Lost sales over signal bars ......

[dan409]

So I have shown my phone off to many colleagues and most are blown away by the speed, screen, etc, etc you know the drill......lol

After awhile of jaws dropped they notice the signal bars and compare to there signal... OOOOPS...... it has been a huge turn off. Go ahead and try to explain away its not an accurate indicator and go into dbm readings when most folks don't even know what android is... lol

Man if I were in marketing for this cell, I would be pushin hard for a OTA to get this fixed..

One friend of mine with a $20 dollar track phone had 5 bars to my 1 or 2.. Down right embarrassing.

Come on HTC get your act together on this as this is one of the first things non techies are gonna be looking at..... sheesh

 

[paimon.soror]

There was a thread a while back that stated an htc rep said when the phone isn't in use, it switches to a power save mode hence why you see minimal bars. However appearantly when you start using the phone to make a call the bars shoot back up.

I can't confirm the truth in this, but it might be something worth researching

 

[phobic]

Did the $20 track phone have 5 bars of 3G? Im gonna guess nope.

At any rate the signal quality compared to my Droid, which I still have, is noticeable to me. Ive been thinking of going back to it but I really do like the incredible a lot. Sigh...

 

[sean76]

Dan, your going to get Flammed by people real soon saying it has nothing to do with the performance of the phone, and there signal is great and call quality is fantastic, and that there incredible makes them waffles in the morning... I agree though, a flaw indeed! However it can most likely be fixed wit an update which we should see by early to mid summer...Hopefully!!!

 

[dan409]

There was a thread a while back that stated an htc rep said when the phone isn't in use, it switches to a power save mode hence why you see minimal bars. However appearantly when you start using the phone to make a call the bars shoot back up.

I can't confirm the truth in this, but it might be something worth researching

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This is not an issue at all for me as my dbm reading have been great no matter where I have traveled. I understand that the signal bars have really no true vaule for measuring actual signal quality.


I was just trying to make a point that for those who are not very cell phone savvy, this could be a major turn off....

 

[Mitch R.]

He has a good point here. I understand that the bars don't accurately reflect signal strength as do most of the posters in this thread. But those seeing this phone for the first time, even after this is explained to them will think differently and have reservations about the device.

 

[brian0488]

"Bars" are not a unit of measurement and are not standard across phones.

I too was upset over low bars, until I was holding my inc and my friend's BlackBerry. He had 5 bars I had 1. I went into the settings of both phones and we both had -89dbm as our signal strength.

I also noticed that I constantly have 1 bar until I get a call or start using data. Then it jumps to 4 bars.

 

[rushmore]

In people's defense that do post about bars, why did VZW marketing not catch this in tests, since it IS a factor and sets wrong impressions about Inc?

VZW need to send a fix out ASAP to point facts out and correlate bars more correctly with dBm levels.

BTW, I notice the signal sometimes seems to "rest" when not in use and then goes up when using data. There may be something to this power saving angle.

 

[jayno20]

There was a thread a while back that stated an htc rep said when the phone isn't in use, it switches to a power save mode hence why you see minimal bars. However appearantly when you start using the phone to make a call the bars shoot back up.

I can't confirm the truth in this, but it might be something worth researching

I have tested this a few times in a few different places and EVERY time I place a call the bars go up 1 to 2 bars as soon as the call connects. It really does seem its a power saving feature. Doesn't really bother me because I get the same call quality that I did from my LG Dare.

 

[heyeaglefn]

Boo Hoo, if you need to impress your coworkers or friends by how many bars your phone gets then go get a Satellite phone.

 

[Outatime]

Seriously, screw the bars. DL Speed Test and show them that.

 

[tranceFusion]

Am I the only one that thinks the bars are accurate?

 

[dan409]

Boo Hoo, if you need to impress your coworkers or friends by how many bars your phone gets then go get a Satellite phone.

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You have missed the point of this thread. Just saying that I believe the vast majority of folks thinking of purchasing this phone will be turned off when they compare signal strength to there own device. Every previous phone I have owned has had between 4 or 5 bars of signal strength in my home. The vast majority of folks that I know are not going to take the time to research that it is really not a problem at all with reception, just a problem with bars not being an accurate indicator of true reception.

