Not off to a great start

PAC757

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I got my nexus from Google play store today, I put my At&t Sim card in it and what horrible signal this phone has, both data and cell. In the same location my nexus goes from no cell signal up to one bar, put the Sim back in my Sony Xperia Neo V, 4-5 bars. Data on nexus= constantly switching from 3g to H mostly 3g even seen 2 on there several times, data on my Sony constant H. I tried changing APN to several I found on line, none made a difference, speedtest on the nexus = 578k down, 131 up. (average after 5 tests) speedtest on my Sony = 1741 k down, 988 k up. I don't think I'm going to be live with the nexus, no cell service at all in my home zero bars, nothing, 2-3 bars on the Sony. What gets me is the Sony Neo is just their mid range phone. Going to see what the Play Store return policy is, or maybe try an exchange, or just return it, or sell it on ebay anf buy an Xperia S.
 

Andrew Martonik

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Should try to exchange. They'd be happy to exchange it for you if you call them with issues in the return period. Although I wouldn't be surprised if the Nexus has a lower signal, there shouldn't be that big of a difference.
 

PAC757

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RE: @ martonikaj
That's what I was thinking, buy tonight I went outside with my G nexus, my daughter's iPhone, and my girlfriends Htc Vivid, (all At&t phones) and the GNexus was the slowest in data, and had the lowest cell signal of the 3. I inside the house the GNexus was the only one that had absolutely no cell phone signal
 

jeffydude05

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I also bought the Galaxy Nexus from the Play store, it came with the XXL radio band. After flashing the UG my signal improved a lot. Good luck.
 

MooPenguin32

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The GNex I bought it from the Google Play store and I haven't had any signal issues. When I had an iPhone 4S, I had 5 bars. The GNex has the same. I get the same signal with it in other areas I go as I did with the iPhone.

After your first put your AT&T SIM card in the phone, did you mess with any settings? I didn't have to fiddle with anything after putting my AT&T SIM card in the phone. It auto detected all of the settings and I was good to go.

Using Speedtest.net, I get about 3.5 Mbps down and about 1 Mbps up. Of course, I wouldn't purely go by the Speedtest app. I would be more concerned with how fast it feels when surfing the web, downloading apps, etc.
 

font1975

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RE: @ martonikaj
That's what I was thinking, buy tonight I went outside with my G nexus, my daughter's iPhone, and my girlfriends Htc Vivid, (all At&t phones) and the GNexus was the slowest in data, and had the lowest cell signal of the 3. I inside the house the GNexus was the only one that had absolutely no cell phone signal

As martonikaj says, it sounds like you may have a bad phone; try exchanging it. These phones aren't THAT bad with signal strengh or no one would be buying them :)
 

efn77mx

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As martonikaj says, it sounds like you may have a bad phone; try exchanging it. These phones aren't THAT bad with signal strengh or no one would be buying them :)

Thanks for the reassurance! I'm set to order one a week from today, but when I read posts like these, it makes me nervous. Truth is that for $50 bucks more I can buy an SII outright from AT&T, but it's the Nexus I want. I want to know that I won't be making a mistake by doing so.
 

PAC757

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As martonikaj says, it sounds like you may have a bad phone; try exchanging it. These phones aren't THAT bad with signal strengh or no one would be buying them :)

I just called Google for an exchange, kind of a pain, they hand you off to Samsung, who in turn puts a hold on your credit card for the whole amount of the phone, A little disconcerting, they state that "if the phone proves to be not defective they charge your credit card the whole amount of the phone". That seems to be left to interpretation of the Samsung employee that checks out the returned phone. :-\ I'll see how the new phone works when it gets here.
 

efn77mx

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I just called Google for an exchange, kind of a pain, they hand you off to Samsung, who in turn puts a hold on your credit card for the whole amount of the phone, A little disconcerting, they state that "if the phone proves to be not defective they charge your credit card the whole amount of the phone". That seems to be left to interpretation of the Samsung employee that checks out the returned phone. :-\ I'll see how the new phone works when it gets here.

Okay it's a story like THIS that makes me very nervous about doing this myself. The device is listed as being under warranty from Samsung for 12 months. Why would they put a hold on your credit card and CHARGE you if the return phone is NOT defective, if all you're basically doing is swapping one supposed good unit for another? You already purchased one...why would they charge a second time? Now I'm having second thoughts...
 

PAC757

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Ok, I talked to Samsung, actually they called me to get my credit card information, They do put a hold on your card for the price of the phone, plus tax & shipping, I looked at my CC account online, there is a hold on it from Samsung for $447.93. They said & make you verbally agree they will charge the whole amount if one of these 2 things happen: 1) they do not receive the old phone within 30 days. 2) the phone has either physical damage, dropped, broken, water damage, or here's a big one, "had been altered" I assume altered meaning custom ROM or software screwed with. So I am glad I didn't try to flash a different radio baseband on it a they would consider it "altered". Here's hoping the new phone works. I really like the phone, but it HAS to work first and foremost as a PHONE, make and receive phone calls.
 

Centinel

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Flashing a baseband can be easily undone if you need to send a phone in for service, just like you can unroot it, re-lock it, and get it back to the stock ROM.
 

font1975

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Okay it's a story like THIS that makes me very nervous about doing this myself. The device is listed as being under warranty from Samsung for 12 months. Why would they put a hold on your credit card and CHARGE you if the return phone is NOT defective, if all you're basically doing is swapping one supposed good unit for another? You already purchased one...why would they charge a second time? Now I'm having second thoughts...

