4G Android phone megathread
- Thread starter Foulkey Reese
- Start date
I have an X.
I'm not due for an upgrade until May, so I will probably soldier through and see what the lineup is looking like for the rest of the year. And also see how people feel about the Galaxy Nexus after a few months.
I'm not due for an upgrade until May, so I will probably soldier through and see what the lineup is looking like for the rest of the year. And also see how people feel about the Galaxy Nexus after a few months.
My Nexus is coming Wednesday. Had to punt on the Bionic because of the random data drop issue I've had since day 1 and the latest Moto fix didn't fix it.
Yep. I got tired of trying to keep up with custom ROMs and all that. I am happy being back on an HTC phone with Sense. Motorola makes nice phones but MotoBlur really sucks and its a pain in the butt to get rid of it.
The Rezound is sitting here on my desk. It is a replacement for my Bionic; but I'm activating it on my wife's line tonight to replace her Incredible. The Nexus was always my destination; I was going to use the Bionic for a couple of months and give it to her; but with the connection problems we have around here she'd kill me.
I believe the Bionic is fine if you are in a 3g only or 4g only area; but I'm switching back and forth every day and it just doesn't work right here.
http://www.engadget.com/2011/12/19/itc-sides-with-apple-bans-sale-and-import-of-some-htc-phones/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+weblogsinc%2Fengadget+(Engadget)
Ahhh I see. I <3 my illegal inc2. Apple can suck it (no offense Apple lovers like my wife).
Interesting:
http://www.androidpolice.com/2011/12/19/this-is-why-your-verizon-galaxy-nexus-or-other-4g-lte-vzw-phone-is-losing-data-signal/
Foulkey; how is your Nexus in CT? I imagine you are like me and going from 3G-4G quite often. I set up the Rezound for my wife last night, but haven't gone anywhere with it to see if it has the same data issues. My Nexus arrives tomorrow.
http://www.androidpolice.com/2011/12/19/this-is-why-your-verizon-galaxy-nexus-or-other-4g-lte-vzw-phone-is-losing-data-signal/
Foulkey; how is your Nexus in CT? I imagine you are like me and going from 3G-4G quite often. I set up the Rezound for my wife last night, but haven't gone anywhere with it to see if it has the same data issues. My Nexus arrives tomorrow.
Had the phone since Friday and I've only switched from 4G to 3G when deep inside my office. Otherwise it's been rock solid 4G almost the entire time.
Middletown gets a very solid 4G signal and it's really, really fast.
Yeah; I've had it in Middletown, and Hartford, and New Haven. Once I get southeast of Glastonbury, though, it's over.
Luckily I spend more of my time Between North Haven and Middletown, so hopefully it won't be too much of an issue. We'll see how it holds up in Boston when we go to the inlaws for Xmas.
I have a Bionic and have been having connectivity issues. i rarely go to a 4G area, but might have gotten in trouble at Thanksgiving. When the update did not fix it, they had me turn off the 4G antenna. It's been better, but I still have a real problem with the headphone jack. I may ask for a new phone if it continues.
Hey all...
I felt compelled to chime in here. I got the Nexus on Saturday. I live in CT, and have used the phone in Orange, Milford, Stratford, and Fairfield (primarily in Orange where I live and Milford where I work). Quite honestly, my signal has been atrocious. I am coming from a Droid X, and the OG Droid before that.
My house is primarily made of brick, which I know can be an issue for wireless signals. In my house, I routinely get singal strengths of -120 dBm, which usually means I am disconnected or have maybe one bar. Both of my other phones had rock solid reception in my house. I am not sure if this is a 4g/3g switching issue or something, but my wifi signal is also horrible. Ten feet outside my house I lose wifi. I used to be able to go easily 50-60 feet and have at least two bars. Even inside the house, sitting within view of the router I am showing two bars.
Supposedly there is something in ICS that more accurately displays reception, and what used to show as 4 bars on Droid X may now be more accurately represented by 2 bars, or whatever. Some people suggest that Verizon was essentially making the signal look stronger than it actually was in the past.
