PSA - Serious Flaw in the Verizon Galaxy Nexus

[Johnly]

The Verizon Galaxy Nexus is one of the most popular handsets on this website, and for good reason, it is the first Nexus device on Verizon and one of the first devices in the world to get the heavily anticipated Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich, and one of the few that will run it in ?stock? form, free of carrier and OEM customization. The device itself is powerful beast, with a glorious screen. For these and other reasons this device should, at least on paper, be one of if not THE best Android phone on the market.

But the Verizon Galaxy Nexus has a pretty significant flaw, a flaw that is often completely ignored or when not ignored sidelined in favor of emphasizing the benefits of the device. That flaw is signal strength and the ability to stay on 4G. People acknowledge it but the truth of the matter is that I don?t think that people realize just how bad the problem is, including the people who run this site.

With that in mind I have been doing a little experiment over the last two weeks. I am in the rare position to own 6 of Verizon?s 4G LTE devices and have all of them on service. I chose a room at home that gets mediocre cellular reception and have been keeping track of the dBm of each device at 4 different times throughout the day. These times were different each day but in general were late night (after midnight, before I went to bed), early to mid morning (whenever I got up), afternoon, and evening. For those that do not know dBm is the true measure of cellular signal ranging from -120 (no signal whatsoever) to -60 (perfect or nearly so). The data was taken from the Status screen in the settings menu, not an app or widget to minimize the possibility of error. Each measurement was taken right after the other.

The raw data is presented below in the following graphic but here is a summary:

			Week 1 Average 	Week 2 Average	Average Weeks 1&2
VZW Galaxy Nexus		-101.8			-101.9			-104.3
HTC Thunderbolt		-90			        -90			        -90.5
HTC Rezound		        -93.2			-93.2			-92.8
Droid RAZR			-92.9			-92.9			-92.8
Droid 4			        -92			        -92			        -93
Droid Bionic			-85.3			-85.3			-85.8

All devices are running STOCK firmware and NOT rooted.

As you can see the Galaxy Nexus has by far the worst signal of the bunch. The two week average had a difference of 19 dBm between the worst (Galaxy Nexus), and the best (Droid Bionic). For a device that was so maligned I was quite surprised to see how much stronger the Bionic was than anything else in the stable. In some tests I found the difference to be nearly 30 dBm between it and the Nexus.

Now I can see some of the responses now ?he must have a defective device? but I can assure you my device gets within a 2-3 dBm difference of every other Galaxy Nexus I have had the chance to compare it to, so it?s highly unlikely.

Now before some of you decide to string me up, I want to make it clear that the purpose of this post is NOT to bash the Nexus. Remember that I do actually own one, and if I hated it that bad I would have returned it during the post holiday return period. The purpose of this is to educate people and to bring attention to a serious problem that must be fixed ASAP.

I?m a huge believer in people should buy what makes them happy and ignore the haters and device evangelists, but given the fact that I do change phones so often I am also in a position where I am not as emotionally invested in my purchases and can look at things a little more objectively than most. There are some really nice things about the Galaxy Nexus and ICS, and some things that are not so nice, and a few things that really suck ... signal strength is one of those things that really sucks. I must say that when I began this experiment I knew that there was a significant difference but had no idea that it was as pronounced as it is.

I sincerely hope that this is merely a software issue and Samsung, Verizon, and Google are able to get it straightened out in short order, because as of right now I can?t recommend anyone get the Nexus as their primary device, because a phone that doesn?t get reception when you need it is worthless.

Raw data below:

Click to view quoted image


EDIT: I said the following in a post later in the thread but I think it bares mentioning here as well:

Being a scholar I wanted to reference your material.....to bad it does not have any...going back to Panda rap...this sucks.....

 

[Dreamliner330]

going back to Panda rap...this sucks.....

Please be a man of your word in this regard. Subsequent postings will reveal the validity.

 

[Paul627g]

Lets try and keep good discussion going here and on topic

No need to start trashing a thread if we don't agree with it.

Thanks everyone.

 

[Dreamliner330]

Does anybody have a real world example of where the Galaxy Nexus exceeds a Moto phone in terms of dropping calls?

 

[YourMobileGuru]

Does anybody have a real world example of where the Galaxy Nexus exceeds a Moto phone in terms of dropping calls?

Anyone have an answer to his question? I'm curious too.

I almost never make actual phone calls from anything but my Droid4 and Rezond, the other devics are used for data almost exclusively.

That being said my study was of signal strength which factors into dropped calls but you would be surprised how low the dBm can be and still make calls (that do not drop).

 

[SupaDupaKen]

I appreciate your post, VZWRocks. I only wish I had read (and listened) to such a warning before purchasing my GNex 4 days ago. I saw some negative reviews beforehand regarding signal strength, but didn't think it would be this bad.

I've tried the roms, radios, and every other suggested fix. Nothing has made a difference. Call quality sucks, 4g disconnects every few minutes, and signal strength sits around 112dBm even though Verizon coverage is excellent in my area. The only time my data is stable is when I keep it strictly on 3g.

I want to love my GNex, but can't with such a huge deal breaker. I'm going to return mine before my 14-day grace period ends. I hope the next update fixes this problem for everyone else, but I'm not willing to wait and see. Good luck, fellas.

 

[YourMobileGuru]

Best of Luck Ken. You're far from alone in overlooking the warnings. The hype surrounding this phone is something that I haven't seen outside of iPhone I think. It's being heavily filed by the various bloggers but people seem to forget that they are mostly using the GSM version which by all accounts does not have this priblrm but as Phil and Jerry did a very good job of punctuationg in the last podcast they are not the same phone.

