IPhone grip of death.

[TheJock]

I am sure you are all aware of the recent Iphone problems (typed with a rye smile). I experience a similar thing with the hero on orange.

My home seems to have a really weak signal normally 1 or 2 bars and i can only get gprs here at best of times, when at home if i am texting one handed holding the phone at the bottom as you do i will totally loose the signal until i hold the phone differently then i carry on with text message.

This to me is not a big problem and the phone seems to retain the signal at 2 bars when left sitting idle.

I just wonder if anyone else has noticed the similar grip of death?

 

[vard]

I've had a few slight issues of this manner with my orange hero. Sometimes it flat out won't make a call also, even though it's full signal. I have to turn it off and on again which is very annoying when - as part of my job - I need to be reachable on my phone at the drop of a hat.

 

[Slug]

All handsets with an internal antenna suffer similar issues. Depending on whereabouts the antenna is situated in the chassis it will be more or less obvious in normal use. Maybe we should lobby for a return of the external stub antenna?

 

[TheJock]

i would be in favour of the old school pull up antenna from the good old Motorola days

 

[Xyro]

There are two things that might help.

1) (Only helpful if you use custom firmware) You can update your radio and it may improve signal.

2) If you dial *#*#4636#*#* and click on Phone Information, then alter the dropdown box that says 'WCDMA prefered' to 'GSM only' (2G only) or 'GSM Auto (PRL)' (full 3G/HSDPA speeds) . This is a trick that originated as a way to improve battery life (with GSM only giving the biggest improvement), but I also found it gave me a boost in signal. It might not get the same result in every situation, but it's worth a try.

 

[TheBrit]

There are two things that might help.

1) (Only helpful if you use custom firmware) You can update your radio and it may improve signal.

2) If you dial *#*#4636#*#* and click on Phone Information, then alter the dropdown box that says 'WCDMA prefered' to 'GSM only' (2G only) or 'GSM Auto (PRL)' (full 3G/HSDPA speeds) . This is a trick that originated as a way to improve battery life (with GSM only giving the biggest improvement), but I also found it gave me a boost in signal. It might not get the same result in every situation, but it's worth a try.

If you set to GSM only then your mobile internet speeds will be painfully slow.

 

[Xyro]

Yeah, I probably should've made my self clearer on that; 'GSM Only' wont allow you to use 3G (but supposedly it uses the least power of the three options). But both versions of GSM give me better reception than using WCDMA prefered

 

[TheJock]

I hardly get 3g and in a city, orange's cover is pretty poor most areas here, i have tried the 2g only option through the settings (that codes xyro was an interesting read) and it makes little to no difference on signal it might however increase my battery which would be welcomed.

I was doing some testing last night and griping my phone in the usual way definitely has a significant effect on the signal, dropping it most times and losing signal completely. Lets get the pull up aerials back in fashion for the meantime i will grip it with 2 fingers only when making calls.