[diesteldorf]

I haven't really heard this aspect of the Nexus 6P discussed.

I have a Nexus 6 and Moto X Pure and have always valued the strength and consistency of Motorola's radios. They have the ability to pickup signal in areas where other phones have struggled.

I know some people will debate whether Motorola is still truly superior, and I am sure the gap is closing, but I am just sharing my personal experience.

I would even rank radio strength and consistency higher than screen display if all other things were equal.

Considering I may use the 6P in areas where coverage may not be ideal, radio strength is important.

I am guessing that Huawei's radios are pretty good, or I would've expected to hear more about them in the various reviews, but would anyone care to share personal experience?

In particular, is anyone coming from a Moto device that would be willing to give a direct comparison?

[CarbonOak]

I have used both the Moto X 2013 and the Nexus 6. I live in the greater LA metropolitan area, in the suburbs, and I have comparable radio signals with the 6P as I did with both today phones. I haven't had any issues.

[gtg465x]

I have AT&T and don't have the best reception in my house. I tested the Moto X Pure and Nexus 6P in the same spot. The Nexus 6P got slightly better reception (-106 dBm vs -110 dBm). For comparison, my wife's iPhone 6 beat both with -105 dBm. This is on LTE band 17.

[anthony2558]

No issues. My 6p gets better signal then my S6.

[K_O]

I have AT&T and don't have the best reception in my house. I tested the Moto X Pure and Nexus 6P in the same spot. The Nexus 6P got slightly better reception (-106 dBm vs -110 dBm). For comparison, my wife's iPhone 6 beat both with -105 dBm. This is on LTE band 17.

What app do you use to get the specific dBm numbers? Thanks.

[gabbott]

What app do you use to get the specific dBm numbers? Thanks.

This is what I use:

https://play.google.com/store/apps/d...ne.signalcheck

They have a free version too

Posted via the Android Central App

[vzwuser76]

What app do you use to get the specific dBm numbers? Thanks.

There are 2 different locations in the settings to see this.

Settings > More > Cellular Networks > Network type and strength

Settings > About Phone > Status > Network type and strength

I'd imagine most apps just do the shortcut for you.

I should add that I don't have the phone yet, and these locations are based off the settings on my Nexus 7 with Lollipop. If anything has changed in the settings layout in Marshmallow, it will be different.

[John Call]

I have AT&T and don't have the best reception in my house. I tested the Moto X Pure and Nexus 6P in the same spot. The Nexus 6P got slightly better reception (-106 dBm vs -110 dBm). For comparison, my wife's iPhone 6 beat both with -105 dBm. This is on LTE band 17.

I'm also recently interested in this topic. I moved into a new home with spotty signal. I haven't yet found how to identify which lte band I'm using. How did you identify band 17 in your post?

[bjrosen]

Apps for LTE strength and band ID
LTE Discovery, gives strength and band

Network Signal Pro, strength

Open Signal, strength, has coverage maps

[dc52ltr]

6P has much better radios than my Note 3 and my S6 in the same location.

[soma4society]

Slightly better than my previous phone... Moto X Pure. I seem to get an extra bar in most/all of the same places. Huawei seems to do radios well in my limited experience. My mate 7 had amazing reception (best I've ever seen), and the 6P is no slouch either.

Nexus 6P

[LeoRex]

I'm impressed with the 6P.. It maintains a stronger connection, using less power, than any phone I've owned. I could go into the technicals, but that boils it down to all that really needs to be said.

[scottysize]

6P and Droid Turbo 2 was my experience. Turbo 2 uses moto radios. I can say sitting in my chair at home with the 6P, I never lost LTE signal. Sitting in my chair with the Turbo 2. It dropped to 3G and wouldn't return to LTE without me going into Airplane mode and back. So my experience, the 6P radio is stronger than the Moto radio. I kept the Turbo 2 for 1/2 a day, then boxed it back up and sold it specifically because of the weaker radio.

[LeoRex]

Turbo 2 uses moto radios.

Just clarifying things a bit... Moto hasn't been putting radio hardware in phones for quite some time now. The phone/data LTE radios in most of these phones are actually built by Qualcomm, integrated into the main processor chip (System On Chip). And even the WiFi radios are most often Broadcom.

That's not the whole story, there is still the matter of designing the antenna arrays properly... there, Motorola's acquired knowledge (which is sadly getting sent packing by Lenovo every passing day) comes into play.

[scottysize]

Just clarifying things a bit... Moto hasn't been putting radio hardware in phones for quite some time now. The phone/data LTE radios in most of these phones are actually built by Qualcomm, integrated into the main processor chip (System On Chip). And even the WiFi radios are most often Broadcom.

