Database Users

[Q] Why does the signal antenna on the GS4 suck this bad?

I came over to the GS4 from a Motorola Photon 4G and the cellular signal antenna on the GS4 is nowhere even close to being as good as the Photon's. I am roaming almost all of the time at my house now where before with my Motorola I never had an issue. Is this a known problem with Samsung phones?? Is there anything that can be done about it?

Guess it all depends on perspective. I came from an Evo 3d, the S4 is hands down leaps and bounds better in reception than my 3d.
So from my perspective I have no gripes on the s4's reception.
Sent from my SPH-L720 using xda app-developers app

No issues here either. I came from the GS3 though. Maybe NV is in full effect in your area?
Sent from my SPH-L720 using xda app-developers app

This phone has the best antennas on the market actually. Test the dbm levels not your signal bars. Signal bars show voice not data. Most likely your poor reception is the network not the phone although it could be a bad device but I doubt it. You could be getting a NV upgrade in your area which would be good. Update your prl and profile. Check out s4gru.com for network vision and lte info.
Brought to you by Sprint and the letters GS and the number 4

Same network, Sprint, that I was on a few weeks ago with the Photon. Nothing has changed but the device. Its clearly nowhere near as good as the Photon as far as signal reception goes. I love it though. Just wish the antenna was as good.

jbb2388 said:
Same network, Sprint, that I was on a few weeks ago with the Photon. Nothing has changed but the device. Its clearly nowhere near as good as the Photon as far as signal reception goes. I love it though. Just wish the antenna was as good.
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Where do you live and do you know if Network Vision had been started in your area. If not it could very well have just started in the "few weeks" you claim you swapped from your other phone. In my area specifically Network Vision upgrades began literally overnight and signals dropped to zero for several days. Even more weeks after the upgrades began signal comes and goes as they turn towers on and off testing them.
Sent from my SPH-L720 using xda app-developers app

jbb2388 said:
Same network, Sprint, that I was on a few weeks ago with the Photon. Nothing has changed but the device. Its clearly nowhere near as good as the Photon as far as signal reception goes. I love it though. Just wish the antenna was as good.
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Same here, not even close to the Photon. In fact, sometimes I get the "no connection retry" messages on the s4 at work and home in Omaha and the only time I got that on the Photon was in Backbone State Park, IA! love the phone though!

It will be hard to beat a Motorola phone for signal strength. I had a Photon as well and it always had signal in places other phones didn't. However, with the S3 and S4 I have not had any issues with dropped calls or bad signal. It has been about average.

The Photon is known to get really good cellular reception. That was the case for me, although wifi on that phone is terrible. In my experience, my GS4 gets better voice, data, and wifi reception than any other phone I've had on Sprint. I guess YMMV.
Sent from my SPH-L720 using xda premium

I had the Photon as well until I upgraded to the S4. I haven't really noticed a difference, other than the S4>MoPho.

My wife and I both switched to the S4 from Photon 4Gs and we have both noticed how much better the RF reception was on the old Photons. The S4 is a great phone but it drops into roaming in areas that were never an issue for us before. I've heard a pot of anecdotal evidence, though, that Moto always makes strong RF phones.
Sent from my SPH-L720 using Tapatalk 4 Beta

Its the radio in these samsung phone u are right Motorola,iPhone have Better
radios
Sent from my SPH-L720 using xda premium

smoke423 said:
Its the radio in these samsung phone u are right Motorola,iPhone have Better
radios
Sent from my SPH-L720 using xda premium
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Don't know about iPhones... My mom and bro both have the i5 and last week when we went to California (LA specifically) for a family trip, I had LTE in areas they didn't and every time they had LTE so did I. Same goes for areas of NYC, they will not have LTE in areas I do. And yes, all of us have Sprint.

My cellular signal is much better than the HTC One I traded for the S4, but my wifi signal is terrible. With my One, I was able to connect to both my 5GHz and 2.4GHz channels upstairs (although 5 had bad signal strength due to range), and 2.4GHz was pretty great.
On the S4, my 5GHz connection is about the same, but it barely registers the 2.4GHz at all. What's up with that?