When I get 4g (right now, in my office, my signal is at -102 dBm, which shows one bar of 4g. I ran speedtest and got about 10mb down and 6 mb up - not bad. I had much better results in Fairfield over the weekend, but the 4g signal comes and goes.
Droid forums are littered with similar complaints, and Verizon acknowledged this signal issue yesterday and said they are working on a software fix. I think I have til Jan 15 to return this thing. The device is awesome, and I would be tremendously disappointed to return it, but I may have to do so if this doesn't improve.
I'm curious to know other people's results (you guys probably know this, but you can check dBm in settings - about phone - status, the higher the dBm, the better, so -50 is better than -80). I haven't taken this thing into NYC yet, but I would expect 4g service to improve in that direction.
I felt compelled to chime in here. I got the Nexus on Saturday. I live in CT, and have used the phone in Orange, Milford, Stratford, and Fairfield (primarily in Orange where I live and Milford where I work). Quite honestly, my signal has been atrocious. I am coming from a Droid X, and the OG Droid before that.
My house is primarily made of brick, which I know can be an issue for wireless signals. In my house, I routinely get singal strengths of -120 dBm, which usually means I am disconnected or have maybe one bar. Both of my other phones had rock solid reception in my house. I am not sure if this is a 4g/3g switching issue or something, but my wifi signal is also horrible. Ten feet outside my house I lose wifi. I used to be able to go easily 50-60 feet and have at least two bars. Even inside the house, sitting within view of the router I am showing two bars.
Supposedly there is something in ICS that more accurately displays reception, and what used to show as 4 bars on Droid X may now be more accurately represented by 2 bars, or whatever. Some people suggest that Verizon was essentially making the signal look stronger than it actually was in the past.
When I get 4g (right now, in my office, my signal is at -102 dBm, which shows one bar of 4g. I ran speedtest and got about 10mb down and 6 mb up - not bad. I had much better results in Fairfield over the weekend, but the 4g signal comes and goes.
Droid forums are littered with similar complaints, and Verizon acknowledged this signal issue yesterday and said they are working on a software fix. I think I have til Jan 15 to return this thing. The device is awesome, and I would be tremendously disappointed to return it, but I may have to do so if this doesn't improve.
I'm curious to know other people's results (you guys probably know this, but you can check dBm in settings - about phone - status, the higher the dBm, the better, so -50 is better than -80). I haven't taken this thing into NYC yet, but I would expect 4g service to improve in that direction.
You shouldn't be screwing around with the Internet when you are at your inlaws silly. You should be visiting and whatnot. In the spirit of the season, I suggest you leave your phone in the car.
I will, after I see if these issues are sorted and what Verizon will do about them, if not.
looks like
WASHINGTON - Don't be surprised if you lose cell phone service. Verizon has been hit by a massive data outage, affecting smart-phone users across the country.
The company says 4G service has been out since late Tuesday night.
Many 3G users say they're experiencing problems as well.
The outages are affecting folks in D.C., New York, Florida and California, CNET reports.
No word yet on what caused the outage or when service will be restored.
WASHINGTON - Don't be surprised if you lose cell phone service. Verizon has been hit by a massive data outage, affecting smart-phone users across the country.
The company says 4G service has been out since late Tuesday night.
Many 3G users say they're experiencing problems as well.
The outages are affecting folks in D.C., New York, Florida and California, CNET reports.
No word yet on what caused the outage or when service will be restored.
My 3G on my soon-to-be-departed Bionic was actually better today on my ride in to work. No 4g, though. Wonder if it is an outage, or some kind of update?
I had issues this morning on the way to work getting anything other than 1x- once I got here at 8, switched to CDMA only (which worked) and maybe 90 min to an hour ago switched back to CDMA/LTE and have been on 4G since.
These sorts of events are becoming increasingly more common and annoying.
EDIT: dropped to 3G again around 2pm.
These sorts of events are becoming increasingly more common and annoying.
EDIT: dropped to 3G again around 2pm.
This Nexus is a sexy, sexy beast.
I don't like how every program I install puts a shortcut on the desktop. I'm sure there is a way around that. I already rooted it so I can restore my Titanium backup, which I'm syncing with Dropbox as we speak.
