You know, I've been seeing similar reading out of my nexus.
Example, at locations where I'm a few feet away from DAS or panels, I used to see as low as -25dBm and always better than -51dBm on my Thunderbolt or Rezound.
Now on Nexus it looks like it doesn't display anything better than -75dBm which leads me to believe that a signal that equals -75dBm or is better than that, will always be displayed as -75dBm.
Now I'm testing that in LTE environments so can't speak of EvDO or 1x.
Can anyone else do some field testing?
I haave also seen the same. I have bever seen anything higher than -75 dBm. Yesterday i was in the best signal area i have been in ever since buying the phone and i was showing -75 dBm on both 3G and LTE. My downloads were wicked fast--2Mbps/2Mbps on 3G and 25Mbps/15Mps on LTE. My husbands Thunderbolt was reading anywhere from -61 dBm to -73 dBm (3G of course) but but the Nexus was getting faster download speeds again.
All this paying attention to signal level has enlightened me to a few things. First, my home area is NOT as good a signal area as I thought. They way some other phones represent bars is really misleading and generous. I'm annoyed that Verizon is going to change the signal reporting methods when the Nexus (ICS) is actually doing it right and the others are not. It doesn't appear that the nexus has as many steps between signal levels as some other phones. I spend a lot of time looking at this because i'm paranoid and it jist seems that ths phone's granularity between levels is not as fine as, for example the Thunderbolt, leading me to think the signal is actually worse.
As it stands, i had the Rezound for 5 weeks and i maintain that phone is the exception in terms of signal strength, pefformance, and integrity. It simply performs in my experience, better than the rest when if comes to getting reception in weak signal areas. The nexus does appear to have a harder time in weaker areas, but only when comparing to the Rezound. Compared to any other phone it just appears to be average.
I just dont think the phone has a "problem." I think it's performing as designed, it's just not as good a performer as some other phones. Especially in weak signal areas.
The nexus definitely has some hysteresis, be it either in just the reprting or in actual performance. The phone may sit in the same place and fluctuatkon by 10 to 15 dB. When in a good signal area, it's not really noticeable by the bars because it will just waiver between 3 and 4 bars. But in weak signal areas it can waiver between 0 and 2 bars. Perception wise, this is alrming to most people. Im not sure what is going on with that, if the fluctuations are real because if so then that would be something i might say is busted.
For those that have trouble keeping signal period, it really does sound like that is a complaint to be taken to the store for an exchange rather than to the internet for a bashing session. Im not saying the phone is without issue im just saying to some extent it may be by design.
