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archer75

macrumors 68040
Jan 26, 2005
3,116
1,747
Oregon
Congratulations. I'm obviously speaking about people who don't have your good fortune.

Except your post made it sound like everyone was affected. You said: "For people with larger living spaces (or spaces with more obstructions), they will have to either:"
Which implies everyone. Better to say "For some people"
 
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archer75

macrumors 68040
Jan 26, 2005
3,116
1,747
Oregon
I'm more impressed they were able to get 90+ XSMax phones at launch. Is this law firm doing work for Apple or something?

I'm currently at my office. I checked to see if AT&T has sent out any sneaky update to their firmware...still AT&T 33.2. However I do notice that it's connected to "AT&T Wi-Fi" even though I have 4 bars. That's concerning. Or it could mean nothing and that it will only use Wi-Fi if absolutely necessary.

That’s normal. If you have good WiFi it will switch to that for calls. Doesn’t matter how many bars you have. It does this if you have WiFi calling turned on and it’s generally preferable as call quality is much better.
 

The Oak

macrumors 6502
Nov 12, 2013
378
256
Have a Verizon based XS ... I did set it up as a new phone (versus restore from backup).

First day I noticed some signal issues with my XS versus my iPhone 7. I did find that disappointing.

I have done some speed tests with my iPhone 7 and XS standing in the same spot. Generally the XS gets 30% to 300% faster than my iPhone 7 ... in my area.

Every once in a while, say 1 in 10, the iPhone 7 does test faster (10% range) than the XS. I will add though that the iPhone 7 is on the Beyond (not throttled until you get up in data usage) plan were the XS is just on the Go (always potentially throttled); hence, the XS could have been throttled by Verizon at that time due to the lower plan???

I have had phone number port issues with Verizon. In an attempt to resolve that issue I have on the XS:

1. Reset Network Settings.
2. Soft rebooted phone (a volume button and power button at the same time).
3. Hard rebooted phone (quick up volume, followed by quick down volume, followed by holding power button until Apple logo).
4. Phone On - Removed SIM, Soft reboot, Phone Off, Inserted SIM, Phone On.

I have done each of those multiple times as a result of my number port issue.

I will say, areas where I had poor signal performance, seem to work as expected now. I am not sure if it was just the phone was new and figuring things out, or if it was one of the 1 - 4 items above.

I read a lot of folks doing a reset network or they soft reboot the phone. Don't hear much of the hard reboot or remove the SIM. Maybe one of those may help folks?
 
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blwade

macrumors 6502a
Sep 16, 2014
537
239
my rsrq0 is showing -25 and right now I'm at work where I seem to go back and forth between 1-2 bars.

Edit: iPhone XS Max, restored from iCloud backup (previous phone was iPhone 7+) on Verizon Wireless.

edit 2: I'm also NOT having problems with Wifi - I bought Netgear Orbi and only have 1 SSID and my phone doesn't seem to be jumping between bands - every speed test I've done is maxed out at my ~200 Mb/s down.
 

Frankfurt

macrumors 6502a
Dec 4, 2016
740
889
USA
IMO, -44dbm or lower. Make sure Wi-Fi is off. Dial *3001#12345#* A Main Menu will appear. Select LTE. Select Serving Cell Meas. The number after rsrq0 is your true signal strength. Anything above -45dbm is sub par IMO. :apple:


My XS shows rsrq0 at -20. This in an area with rather weak signal strength.
 

639051

Cancelled
Nov 8, 2011
967
1,267
My max arrives tomorrow and my house is firmly in bad signal territory (8+ Verizon model maxes around 3-4Mbps at best during speed tests). It will be interesting to see the results. I am sadly already disappointed in this nonsense for a $1300 phone.

If I experience these issues I'll just return it to the store and stick with my 8+
 

PBz

macrumors 68030
Nov 3, 2005
2,616
1,577
SoCal
IMO, -44dbm or lower. Make sure Wi-Fi is off. Dial *3001#12345#* A Main Menu will appear. Select LTE. Select Serving Cell Meas. The number after rsrq0 is your true signal strength. Anything above -45dbm is sub par IMO. :apple:
-50 on an iPhone 8+ for comparison. I’m at office with really weak signal. Always bad here.
 

639051

Cancelled
Nov 8, 2011
967
1,267
wifi calling...

you've clearly already made up your mind to return the phone. good luck.

Man either you're super dense or you're just being intentionally irritating.

WiFi doesn't exist everywhere nor does perfect cellular reception. If this new device has issue receiving cellular signals, why in the world would I want to keep it over my 8+ which works well?

