I have the same question. I hope someone with experience gives some advice. I am also having the same issues with reception with this phone. I have had the original droid (rooted it), the bionic and Nexus. Never had any issues with reception with these phones. I have gone through three S3's from Verizon hoping that I would get a good one. They are sending out number 4 today. If it is no better I am thinking about rooting it. But I would like to know if someone has a fixed the radio/connection issues after they rooted the S3.

I am now using my old Nexus until I can figure out the S3. It is a beautiful phone and works great in a 4G area. So I am not ready to give up on it yet.

Sorry if this has been asked before. But any guidance would be great.

 

I too have spotty reception issues and weak 4G on my s3.The only reason I stuck with it was because I seen the leaked radios made a big improvement and we're going to be an OTA soon. Every previous android phone I've had (4) were Motorola's. They all got better reception both cellular and data.... I drop data and calls with the S3 when I wouldn't with the Razr, X2,,X,or og droid... I just live with it until the radios become an OTA update.

 

I hope they do come out with a OTA update because when having my brothers iPhone next to my S3 he will sometimes have full bars and I will only have 3 bars.

 

Try not to pay too much attention to the amount of bars that you have. Different phones have different ways of interpreting & presenting that info.

Instead look at the dBm value.

1. System settings
2. About device
3. Status

1. -70 to -80 Great
2. -80 to -90 Good
3. -90 to -100 So-So
4. > -100 Not so good.

The higher that asu the better

 

Also confirm that your data is set to automatic rather than Home only. I had the Nexus for a week and returned it because of bad signal. My SG3 has been amazing and I am definitely in a fringe area.

Sent from my SCH-I535 using Tapatalk

 

Where is this data setting for VZW?

 

The phone's signal is garbage - as of most of Samsung's phones are.

I've heard from somewhere a radio update is coming, but I doubt it's going to be a miracle. There hasn't been any miracle update for any of their other phones...

 

4G works fine for me, but the power draw seems too high with weak 3G reception areas. I think this may be why some folks have poor battery life, since may use data in areas wit hweak reception.

 

I'm pretty sure signal goes off of where you at as well....my signal is on par with any other phone i've had

 

If you compare this with a Razr MAXX side by side, the MAXX will be able to do data/voice fine while the S3 has constant drops and loses signal.

Even side-by-side with my old Droid X, the S3 is worst I too hope Samsung can fix this with an OTA somehow... the phone is perfect in every other way.

 

Although this phone does alot of things well, the reception is garbage...it don't hold a candle to my droid x....this will probably be my last samsung device.

 

Had the phone over 2 months now and no improvement.. And no Ota until yesterday and it locks down the bootloader and supposed to do nothing for the reception...