I also came from the Photon to the G S4, it has huge difference in reception. I knew I would loose some signal when I decided never to buy another Moto again but this hurts! I can sit in my house in Lincoln NE and I'm lucky if I can keep a signal long enough for the phone to ring the other line. Most of the time I get the Sprint Error code.

Go back to the photon. Problem solved.
Sent from my SCH-I545 using Tapatalk

Bad antenna? Horrible signal and Wi-Fi

Am I the only one that has bad signal with this phone? My Wi-Fi cuts out and I barely get signal in places where I got 4 bars on my iPhone. Is there a fix to this?

Euforeik said:
Am I the only one that has bad signal with this phone? My Wi-Fi cuts out and I barely get signal in places where I got 4 bars on my iPhone. Is there a fix to this?
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Having the same issue with my note 3. Seems to have gotten slightly better the past few days, but still poor compared to my note 2. Thinking about taking it back to Verizon this week. Anyone know how the return/exchange process works? If I exchange it and still have problems then what are my options? Or if I return it do I get my upgrade back? Can I then repurchase it and have another 14 days to test and potentially return it?

This is my only complaint about my phone. No problems on WiFi, but 4G reception is inconsistent and I often find the phone switching to 3G in places my Note 2 wouldn't. In that situation, I can use Tellinfo to force LTE only and I often have reception. The only problem with this is in places where 3G would actually be appropriate, I obviously then have no service.
This leads me to conclude (and hope) that it's a software/modem firmware issue rather than a hardware issue--the device is switching to 3G when staying on LTE would be appropriate. As such, we might hope for a fix.
bladerealm124 said:
Having the same issue with my note 3. Seems to have gotten slightly better the past few days, but still poor compared to my note 2. Thinking about taking it back to Verizon this week. Anyone know how the return/exchange process works? If I exchange it and still have problems then what are my options? Or if I return it do I get my upgrade back? Can I then repurchase it and have another 14 days to test and potentially return it?
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I am almost certain there is a restocking fee but they may waive that/it may not apply if you are dealing with a defective device.

I have an ac router with 2 channels I sit 3 ft. From it and get poor connection errors and it's slow when it does work. I have Fios as well.
There has to be bad drivers or radio.
Sent from my SM-N900V using xda app-developers app

Drachnem said:
I have an ac router with 2 channels I sit 3 ft. From it and get poor connection errors and it's slow when it does work. I have Fios as well.
There has to be bad drivers or radio.
Sent from my SM-N900V using xda app-developers app
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Check out my ac issues thread there is a fix
Sent from my SM-N900V using Tapatalk

Drachnem said:
I have an ac router with 2 channels I sit 3 ft. From it and get poor connection errors and it's slow when it does work. I have Fios as well.
There has to be bad drivers or radio.
Sent from my SM-N900V using xda app-developers app
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I have same exact problem. Except I'm using century link
beamed from transporter room 3

My first N3 had great WiFi & signal strength, build date 10/2, but had a crooked camera.. I've since had 2 replacements both with WiFi & signal issues, same 10/6 build date.. I will be searching Best Buy for an earlier build date or perhaps one from a more recent batch within the past week if that's even possible.
Sent from my SM-N900V

Jay A whY said:
My first N3 had great WiFi & signal strength, build date 10/2, but had a crooked camera.. I've since had 2 replacements both with WiFi & signal issues, same 10/6 build date.. I will be searching Best Buy for an earlier build date or perhaps one from a more recent batch within the past week if that's even possible.
Sent from my SM-N900V
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Hmm interesting. Thanks for this info I will probably go to Verizon Wednesday for a replacement or to at least test signal strength side by side with another device

I have luckily had vast improvements. Reception has been much better my note 3 compared to my s3. No more dropped calls. Always have a 3g or 4g signal as where I never had. Always on wifi at this location but finally sending out pics with ease.... This has definitely been some thick icing on the cake. I love it
Sent from my SM-N900V using Tapatalk