It took me alot of research to figure it was not a problem with this phone. You get this phone after much anticipation and after awhile you see the 1 bar of signal strength when all of the previous phones (even cheapish ones) had either 4 or 5 bars. Huge disappointment.

Just thinking that HTC and VZW could save themselves a ton of money and headaches by getting this resolved ASAP.

This forum is proof enough that a ton of folks still believe no matter what they have read in here that their phone still has lousy reception and are thinking about a return. Yeah, we know better that isn't the case, but I assume the vast majority just figure that the phone has bad reception and are thinking about returning it, or not purchasing it at all.

 

[bryn987]

I agree. I can't see how showing 1-2 bars less then it is saves battery. Everyone looks at bars when they are about to use a phone.

Much better ways to save battery imo

 

[jakeh0]

you can make phone calls on this thing?

 

[bjanow]

Show them this article. On your phone. Oh yeah, pinch to zoom.

Cellphones Now Used More for Data Than for Calls - NYTimes.com

 

[bjanow]

you can make phone calls on this thing?

Dang, learn something every day.

 

[Haelous]

There was a thread a while back that stated an htc rep said when the phone isn't in use, it switches to a power save mode hence why you see minimal bars. However appearantly when you start using the phone to make a call the bars shoot back up.

I can't confirm the truth in this, but it might be something worth researching

This was defeated in the same thread. The phone switches from 3G to 1X when making a call, and the signal bars reflect 1X signal at that time.

As usual, representatives feeding customers bull.

That doesn't mean that sleep mode doesn't exist. The way I understood it, is that the 3G logo works like this: Not present - No 3G Signal, Gray - Sleeping, White - In use.

 

[lmbgm]

I ran into this problem too. I had a friend with a LG dare and was trying to compare db values, but I didnt know how to pull up that info on a dare

 

[jwm2]

Am I the only one that thinks the bars are accurate?

Yes you are. I've got a droid eris running android 1.5 and i had a rooted eris rooted running 2.1. As soon as i rooted my eris the bar display dropped 1 bar, even though the db rating was exactly the same. That in itself is proof the bars don't represent the true signal quality.

 

[sean76]

The point is, how did this make it past testing? whether its a flaw or not, there is no way this should have made it past testing...just like there should be no issues with call quality. This is Verizon, the supposed to be Superman of the cell phone industry. They lay there hat on the fact that these issue don't exist within there network, well they just arrived. And if it is in fact an HTC flaw, they better fix it ASAP. Cause u dont get too many chances to make the splash they did with all the hype about there devices.

 

[jwm2]

Its not a htc problem and its not a verizon problem. Its with android os 2.1, its a google problem. Why are people here so thick headed about this kind of thing? Its just a signal bar, get over it people. Move on.

 

[Haelous]

Its not a htc problem and its not a verizon problem. Its with android os 2.1, its a google problem. Why are people here so thick headed about this kind of thing? Its just a signal bar, get over it people. Move on.

Then why do Droids with 2.1 display more bars with the same dbm?

 

[tluv00]

It's not just a "signal bar" issue. I had a Droid and in my office I got about -75 to -81 dbm and with the Inc it's -90 to -101 dbm. It also fluctuates from 3g to 1g and it's not a power saving thing because it happens while I am using data services and sometimes lose the connection.

 

[colnago]

It's not just a "signal bar" issue. I had a Droid and in my office I got about -75 to -81 dbm and with the Inc it's -90 to -101 dbm. It also fluctuates from 3g to 1g and it's not a power saving thing because it happens while I am using data services and sometimes lose the connection.

Its just a "signal bar issue", for those in clean signal areas, or areas with less interference. Its more of a problem for those suffering from QoS issues (echo, lost audio, dropped connections, increased battery drain, etc). I can see it being a problem for me, esp. if the Inc. has consistently worse "real world performance" than the Droid, since I had to make an antenna mod for it, due to dropped conn., etc., in my area.