is like "will it work? Slap it up" also their lte is a temporary solution using remote radio heads just to launch. They're gonna be turning sites off left and right for maintenance....maybe I'm just bitter. I did work there for 7 years plus I work for Vzw so I am completely biased
But I can send you photos of the 2 and you can look at the workmanship and decide.
Sent from my SCH-I535 using RootzWiki


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## trparky (Sep 3, 2011)

I'd like to stay with Verizon, I really would. But... constantly dropping calls is simply unacceptable.

I've had technical support tickets open regarding the issue. They had told me that they had conducted a site survey of my trouble area with one of those roving signal testing vans. They have told me that my area *needs* another cell tower to provide adequate coverage to the area but they have no plans whatsoever now or in the future to install another cell tower to provide better service to the area.

So what's a person to do? Switch carriers to one that provides better service and that seems to be AT&T at the moment.

Now, it wasn't always like this. When I initially signed up for the service it was fine. I don't know what changed between then and now. Maybe some environmental changes occurred. People planted more trees? A building was put up? I don't know.


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## exarkun (Dec 4, 2011)

The verizon S3 is tons better than the verizon nexus in both the signal and battery departments. Just the better reception itself improves the battery life, as the phone is not constantly struggling to find a signal like it is on the nexus.


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## terryrook (Jun 10, 2011)

My first gnec sucked. Dropped calls, the works. They sent me a replacement and my service was perfect. Handover was perfect. Have you told them your having poor signal issues And to seems you a new phone?

Sent from my SCH-I535 using RootzWiki


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## yarly (Jun 22, 2011)

terryrook said:


> good luck. I've worked for att and Verizon. Ve rizon has the best standard's in the industry. Att is like "will it work? Slap it up" also their lte is a temporary solution using remote radio heads just to launch. They're gonna be turning sites off left and right for maintenance....maybe I'm just bitter. I did work there for 7 years plus I work for Vzw so I am completely biased
> But I can send you photos of the 2 and you can look at the workmanship and decide.
> Sent from my SCH-I535 using RootzWiki


I'd like to see such photos out of curiosity.


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## trparky (Sep 3, 2011)

When my contract is up with Verizon, I'm done with them. If I could kick Verizon to the curb faster, I would. Enough is enough, having next to no coverage in my area is garbage. Even standing outside in my back yard, my phone registers only one bar and -105 dBm. That's almost useless as a signal and the phone shows it in the sense that I could have the phone sitting there doing nothing but sit in my pocket for 45 minutes and the battery is down 8%. That tells me that the phone's signal amplifiers and DSPs are running at the highest it can run at, draining the battery.


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## Soapinmouth (Jun 21, 2011)

I have been phenomenally happy switching from my nexus to this. It just depends how much the battery life bothers you on the nexus and how much the performance does. In terms off performance I could never go back to the gnex the random lag spikes were obnoxious as hell and the battery life was beyond disappointing. The signal isn't a huge leap but it is better though.

Sent from my liquid smooth gs3


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## Soapinmouth (Jun 21, 2011)

trparky said:


> When my contract is up with Verizon, I'm done with them. If I could kick Verizon to the curb faster, I would. Enough is enough, having next to no coverage in my area is garbage. Even standing outside in my back yard, my phone registers only one bar and -105 dBm. That's almost useless as a signal and the phone shows it in the sense that I could have the phone sitting there doing nothing but sit in my pocket for 45 minutes and the battery is down 8%. That tells me that the phone's signal amplifiers and DSPs are running at the highest it can run at, draining the battery.


You sure other carriers have it any better in your area?

Sent from my liquid smooth gs3


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## trparky (Sep 3, 2011)

I've talked to other people who have AT&T in my area and they have much better signal strength than I do on Verizon.


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## exarkun (Dec 4, 2011)

trparky said:


> When my contract is up with Verizon, I'm done with them. If I could kick Verizon to the curb faster, I would. Enough is enough, having next to no coverage in my area is garbage. Even standing outside in my back yard, my phone registers only one bar and -105 dBm. That's almost useless as a signal and the phone shows it in the sense that I could have the phone sitting there doing nothing but sit in my pocket for 45 minutes and the battery is down 8%. That tells me that the phone's signal amplifiers and DSPs are running at the highest it can run at, draining the battery.


Try a phone that isn't a verizon galaxy nexus. It has a shitty radio.


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