What's ur build date? @ loopers
Sent from my SM-N900V

Jay A whY said:
What's ur build date? @ loopers
Sent from my SM-N900V
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How do we find this? The only date I can find is under kernel verison. It states September 24th

bladerealm124 said:
How do we find this? The only date I can find is under kernel verison. It states September 24th
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When u register your phone via the Samsung website, it will tell you once you input the imei info and tab to the next field.
Sent from my SM-N900V

I had the same problem with my wifi (slow link speed "5mbps" even tho I had great signal) I solved the problem by changing the channel on my wireless router from channel 11 to channel 10 now I have awesome Internet speed "75mbps" compared to what I had before. Try it, it might help you guys' problem also.
Sent from my SM-N900V using xda premium

Mine has a build date of 10/02. I'm hoping this is just a software issue. The signal is not horrible by any means. But it seems to be slightly worse than my note 2. I had a few dropped calls the first few days I owned it(never had one with my note 2) and areas where I would at the very worst have 1 bar of 1x I now have no signal(fades in and out constantly). Sometimes I even struggle to send texts in areas that it was never an issue with the note 2. Now you've got me scared that I'll get an even worse one if I exchange it. Did you get your replacements through Verizon? How painful is the process? Also any experience getting Samsung to fix an issue like this under warranty? I'm not sure what my best option is but I only have two more days before my 14 day exchange period runs out. Fwark.

Not sure of the build date of my first Note 3 , but my second Note 3 has a build date of 10/2 and both have wifi stability issues

http://forum.xda-developers.com/showpost.php?p=46632006&postcount=20

Tested my note 3 tonight side by side with my girlfriend's S4 and they had about the same signal strength(note was about 10dBm worse at first but quickly adjusted and was actually better for a short period). But after watching them for about 10 minutes they seemed to be almost identical. My signal seems to be a bit better more recently than it was previously(did a soft reset last night and cleared cache as well). The only time the poor performance is really noticeable is in my living room at home where I now have no service 90% of the time making it very hard to send texts and mms. Previously with my note 2 I had at least one bar of 1x most of the time and rarely lost service completely. Hoping this will improve with a software update. I don't plan on taking mine back since it seems likely to get the same or worse performance from a replacement

My wifi is strong 50mbps, its the 4g thats my issue this radio sucks compared to my 3 year old droid bionic.

I wonder how much of the signal issues has to do with the power management. The radio and s800 provide
Sent from my SM-N900V using Tapatalk

I am in downtown San Francisco and at best have only 1 bar showing on 4G. I spoke to VZW service, the rep told me it's counter intuitive: yes San Francisco is saturated as best as VZW can as far as LTE is concerned, but because there are so many people using LTE in such a small area, connectivity is virtually "0".
Is this horse manure?

Blown away by how great signal is on this device in low signal areas!.

Just got my N4 last night, I have been driving the same commute for years now and i know every deadspot along the way.
Last night on my way home I was streaming the Anthonycumia show audio feed via Chrome, and I was holding 3-4 bars of LTE
when I got zero service historically. Unreal! not 1 time did the stream cut out when I was constantly having issues with all my older devices,
Droid x
Galaxy nexus,
Note 3
LG G2
Those older devices would all drop signal to 0 up in the sticks, where the Note 4 holds 2-4 bars consistently.
In the house, I would get 1 (2 if lucky) bars of 3g and could barely every hold a phone conversation.
Now, again 2-3 bars LTE and I can even use download booster.
Impressed to say the least. Anyone else noticing amazing signal?
Samsung finally has a great radio!

I'm with you, signal has been great.

I concur...i work in a lot of dead spot areas where the rich live and since they dont need cell coverage because of wifi they dont allow towers around. Note 3 was dead inside the house im working...now its mostly on 4g most of the time except for a few random outages...big improvement overall, at least if i walk out i get excellent coverage now
Sent from my SM-N910V using XDA Free mobile app

you guys are lucky...