If its any consolation the RAZR and Rezound should get ICS this week.

 

[Andrew Ruffolo]

Has anyone on here with poor signal flashed the radio and firmware themselves? Not just using the OTA? I did that long ago and it seemed to be better after I completely flashed everything, boot.img, radios, software, everything. You need an unlocked bootloader, but you would be flashing files downloaded from google.

 

[Jackamus]

I love mine. It has it's issues. But nothing that takes away from the experience.

 

[Halcyon]

I love mine as well. I had some reboot issues. But I replaced the battery and havent had one reboot since. The signal on mine is really strong. I live in the Seattle area and there are very few areas were my signal is bad.

 

[dmmarck]

Has anyone on here with poor signal flashed the radio and firmware themselves? Not just using the OTA? I did that long ago and it seemed to be better after I completely flashed everything, boot.img, radios, software, everything. You need an unlocked bootloader, but you would be flashing files downloaded from google.

I've never had the leaked ota, but I've flashed the .4 radios and bootloader ages ago and it has really improved my signal.

 

[AirSushi]

Nice point. I'm running the 4.04 radios and they are by far the best. I have no problems at all now.

Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using Tapatalk

Can you provide any data similar to VZW rocks to provide metrics for the 4.0.4 radio?

 

[TabGuy]

Ok, let's get real. I was trained in science. A degree in computer science from UCLA. The test shown in the first post here is interesting. However, that's all it is. It only shows various tests over a short period from one guys house. Not much scientific about that. We don't know anything about the terrain, the cell tower, the location. The same tests performed a mile away may have been completely different. This was not anything near scientific in any way, shape or form.

Having said all that, though, the one thing I learned in the real world is that science doesn't rule. Perception does. It doesn't matter what the numbers show because the human will put whatever spin on it they want to fit their perception. If a phone owner believes this is the best phone available then guess what? It is. For them You can show tables, charts, graphs of how terrible a phone is but for that one person it's the perfect device.

Conversely, it the person has the perception that the phone is a piece of crap than, guess what? It is. For that person. There can be 10,000 evangelists come to a forum like this and sing the praises and that one person will never be convinced otherwise. To them it's a piece of crap and everyone else doesn't know what they're talking about.

The reality is somewhere in between. In fact, no two people use the phone exactly alike so comparisons are skewed anyway.

The only solution is to get down off the high horse, no matter the color of your horse, and realize that your point of view only represents your perception. Others have a different perception that you'll never be able to change.

 

[Undertoad]

Can you provide any data similar to VZW rocks to provide metrics for the 4.0.4 radio?

Yeah! Except skip the part where you compare 4G to other devices' 3G reception, and fail to repeat your experiment with valid data, and instead just bash the phone over and over. You can skip that part.

 

[Johnly]

Does anybody have a real world example of where the Galaxy Nexus exceeds a Moto phone in terms of dropping calls?

The "raw data" I don't buy. It isn't referenced, and I simply don't believe it. I always had a connection with my Galaxy, and always below 100 DBMS. Never had a dropped call, not once. Verizon's LTE network and the associated handoffs can be problematic. The Sammy is just fine, though I had "other" issues with it. This is not truth or believable....it could be had it been sourced properly.....I am in disagreement, never disrespect.

 

[NoYankees44]

Not rtrying to start an argument here because I know that this subject is very subjective to area, but my rezound has never once lost 4g while in a 4g area. In doors out doors or otherwise. I even spend a lot of time in a shop under my colleges concrete stadium and never lost it down there.

Once again not trying to start a phone vs phone war, just adding to the mix sense the rezound was one of the phones tested and compared.

 

[Droid800]

So have a lot of people. Generally you have to go through several replacement devices before they let you go to another phone.



An opinion yes but with a lot of truth behind it. The iPhone is well known to be a mediocre phone at best wen it comes to signal

Last part used to be true. Newer iPhones use qualcomm radios, however, so its not an issue.

Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using Tapatalk

 

[bplewis24]

Uh, you do know that on your list, the only phone that shows your actual 4G dBm on the Status screen is the Nexus, right? All of the other ones are showing you dBm for 3G or 1x.

I find it hard to believe that the thread is this long, and the OP has this many "likes" and "thanks", and people are glossing over the FACT that all of the phones in the graph are showing 3G signal strength while the Nexus is showing 4G signal strength.

Not only that, but the Anandtech article showed a Bionic and Nexus side by side with the logcat displaying the Bionic's actual 4G signal strength (which is the ONLY way to see it's 4G signal strength)...which matched the Nexus.

The OP has done a great job of displaying this information and doing some basic testing, but the information is in error.

Does anybody have a real world example of where the Galaxy Nexus exceeds a Moto phone in terms of dropping calls?

Not me, because I owned both phones and neither one dropped phone calls, although the Bionic did lose it's 4G connection slightly more. But I believe that was due to the network and not the phone. It was still pretty new to Sacramento at the time.

Brandon

 

[Johnly]

I owned a Bionic as well, and that did drop calls. That was the reason I ditched it.

 

[ultravisitor]

Ok, let's get real. I was trained in science. A degree in computer science from UCLA. The test shown in the first post here is interesting. However, that's all it is. It only shows various tests over a short period from one guys house. Not much scientific about that. We don't know anything about the terrain, the cell tower, the location. The same tests performed a mile away may have been completely different. This was not anything near scientific in any way, shape or form.

...

The only solution is to get down off the high horse, no matter the color of your horse, and realize that your point of view only represents your perception. Others have a different perception that you'll never be able to change.

Exactly.