Signal strength vs other phones

[astraelraen]

I have a Verizon Galaxy Nexus and am looking for an upgrade. I love my Gnex but my phone has a terrible signal just about everywhere, but it is especially bad at my house . I went down to my local corporate VZW store to check out some phones today.

I compared every phone side by side with my Gnex, both showing the signal strength in dbm and asu rather than relying in bars. To my surprise every phone was within 4-5dbm of the Gnex. I looked at the LG G2, Moto X, Note 2 and the Droid Maxx. Surprisingly, the G2 consistently had a worse signal than my Gnex when comparing dbm....

My main upgrade motivation was better signal strength... my trip to the store popped my upgrade bubble.

 

[jephanie]

I had the Gnex as well and I can honestly say the Moto X does everything the Nexus should have done but didn't. The Moto's radios are MUCH stronger. With the Gnex, I could barely maintain a 3G signal in my office. But with the X, I have a very good 4G signal. It's amazing how much that helps with the battery life, too.

My Gnex struggled with holding a signal at my home, too, even though it is also deep inside 4G territory. But, again, the X has a good 4G signal.

No matter which way you slice it, the X has excellent radios. Compared to my son's S4, it is on par or stronger (which is at least a testament to Samsung finally improving their radios). But all the other things about the X make me happy I chose it over the S4.

 

[Steve-x]

An improvement of 4-5 dbm is quite a bit. Each 3 dbm is doubling the signal.

 

[anon(79053)]

I upgraded from the GNex to the Moto X on Verizon. The radio in the X is way better. 3G before at but now 4G. Barely 4G at home but now decent 4G. The Moto X is such an improvement over the GNex.

 

[Mark_Venture]

...showing the signal strength in dbm and asu rather than relying in bars. To my surprise every phone was within 4-5dbm of the Gnex.....

dBm is a logarithmic scale, not linear. i..e the difference between 4dbm and 5dbm is greater than the difference between 1dbm and 2dbm on the same scale.

 

[astraelraen]

Thanks for the tip. I did not realize dbm was that great of an increase.