The cell coverage at my house has always been atrocious, but I'm actually consistently getting a decent signal at my house with the Note 4. I'm really happy about it.

mlee0921 said:
you guys are lucky...
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verizon just sucks in general, but there's hope. call and complain about your awful speeds numerous times.
my speeds, when LTE first came out, were like 10-15mbps. then as more people got phones, especially the dumbass iphone, the speeds were horrendous and for 2.5 years, i would get 0.5mbps. yeah, not even 1mbps. 3g was faster.
so once a week, i called to complain to verizon over and over, and basically every time had them put in a service ticket because their tower was obviously unable to handle the amount of phones around here.
months later, all of a sudden my speeds jump...and now i'm getting a constant 25-30mbps every day in the same exact area.
honestly, i'd say complain and have atech goto the tower itself.

jayochs said:
verizon just sucks in general, but there's hope. call and complain about your awful speeds numerous times.
my speeds, when LTE first came out, were like 10-15mbps. then as more people got phones, especially the dumbass iphone, the speeds were horrendous and for 2.5 years, i would get 0.5mbps. yeah, not even 1mbps. 3g was faster.
so once a week, i called to complain to verizon over and over, and basically every time had them put in a service ticket because their tower was obviously unable to handle the amount of phones around here.
months later, all of a sudden my speeds jump...and now i'm getting a constant 25-30mbps every day in the same exact area.
honestly, i'd say complain and have atech goto the tower itself.
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Not to say your complains didn't work, but what probably happened was that they installed and enabled AWS (XLTE in marketing speak) in your area. Something that Verizon was going to do anyways.

oilfighter said:
Not to say your complains didn't work, but what probably happened was that they installed and enabled AWS (XLTE in marketing speak) in your area. Something that Verizon was going to do anyways.
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they claimed there's no XLTE over here. the only place in NJ that has it right now is atlantic city, and that's over an hour south of me.
i honestly think the tower was overloaded and maybe they worked on it. i'm in an area that was hit hard by Sandy 2 years ago, and since then, the LTE has sucked. apparently a lot of VZW fiber lines in the area were damaged bad during the storm, which is why we had little to no data service during the storm down here.

the voice quality during calls, sounds crystal clear. much nicer than the note 2!

I agree totally. Reception on this phone is unmatched by any Verizon phone ive had to date and ive had plenty. Its so good im hoping root comes in a hurry so i can freeze the update packages in titanium backup so the phone will not take an update and ruin the experience like KitKrap done to the note 3.

concur...at my desk right now, on my N3, I would barely get a signal. had to set my phone on the very edge of the desk near the window.
with this beautiful beast, I'm getting 4 of 5 bars.

I wasn't very hopeful after reading comments here but the signal strength for data has been WWWWAAAAYYYY better than my old GS3. I'd drop in and out going in and out of buildings and I go into a lot of concrete construction buildings and skyscrapers for work and usually I'd kick back to 3G. So far it hasn't dropped back and is chuggin' along.

Im coming from Motorolas and they have excellent signal strength. I dont see a difference in signal so it is a great improvement from the previous samsung phones ive had (S3 and Note3).

Both my wifes Note 4 and mine have had calls dropped and signal issues in our house. We just switched to Verizon for the first time. We came from US cellular and Straight talk and never had a single reception issue at our house. We live just north of Milwaukee in a town of 30k people. We called Verizon to complain and they started a ticket to have it checked out. The technician emailed me back a few days later and said everything is fine at the tower and in our area. He said there are several factors that can contribute to poor reception like building material of the house, tree/leaves foliage especially in summer months (ah its November and every leaf is on the ground now) and other RF in the area. Again, I never had a dropped call with any of my phones with US cellular in the 8 years I was with them. Needless to say, we were about to cancel our service with them and they offered to give us a free signal booster for our house. Hopefully this will fix our problems at our house, from what I have read, those signal boosters make a world of difference.
Whats weird is the signal strength is usually about -103dbm which is about the same when I checked with some of my old US cellular phones in our house. Because its happening with both my note 4 and my wifes, I don't think its the phone.
Sounds like the note 4 has good radio in it so hopefully my house is just in the cellular Bermuda triangle for Verizon and the booster will solve our issues at home.

This phone really impress me too with its signal power even in low signal areas it has really good signal.