The argument is so dumb I have no clue why I am even replying to this.
 

Sugadaddy

macrumors 6502
Aug 28, 2010
257
169
wifi calling...

you've clearly already made up your mind to return the phone. good luck.


WiFi range is also weak... ;)

J/K, I use WiFi calling at home too. The thing is, if it performs badly on LTE at your house, then you know it'll be bad when you're in low reception areas away from WiFi.

It's 2018, not 1998. Phones having decent reception should be a given. They can develop something like Face ID, but can't make an antenna that works properly? Makes no sense.
 

madKIR

macrumors 6502a
Feb 2, 2010
849
801
NYC
WiFi range is also weak... ;)

J/K, I use WiFi calling at home too. The thing is, if it performs badly on LTE at your house, then you know it'll be bad when you're in low reception areas away from WiFi.

It's 2018, not 1998. Phones having decent reception should be a given. They can develop something like Face ID, but can't make an antenna that works properly? Makes no sense.
It does make perfect sense in the Apple world LOL They have been able to get away with even worse things!
 

Alto_ran

macrumors newbie
Sep 24, 2018
9
14
So I haven’t had any major issues with the reception of my xs.. if anything it is faster and picks up signal in more Places.
However... I did notice that where i get 60+ Mbps on my computer, I was consistently only getting 20 on my iPhone X’s after reading this thread I tried it on my x running iOS 12 and noticed the same thing. So I did what this thread suggested and turned off the 2.4 ghz network and forced it to being 5 only and I’m back to getting 60 + on the xs. I personally think most of these issues are software and firmware related.

That is part of the problem, but it is not the full story. I have tested on multiple 5GHz networks with the 2.4GHz networks “forgotten” and cellular data disabled. The iPhone 7 and 8 I tested against easily beat my iPhone XS in fringe 5GHz WiFi signal conditions. Where the XS struggled to hold a connection at all the 7 and 8 would happily purr away at 10Mbps+.

The downgrade in WiFi reception doesn’t affect me personally in the locations I commonly use the phone, so it’s only mildly annoying simply because I know it’s worse after purposely testing it.

More concerning to me is the worse fringe cellular connectivity as I have to deal with that at my office. Fortunately it will still hold a connection there to some extent (although it does randomly drop to Edge and requires toggling airplane mode to get back to LTE, sigh), but it’s still disappointing overall and a downgrade from my old 7. I’d certainly prefer to have a phone with better RF performance, but after testing a Qualcomm X I don’t believe that this is a new issue. The X seems to have had worse fringe cellular reception than the 8 as well, and I don’t think anything has really changed with the XS. If anything my XS had better reception than the X I tested against. Add to the fact that the XS is significantly faster when you have a good signal, and I think the XS is a good choice over the X as long as there isn’t a significant difference in WiFi performance (which I have not tested on the X).

Now, the XS Max may be a totally different story. I haven’t tested a Max.
 

madKIR

macrumors 6502a
Feb 2, 2010
849
801
NYC
That is part of the problem, but it is not the full story. I have tested on multiple 5GHz networks with the 2.4GHz networks “forgotten” and cellular data disabled. The iPhone 7 and 8 I tested against easily beat my iPhone XS in fringe 5GHz WiFi signal conditions. Where the XS struggled to hold a connection at all the 7 and 8 would happily purr away at 10Mbps+.

The downgrade in WiFi reception doesn’t affect me personally in the locations I commonly use the phone, so it’s only mildly annoying simply because I know it’s worse after purposely testing it.

More concerning to me is the worse fringe cellular connectivity as I have to deal with that at my office. Fortunately it will still hold a connection there to some extent (although it does randomly drop to Edge and requires toggling airplane mode to get back to LTE, sigh), but it’s still disappointing overall and a downgrade from my old 7. I’d certainly prefer to have a phone with better RF performance, but after testing a Qualcomm X I don’t believe that this is a new issue. The X seems to have had worse fringe cellular reception than the 8 as well, and I don’t think anything has really changed with the XS. If anything my XS had better reception than the X I tested against. Add to the fact that the XS is significantly faster when you have a good signal, and I think the XS is a good choice over the X as long as there isn’t a significant difference in WiFi performance (which I have not tested on the X).

Now, the XS Max may be a totally different story. I haven’t tested a Max.
That's very interesting. Last year I tested the X with both Intel and Qualcomm. The Qualcomm version was a totally different and much much better device in terms of reception/signal. I was under the impression that the new XS performs just like the Intel X. If you say it's even better than the Qualcomm X, then there's hope.
 
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