I don't like how every program I install puts a shortcut on the desktop. I'm sure there is a way around that. I already rooted it so I can restore my Titanium backup, which I'm syncing with Dropbox as we speak.
It's a setting in the Market:
Market -> Settings -> Uncheck box for auto-add widgets.
I have to say, loading music (22 GB worth) onto this using MTP is a near deal breaker. I'm half inclined to just move to the RAZR and get sexy ICS when it updates, luscious display be damned.
I moved all of my music and pictures over using Airdroid. Pretty easy and about as fast as doing it through USB.
How are you guys doing with battery life? The extended battery is definitely noticeably better than the standard.
AirDroid kinda sucks; I have all my music in one folder and I'd have to take it over piecemeal. No thanks. i'll keep looking for something better.
FOUND IT.
MyPhoneExplorer. You'll install on your phone and a client on your PC. Connect over Wifi, and it allows you to copy subfolders too. Gonna have this puppy cook overnight, and I should have all my music on my phone in the morning.
Sweet.
MyPhoneExplorer. You'll install on your phone and a client on your PC. Connect over Wifi, and it allows you to copy subfolders too. Gonna have this puppy cook overnight, and I should have all my music on my phone in the morning.
Sweet.
you're better off moving your 22 gig to Google Music, and letting it play streaming. If you are using the Google Music client to play on the Nexus, then you should just install it on your desktop and it will upload all your music to the cloud.
Didn't get the extended battery yet. How much bigger does it make the phone?
Next thing I'm doing this morning is removing that permanent Google Search widget. That thing sucks; taking up a whole row on every screen.
I got the Nexus Prime also and instead of the extended battery I bought the extra battery plus charger. This gives me more battery life in total than just the extended battery would provide. It's easy to keep the extra battery available in my car or office and if the first gets too low I can just switch them in a minute or so. So far no issues with 4G coverage north of Boston (Melrose/Danvers/Peabody/Salem etc.) except inside my big brick and metal health club.
Not that much bigger at all. It actually gives the phone a more solid feel imo, and I prefer it with the extended battery
You can disable the search bar, but for whatever reason you can't put anything where the bar was on the homescreen. It's wasted space and supposedly something that will be fixed in the next update. For now you can use Nova launcher which lets you customize the homescreen but still gives you a "pure" ICS experience.
I did this:
http://www.androidauthority.com/how-to-remove-google-search-bar-galaxy-nexus-homescreen-39217/comment-page-1/
Nice.
I should have rooted when I first got it, but I was too excited to play with it. Now I need to back everything up as a boot loader unlock/root will wipe everything.
Grand Theft Auto 3 on Android for $2.99. I'm not huge on games on the phone, but I LOVED this game back in the day. Only played for a few minutes, but appears to be very good.
Stuck in a permanent boot-loop.
Happened on Sunday and I did a factory reset. Happened again today so I'm going to take it to Verizon and swap it out. Glad I didn't root it yet.
Happened on Sunday and I did a factory reset. Happened again today so I'm going to take it to Verizon and swap it out. Glad I didn't root it yet.
Ouch.
I know people have been reporting signal issues with the Nexus; I've had no such issues. Doesn't drop data AT ALL like the Bionic did.
I know people have been reporting signal issues with the Nexus; I've had no such issues. Doesn't drop data AT ALL like the Bionic did.
Of course I got home after having it turned off all day and it worked fine. Woke up this morning and it was boot looping again.
Tonight I go to Verizon regardless of what state it's in at the time.
Edit: Glad I still have the Droid X to use today.
Tonight I go to Verizon regardless of what state it's in at the time.
Edit: Glad I still have the Droid X to use today.
No, I haven't even looked into rooting yet. Just happened randomly. Had it off for 4-5 hours yesterday then it worked when I booted it up at home.
I called tech support just so there would be a record of the issue on file since I'm certain it will work fine when I take it to Verizon.
Must have had a defective unit, because the new one that Verizon gave me works perfectly and gets a much stronger signal here at work. All's well.
Haw haw. They barely bothered to look at it. Just swapped it out like it was nothing.
ICS is pretty great. Miles ahead of Gingerbread imo. Just very slick and intuitive. I love it.