That's not the whole story, there is still the matter of designing the antenna arrays properly... there, Motorola's acquired knowledge (which is sadly getting sent packing by Lenovo every passing day) comes into play.

I don't know who actually makes the radios. I was just comparing another phone produced by Motorola to the 6P.

[Soundtallica]

I know I complained that the 6p's radios weren't the best compared to the Turbo 2 before, but I must've been hallucinating. I went back to using the T2 for a day yesterday just for a change of pace but I was surprised to find out reception was identical to my 6p. It turns out the T2 was cheating, putting green in the signal strength bar in the battery graphs where the Nexus puts yellow, for the same signal strength. So given that reception issues were due to me living in a weak signal area and not the phone, I can confidently say that that the 6P has good reception. It's never let me down.

Posted via my Nexus 6P on VerLIEzon Wireless but without their shackles.

[vzwuser76]

Just clarifying things a bit... Moto hasn't been putting radio hardware in phones for quite some time now. The phone/data LTE radios in most of these phones are actually built by Qualcomm, integrated into the main processor chip (System On Chip). And even the WiFi radios are most often Broadcom.

That's not the whole story, there is still the matter of designing the antenna arrays properly... there, Motorola's acquired knowledge (which is sadly getting sent packing by Lenovo every passing day) comes into play.

And that's one reason why some phones with the same radios do better than others, antenna design. I imagine that OEMS also tweak the radio firmware, which is why the combination of that and antenna design are why Motorola devices always had better reception compared to other devices using the same components. As far as today, either Lenovo doesn't have access to the information Motorola used to get better signal reception or Huawei has a better grasp of it from the get go. This is where companies that not only deal in phone hardware but also in networks and wireless transmission technology have an edge. Companies like Motorola, Huawei, Nokia, and Siemens deal with both ends of the transmission, tower and handset, and have a bit of an advantage over OEMS who just build phone hardware.

[LeoRex]

It turns out the T2 was cheating.

Yeah... All those graphs are kind of junk. There are really two important stats with these radios... the signal strength (in decibels) and the signal quality (either in signal to noise ratio or ASU rating). One thing I've noticed is that a lot of phones seem to ignore signal quality when it reports it... so you might have a really strong signal, but it's filthy... and, just like how you have to shout to be heard in a loud room, a dirty signal can be just as bad as a weak one.

I thought at first that the 6P was really fudging it since it rarely ever showed me as having a poor signal, whereas my previous phones were all over the place. But when I used some more detailed tools, nope, it was just doing a good job of maintaining a stronger, cleaner connection.... and I went back and took a good look at the amount of power used... which is really the most honest of all the stats.... you can lie and display 4 bars, but you can't fake out the amount of power that the radio is draining. And even there, the radios were sipping power in comparison.

[Soundtallica]

One thing I've noticed is that a lot of phones seem to ignore signal quality when it reports it...

How do you find out the quality of the signal as opposed to reception? And yeah, I agree that the radios sip power according to the battery graphs. Cell standby, idle, etc. rarely goes over 5% for me. The T2 would be constantly over 10% in cell standby, and always a bigger drain than my screen.

One thing I forgot to mention is that the T2's WiFi radios are better than the 6P's. I was camping recently and my spot was on the fringe of the campground, probably at the very edge of their WiFi's range since the signal was so weak. Both phones were able to hold on to the signal, but 9 times out of 10 only the T2 was able to send and receive data over it.

[LeoRex]

How do you find out the quality of the signal as opposed to reception?

There are some signal apps available on the Play Store that will give you the information. The 6P is a little funky and it isn't reporting SNR... rather opting to use ASU... which is... I kid you not... Arbitrary Strength Unit. You gotta love that name. But it's basically just a rating of the overall quality of the signal. The higher the better. If you have a strong signal yet the ASU is low... that points to a poor signal to noise ratio.

[vzwuser76]

There are some signal apps available on the Play Store that will give you the information. The 6P is a little funky and it isn't reporting SNR... rather opting to use ASU... which is... I kid you not... Arbitrary Strength Unit. You gotta love that name. But it's basically just a rating of the overall quality of the signal. The higher the better. If you have a strong signal yet the ASU is low... that points to a poor signal to noise ratio.

So ASU is similar to the Quality of Service (QoS) measurement that they use in VoIP?

[LeoRex]

So ASU is similar to the Quality of Service (QoS) measurement that they use in VoIP?

Kind of, I guess. They look at the characteristics of the signal and spit out a number. It must be directly calculated though. I'm fine with SNR to be honest.