How's your indoor cell reception?

I would think that a more relevant question would be, "How is the Atrix's reception compared to other AT&T phones in the same areas for you?" All of the phone's I have on AT&T pretty much live on full bars, or full bars minus (1), save for the Inspire, pretty much all over my frequented areas, even inside of elevators...except for my new job site.

Its actually the first time I've noticed that my signal is less than "half bars" with any of my AT&T phones, and I constantly monitor signal wherever I go (for both AT&T and T-Mo). Three of my co-workers, and myself, have Inspires, and they all are consistently exhibiting poor reception inside our building, and are also maintaining 1-3 bars, and 15-20dBm "less" signal than our other phones (something I've noticed with multiple HTC phones, on other networks as well, even when inside the respective stores). One of the co-worker's Atrix will be arriving this weekend so I can confirm if it is faring any better.

However if you are only able to manage 3 bars (probably in the -80dBm to -90dBm range) while "outside" your building, you'll most likely have trouble inside. Best bet is to try to test "your area" with another AT&T phone, to see how it performs. You also may have trouble with building penetration if "your area" is using AT&T's 1900 band, vs. the 850, which is less prone to interference.

If the iP3G is getting "full bars" where the Atrix is "not", in the same spots, then yeah, its probably the phone. FWIW, my AT&T branded Motorola Q consistently held full bars were my co-workers' iphones did not.

However "bars" levels are relative, as number of bars are based on different dBm levels for a given manufacturer. But again FWIW, my T-Mo Defy works on AT&T's 3G band (850 supposedly), and gets more bars and better dBm than the Inspire (at least its an Android-to-Android dBm comparison) and the iP3G. I'd take a guess and say that the Defy's readings should mimic the Atrix's (Atrix's little brother?), and if they are low, then the "phone" is probably the issue.

Edit: My co-worker is using this "powered" signal booster cradle inside the office (every carrier gets little-no reception save T-Mo) and it takes his Inspire from 1 bar of "Edge" to 3-4 bars of "H+":

http://www.amazon.com/Wilson-Electronics-815226-Booster-Antenna/dp/B003FGWGPS/ref=pd_cp_cps_1



There is a $28 version on amzon however I can not tell if its the "powered" version.

My Atrix shows one bar less than my Inspire did, but oddly enough, I get better wireless speeds with fewer bars on the Atrix. It definitely has something to do with how the manufacturer handles their measurements. Apple strait up admitted that the way they were doing their measurments on the 3G and 3GS was improperly reporting a better reception than it was actually getting.

I too have had it with the Atrix.
I just returned the third one to AT&T for a full refund.

My Motorola Z9, V3xx, and 3V all get steady 5 bars of reception, no matter how I hold them.
The Atrix usually gets only two, and sometimes 3, but it would frequently drop off the network all together.
I saw the red circle with the slash through it, 54 times between 3:30pm, and 10:30pm. Yeah I counted them.

The first phone was thought to be a lemon...the second was a fluke,...but the third was conclusive proof AT&T, Motorola, or Android has a real engineering problem with this phone.
(I had the SAME situation with a Samsung Captivate last year, that's why I say maybe Android.)

No one seems able, or willing, to solve the reception issue.

In the store we placed 4 Atrix's side by side on the counter, and all were getting 2 bars.

While we were talking, at least 2 of the phones went completely off the network.
The AT&T sales associates were dumbfounded as to the poor reception issue, and said that no one had complained before. (Yeah, right, I thought.)

Yet here it was, right in front of all of them.
Hard to argue your point of this phone NOT having the problem, when ALL of them were doing the same thing.

I live in northeastern Illinois about midway between Milwaukee and Chicago, and according to AT&T this area is saturated with towers and signal, so anything less than 4 bars, let alone dropping off the network, just shouldn't happen.

For comparison, my Z9 has NEVER dropped a call here, and the least I've ever seen is 4 bars.

So which phone is smarter?
The one that actually works well as a phone, or the one that does computer things, but makes for a poor excuse when it comes to making calls?

I need a phone I can rely on, especially in an emergency, and the Atrix needs work before I would bet my life, and property, on it.

On average I get 3 bars. No droped call or anything.

Not that good compared to my Nokia E71, but good enough, I can still hear calls perfectly and the other person can usually hear me clearly as well

My indoor reception depends on where I'm indoors at. In Cleveland, the majority of the AT&T towers are located near or on freeways. At work, I'm one block from the intersection of two interstates, so I get great reception. At home, I'm about a mile north of the interstates, but more importantly, my apartment faces north - so I have the bulk of the building between me and the signals from the tower. Result: not real good reception, however I have a home wifi network, so if I'm doing anything on the internet, the poor signal isn't an issue, as all of my phones have wifi enabled and are using that for the data transfers.

No biggie really, if I do get a call at home, I just walk out into the living room and the reception improves, and like I said, it has no impact on my web surfing or data downloads.

-Mike