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3GS Signal reception not as good as iPhone 3G?

Pagemakers

Pagemakers

macrumors 68030
Original poster
Mar 28, 2008
2,935
1,214
Manchester UK
The signal strength on my 3GS does not seems to be as good as my 3G phone.

Same with my mates too.

The old 3G seems to be on 3G far more then the 3GS
 
My missus has as a 3GS and I have a 3G, and the 3GS seems to have poorer reception.

We are going to try in some different areas to see if its consistently poorer, or if its just at home.
 
Pagemakers said:
The signal strength on my 3GS does not seems to be as good as my 3G phone.

Same with my mates too.

The old 3G seems to be on 3G far for then the 3GS
Click to expand...

It's definitely true, the 3GS gets far worse signal than the 3G. My wife has the 3G and gets almost full signal of 3G service in our house. Mine bounces from 1 -2 bars to no bars to Edge to no signal. It's a huge pain in the @$$. I'm waiting for AT&T to get another shipment and they're going to replace it. Hopefully I just got a "bum" phone. Mine also has that warm, yellow-colored screen.
 
I have also switched from 3G to 3GS and I also have found the signal strength in the UK to be weaker in some areas which previously I had no problem with. It is rather annoying !
 
Same here, I've notice just at work were I would have all my bars on 3G, now it's as if it a dead zone. I'll be on E all days sometimes.
 
It is possible that the radio in the 3GS is not as sensitive as the previous one. Apple, however, is pretty savvy about this kind of thing so that would be somewhat hard to believe unless there was a major payoff in improved battery life, etc.

Also, there are variations in ALL radios, regardless of manufacturer. Line up 10 Palm Pre phones and you will probably see one (or more) of them get worse reception than the others.
 
The original 3G did have a reception problem that was sorted by a software update.

Let's hope the 3GS gets one soon!
 
By the fact that I can make calls on my 3g iPhone at home and my 3gs gets no signal.

I have 2 3g's and 2 3gs's in the house and they exhibit the same symptoms.

Secondly where my 3g can zip along at 3g speeds the 3gs is on edge or GPRS and is plodding along much of the time. Regardless of where I am.
 
Pagemakers said:
By the fact that I can make calls on my 3g iPhone at home and my 3gs gets no signal.

I have 2 3g's and 2 3gs's in the house and they exhibit the same symptoms.

Secondly where my 3g can zip along at 3g speeds the 3gs is on edge or GPRS and is plodding along much of the time. Regardless of where I am.
Click to expand...

Ouch! Not getting signal at home would make the 3gs go RIGHT back.
 
I'm also seeing very poor reception on my 3GS compared to my old 3G. I get 5 bars of 3g at work on my 3g and 1 or 2 on the 3gs.
 
Mine can vary from all bars down to barely one or no signal! A reboot usually sorts the problem out - which makes me think it's a software issue.

If it is a software problem, no doubt, in time, Apple will hopefully update OS 3.0.
 
cmaier said:
The 3GS (or at least OS 3) seems to simply more accurately reflect the actual signal strength.
Click to expand...

Bars in general mean nothing but if someone had service in their house with the 3G and no service at all with the 3GS I would say there is something wrong.
 
my 3gs reception is horrible. I can hold my phone next to my wife's 2g and she has 3 bars on edge and I have no bars on 3g or edge. Plus my signal will go from 5 to 1 bar without moving and the call quality is horrible. I was not expecting great call quality coming from a 2g model, but I was also not expecting worse quality than my 2g. Its really pissing me off. I don't want to exchange and get a phone with different problems. I have an appointment friday so I will see how it goes. I went to att today and replaced the sim. It seems slightly better, but still unacceptable.
 
cmaier said:
The 3GS (or at least OS 3) seems to simply more accurately reflect the actual signal strength.
Click to expand...

If that were the case, everyone with a 3gs would be complaining that their number of bars have decreased.

Regardless, the field service screen shows a difference of 10dB between my 3g and 3gs.
 
John T said:
Mine can vary from all bars down to barely one or no signal! A reboot usually sorts the problem out - which makes me think it's a software issue.

If it is a software problem, no doubt, in time, Apple will hopefully update OS 3.0.
Click to expand...
For what it's worth, the 3.1 beta doesn't seem to fix the issue.
 
I have poor reception in my home but with my 3g I could make and receive calls and send and receives texts just about.

My 3gs just sits there with no service or barely a service. Not even the odd text message arrives.

It's very lonely!
 
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