Have to agree. I work at 2 locations and at the second spot there is horrible reception with my old Note 3 and iPhone 6 (when I had it). But when I came in with my Note 4 I was pleasantly surprised to see that my 4G icon was on with data. And my battery life is better because it's not working overtime for a signal.

No complaints here
Sent from my SM-N910V using XDA Premium 4 mobile app

my iPhone 5s (expectedly) got terrible signal at my school, so did my DROID Razr M. Now i'm rocking 2 bars of 4g. No complaints here.

Same here!
Noticed it while driving to work. My hour commute was hell with my note 2 if I didnt have music pre-downloaded to my phone. When I streamed music, I'd lose signal half of the trip (which is normal for any phone before the N4).
Last couple days I've noticed that I can stream music with little to no pause for streaming.

I live in bumfk... phone has a good radio regardless

How is signal strength / call quality?

Compared to other phones you have had? Im tired of samsung and their crappy radios that cant hold a good 4g connection. On verizon btw
Sent from my SCH-I545 using Tapatalk 2

Cowbell_Guy said:
Compared to other phones you have had? Im tired of samsung and their crappy radios that cant hold a good 4g connection. On verizon btw
Sent from my SCH-I545 using Tapatalk 2
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I'm on Verizon. My signal strength is above what my lg g2 was. Pulled 61 down where I never could with g2 in same area.
Sent from my Kick A$$ MOTO X

That's why i don't buy Samsung phones. One guy stated in another thread he was keeping 4g in his basement and never had on previous phones. Sounds good to me.
Sent from my VK810 4G using Tapatalk

We have similiar thread here: http://forum.xda-developers.com/moto-x-style/help/signal-issues-t3199760
Anyway, good to know there are no real issues about it.

I'm having horrible LTE speeds
Sent from my XT1575 using Tapatalk

i currently have the note 4 and i get crappy signals even at my school which is in downtown miami

My signal is better on X Pure than my Galaxy S6. Call quality is much better sounding to me also.

I had a S5 two weeks ago, I sold it and bought the nexus 6 when it went on sale at best buy for $350 a week ago.
My S5 would get lte in my house, 2 signal bars and -112dbm. The nexus 6 had a signal bug where it would go from 2 bars to no signal at all and it raped my battery, it wouldn't get lte in the basement either. The signal bug killed my battery, I always had time without signal between 12-20%
I took the nexus 6 back today and got the moto x pure 16gb at best buy it was the only phone they had in stock so I bought it. Signal is great in the basement, -100dbm, 2-3 signal bars all the time and lte works great.
All the phones were on the Verizon network in northeast ohio

I didn't have any official measurements running but all I know is that tonight at a concert inside Key Arena, I had almost full bars of LTE service on my MPX and my girlfriend had barely one bar of edge on her G4

Bootup said:
I didn't have any official measurements running but all I know is that tonight at a concert inside Key Arena, I had almost full bars of LTE service on my MPX and my girlfriend had barely one bar of edge on her G4
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Just curious, who's your provider?
MOTO X PURE EDITION!

I just went into settings > more > cellular networks > and hit network operators. It'll search for a while and then populate a list of providers ... I selected mine (T-Mobile) in lieu of "choose automatically" and noticed when I backed out of that screen my "preferred network type" had changed. Instead of simply saying "LTE" it shows a bunch more modes (assuming those specific to T-Mo). Of course it's too early to tell the impact of this, but it seems I have more bars (and a slightly better dBm). We'll see what happens

At&t reception, I still feel it's better than other phones?

Just spend the day at the lake yesterday, on a dock...Usually I'm lucky to get any reception at any place in that area, but I was able to walk up on the hill and get LTE where no other phone has ever gotten it, even just a few weeks ago and again 2 months ago.
I see a lot of people saying the reception isn't good, but I feel it's better than any other phone I've had to date? Regardless of what the signal bars show or the db shows, I can get signal where I never have before.
Just sayin'

