I drive a dump truck for a living and I'm out and about all over Florida. My OG Evo 4G (which now the wife has) only lost signal and dropped calls in the middle of nowhere which has only been a handful of times. My new Evo 4G I got for my daughter (which I used for a week) is on par with my OG Evo 4G. With this said, signal was consistant and steady and overall happy.
Now, the 3 Evo 3D's I had went into roaming whenever it felt like it and would drop calls almost worse than AT&T. At my house here where I have great signal, my 3D's would fluctuate between roaming and 4 bars depending on which way I was standing. My wife would call and all would be fine till I would decide to walk outside and get a cig and it would start to break up. This wasn't here and there, this was consistant. On the road, the 3D was worthless. I was roaming more than anything else. I wouldn't care to much, but it dropped calls for no reason...unnacceptable.
Today was the test with the photon as I just got it yesterday (traded my evo 3d). Rock solid signal. I dropped one call but I was in a known bad area to begin with. Otherwise, wife said she could here me much...MUCH more clearly and it was solid. Only went into roaming once (in that bad area) otherwise I had 4-6 bars everywhere I went and the calls I made and received proved it. So yes, this Photon...IMHO...has a much stronger radio so the signal was outstanding. In your case though with your friend, side by side can give you an idea what it's like there at that moment. Now get in a car and drive around into wishy washy areas and watch that Photon perform!