As PAC has just updated, The "hold" is only to ensure they get the phone back. And if there is physical damage, like you dropped it or something, then the warranty doesn't cover it.

I've seen several posts around that say swapping a defective phone is fairly straight forward. But I don't think the defective rate is THAT high. I'd guess it's about the same defect rate you'd see on any phone.

And because this is a Google phone, and they have the stock images online, getting your phone back to an "unaltered" state is quite simple. If you were savvy enough to "alter" it, then "unaltering" it is even easier ;)
 

efn77mx

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As PAC has just updated, The "hold" is only to ensure they get the phone back. And if there is physical damage, like you dropped it or something, then the warranty doesn't cover it.

I've seen several posts around that say swapping a defective phone is fairly straight forward. But I don't think the defective rate is THAT high. I'd guess it's about the same defect rate you'd see on any phone.

And because this is a Google phone, and they have the stock images online, getting your phone back to an "unaltered" state is quite simple. If you were savvy enough to "alter" it, then "unaltering" it is even easier ;)

I have decided to go with the Nexus. I have no plans of altering it in any way. I'm not one for rooting or custom roms (though I WILL enjoy the stock Android experience), and I will have an Otterbox Commuter case waiting for it when it arrives. I figured if a defective rate was extremely high on ANY device (like the antenna issue on the iPhone 4), it would be ALL over the news. So I'm just not going to worry about it, since chances are I WON'T end up with a defective unit.
 

MooPenguin32

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I have decided to go with the Nexus. I have no plans of altering it in any way. I'm not one for rooting or custom roms (though I WILL enjoy the stock Android experience), and I will have an Otterbox Commuter case waiting for it when it arrives. I figured if a defective rate was extremely high on ANY device (like the antenna issue on the iPhone 4), it would be ALL over the news. So I'm just not going to worry about it, since chances are I WON'T end up with a defective unit.

I think you've made a great choice. I got my Galaxy Nexus from Google last Wednesday. I came from an iPhone 4S and couldn't be happier. Yes, there are some things I like better about the iPhone, such as some of the apps. However, there are some things I like about Android, such as the built-in navigation and how everything is integrated.

Overall, the GNex is a great phone. So as long as you have a good GSM carrier, you'll be fine. I have AT&T and I get the same signal and call quality as I did with the iPhone 4S.
 

efn77mx

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I think you've made a great choice. I got my Galaxy Nexus from Google last Wednesday. I came from an iPhone 4S and couldn't be happier. Yes, there are some things I like better about the iPhone, such as some of the apps. However, there are some things I like about Android, such as the built-in navigation and how everything is integrated.

Overall, the GNex is a great phone. So as long as you have a good GSM carrier, you'll be fine. I have AT&T and I get the same signal and call quality as I did with the iPhone 4S.

I'm really looking forward to this. I never should've left Android to begin with, but the HTC Evo left a real sour taste in my mouth. Yeah there are some things better in iOS, but NOT that many. My sister is giving me her iPod touch that will handle all the music and apps I have on my iPhone. That's why I'm not really stressing over the fact that there's no expandable memory. I'm not going to be loading my Nexus with music. I also have AT&T and the coverage has been excellent for me. The only question that remains is to whether or not I should reuse the SIM out of my iPhone or go into AT&T and ask for another one.
 

tmx31415

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The ICS is great however speeds are significantly slower than my Note on AT&T. The battery life is horrible and that's putting it nicely. I will probably switch back to the Note tomorrow and patiently wait for ICS.

Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using Android Central Forums
 

Chex313

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Sony Xperia Neo V that's not an Hspa+ phone...That sim card although it should give equal speeds isn't provisioned for Hspa+. I would have stopped in to At&t first.

Your gonna need a new sim if you want the best speeds.
 

PAC757

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Ok, I received my replacement Nexus from Samsung, learned a few things with all this, one Speedtest.net results don't actually mean that your data connection is slow, ran 8 tests to 8 different servers, got 8 different results ranging from real slow to good HSPS speeds, but real life use is good (web browsing, Google market, texting, file downloads) The cell radios that Samsung uses, or antennas, just aren't that great. I didn't want to have to mess with this phone, but I did go ahead and root it and flashed a North American radio (UGLC1) and it helped with the cell signal some. I have rooted and loaded custom ROMS on other phones before, this one was a pain, used Wugfresh toolkit but still can not get ROM Manager to load ClockworkMod no matter what I try it gives me some permission error and will not load, but at least I was able to flash the radio. Anyone able to flash ClockworkMod using ROM Manager? I can't figure out why it won't flash got the life of me.
 

font1975

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I ran into something like this too .... I'd have to google it again.

It's been a few weeks since I messed with it, but I could only get into CWM so long as I booted directly into it without booting the phone first. Not sure why. CWM would flash - using fastboot - but if I booted the phone before going into recovery it would restore the stock recovery. Or something strange like that. But Google had some answers on it. I was just playing around and flashed a nightly of Cyanogenmod to play with it for a bit before I went back to stock TAKJU.

Bummer that you still have reception issues. Mine's fine, and seems no worse than the Nexus S. But then I don't have any other phones to compare it too, and the NS wasn't known for steller reception, if I'm honest. To be fair, you should look at the decibel reading under "STATUS" to see what the strength really is. Don't go by the bars. But reception's never been issue for me. Perhaps my area has more towers, who knows :)

And good point on the SpeedTest observation. You have to test against several servers to get a feel for your network speed. I even throw far away ones in just to see how it looks.
 
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