[accidentally posted the reply, removing]

tele_jas said:
Just spend the day at the lake yesterday, on a dock...Usually I'm lucky to get any reception at any place in that area, but I was able to walk up on the hill and get LTE where no other phone has ever gotten it, even just a few weeks ago and again 2 months ago.
I see a lot of people saying the reception isn't good, but I feel it's better than any other phone I've had to date? Regardless of what the signal bars show or the db shows, I can get signal where I never have before.
Just sayin'
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I think the Wi-Fi and cellular reception problems are in the european model - I had great reception with B20 software and the B27 update made it even better

tabletalker7 said:
I think the Wi-Fi and cellular reception problems are in the european model - I had great reception with B20 software and the B27 update made it even better
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This is a good point. It might be helpful if people would include which specific region model they are using. My reception is definitely on par with my Note 3 on AT&T in the USA (USA model).

celticchrys said:
This is a good point. It might be helpful if people would include which specific region model they are using. My reception is definitely on par with my Note 3 on AT&T in the USA (USA model).
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My Axon 7 blows away my Zenfone 2.

My axon 7 beat the pants off my Nexus 6p when I tried using speedtest.net. Both wifi and lte were significantly faster. Also using the US model. B27 seems to have improved things even further. No complains at all!

I'm using A2017U in europe, LTE band 3. My previous phone was Xperia Z and comparing Axon 7 to it, cell and wifi reception is better in any way of using (2.4 and 5ghz, 3G and LTE). So no problem with wifi and cell reception on mine A2017U. Very satisfied.

Ditto
celticchrys said:
This is a good point. It might be helpful if people would include which specific region model they are using. My reception is definitely on par with my Note 3 on AT&T in the USA (USA model).
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Ditto on both points. I also previously used the Note3 and I get a super signal with the Axon 7, even in places where the Note was hit/miss. Love the phone.

Troll thread. It's obvious that a sizeable minority of owner have reception problems and telling people that 'I'm alright Jack' is unhelpful at best and smug and weird at worst.
Idea for another thread:
Lots of smartphone owners complain of easily cracked screens. I threw mine under a bus and it's fine.

tele_jas said:
Just spend the day at the lake yesterday, on a dock...Usually I'm lucky to get any reception at any place in that area, but I was able to walk up on the hill and get LTE where no other phone has ever gotten it, even just a few weeks ago and again 2 months ago.
I see a lot of people saying the reception isn't good, but I feel it's better than any other phone I've had to date? Regardless of what the signal bars show or the db shows, I can get signal where I never have before.
Just sayin'
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I don't agree, not as good as my Moto X or my Idol 3 on band 17 LTE or HSPA 850mhz. It's the lower bands it has an issue with.
Sent from my ZTE A2017U using Tapatalk

I have good reception for LTE in most places. WiFi is very good. However, when it comes to radio signal for LTE this is the worst phone of all that I have ever owned. I do not get involved in all sorts of tests but according to the Signal strength mine is usually about -5 higher than all the others. It is acceptable in most places as I live in a large city with good reception on AT&T. However, as I related on the ZTE forum I was at an assembly the other day and I was the only person with an Axon 7 in the whole place. Every other person had either an iPhone (most popular) or some other Android like a Samsung Galaxy. In the outer hallway I had a good signal, but when I went into the main auditorium all I got was a flashing red notification light letting me know that I had ZERO signal, while my wife's Moto X Pure and my daughters shattered iPhone 6 both had very good reception. The Moto is on T-Mobile and the iPhone is on Verizon. I do not think the carrier had anything to do with this issue. Clearly there is a problem with the Axon 7 when it comes the LTE signal strength. I am beginning to think it may be hardware related somehow and unable to be repaired with a software update ...unless they boost the signal strength through software which will also take a toll on battery longevity. Maybe they have the antennas positioned poorly inside the phone?? So I am trying to patiently wait to see what ZTE accomplished with their next update. But if they cannot fix the LTE signal strength then I will have no choice but to move on to another phone. Even though most of the time I am using WiFi, having a phone that cannot communicate in low signal areas when every other phone can, is not acceptable.

On TMO I'm getting a 2x stronger signal than my S7 Edge. Quite impressed. The Wi-Fi signal is much stronger also. I can stream music in my shed from the Wi-Fi ap in the house. The S7E couldn't even detect the signal.