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GSM Cell Phone Reception Quality?
A not-so-anonymous reader asks: "I am about to buy a new cell phone and my primary focus is on good reception quality, as I have bad network coverage at home. I made some tests using some phones I have access to and got a subjective rating of T610 < K500i < 6520 < V600i, where T610 means 'nearly no service' and V600i gives 'service even in the wine cellar'. Googling around did not give any useful hints. Has anyone compared the reception quality of current GSM phones via simple locations testing, or better yet with commercial GSM testing equipment?"
Go to Howard Forums and search/re-post your question. I'm pretty sure it's been discussed a quadrillion times.
I've had nothing but clear calls and good reception from my 2-months-old Sony Ericsson z520a. Pretty cheap, too, plus it's a quad-band world phone. By far the best phone I've ever had in terms of reception, voice quality, battery life, and general, all-around easy-to-use-ness in a small, palm-friendly clamshell.
B
"We must still have chaos within in order to be able to give birth to a dancing star." --Friedrich Nietzsche
I'm more familiar with CDMA, but both the noise floor and the signal strength determined reception quality. The noise floor is more of a factor w/ CDMA than GSM.
And different phones use different algorithms for computing "the number of bars", so definitely don't use that to compare phones.
T-mobile is the carrier. Now think, phone model is not the only consideration! As an aside, you should be able to compare the performace of the phone by doing a quick Google search on a few key factors such as: Max mW output, antenna dB rating, receiver sensitivity, etc.
I live in an area with bad reception from nearly all cell carriers. I switched from sprint to att after a friend's phone (a Siemens GSM phone) seemed to work much better at my house. So, my first ATT phone was a NEC 520, but I could hardly keep a call for more than 5 minutes. Eventually, I upgraded to a RAZR V3, and my reception has vastly improved. So, yes, there are huge differences in handset reception, but I haven't seen any qualitative comparisons between handsets.
You seem to be looking at phones in the 900/1800/1900 frequency range. Great for other parts of the world, but only 1 of those frequencies (1900 works in North America). You should look into a quadband or other triband phones that include the 850mhz range. Most mobile carriers in the US only sell these types of phones due to quality issues.
On slashdot, the standard reply should be....
I gave up my cellphone because my mom found it easier to shout down to the basement to tell me dinner was ready.
liqbase
...and I found that GSM, by and large sucked. So did most other digital cellular phones. My finding determined that analog phones provided the best sound quality, without exception!
In case you hadn't figured it out yet, digital communications of any kind is better for the provider than the consumer. For the consumer/quality, analog is always the better choice.
You may fire ^h^h^h^h moderate when ready.
I've never used anything but GSM (it's the standard here in the UK). But I've always had good reception. My current phone's a Nokia 3220, it was cheap as hell, and I can use it as a GPRS modem on my laptop.
The dude asks for objective test results, and you give him the usual subjective anecdotes. I too have a Z520A, and I too get good reception. But is it because it's a GSM phone? Or is it because I happen to be in an area that's well served by Cingular?
I have T-Mobile. The T stands for tenuous, but when I'm
...But it wasn't as
near a tower the voice quality is excellent.
Trying to determine the best phone is just about impossible
however, because of the variations in the phones themselves.
Sad to say, but after the "bag phones" each generation after
got a little worse in terms of build quality. I have a V66
from Motorola, which I've dived into a couple of times now,
to tweak things and make it more reliable. My wife's V66
was never as sensitive as mine, such that in null spots I
could often get a signal and make a call when hers could
not. Looking around for others with T-Mobile at school she
found the T610 which performed better than her phone, so I
scrounged one up on Ebay. I must say, this phone does a
great job of picking up *everything* in a room. You could
consider it a bugging device almost.
sensitive as the one that convinced her to get one, which
was another data point that todays phones are really rather
random in terms of their quality.
I think the best bet is to buy a phone at some place where
you can take it back if you don't like it.
I assume that you're in the United States.
A few simple rules of thumb should see you clear:
1) You should try to get a phone which supports the 850 band, as this gives far better in-building coverage than 1900.
2) The network you choose probably makes more difference than the phone you choose. Choose the network with the best coverage in your area, if you're in a poor service location.
3) There's not that much difference between the sensitivity of different GSM phones - they all have to meet the same RF specifications, and few beat them by very much. However, an external (stubby) antenna, while possibly causing an unsightly bulge in your trousers, will probably give silghtly better reception in practice than one with an internal patch antenna, if only because you won't get the attenuation from your hand while you're holding it.
4) Please, please don't use the signal strength meter as a guide. A true story: some years back I was working for a manufacturer whose new phone was slated by a magazine for "poor sensitivity". We tested the review phone when it came back and it was working very well. We loaded some new software which showed full signal strength for a relatively poor signal (about -97dBm, IIRC), and sent it (exactly the same phone) back. In the next issue the magazine printed a note to say that they had since tested a new sample of our phone which was much more sensitive...
5) If you're really still looking at marginal differences, Motorola phones often have slightly better sensitivity than average in the 1900MHz band. Alternatively (may not be what you're looking for as UMTS, not GSM), phones with the Qualcomm chipsets can be tuned to turn in very good performance. I have an LG U880 which pulls a signal when most others fail. I must admit an interest here, as a Qualcomm employee, but our GSM/GPRS implementation really is among the best around.
If you want good reception just get a sheet of aluminum foil and hold it up next to the phone. It works.
Don't know about the middle two, but I've owned a T610, V600i and K750i (I'm assuming you mean a Sony Ericsson V600i here). I'd say (for GSM reception) T610 K750 V600. The new K800 (combined features of V600/K750) looks amazing though, if you can wait and afford it...
The V600i has the best reception by a long way, and is also a world phone - it'll even work in Japan. It will use a 3G network where one is available, which gives it far superior quality than the GSM handsets. I always get very clear reception if I'm using mine in the city.
Have a look at booster / amplifiers. www.smoothtalker.com sells the top of the line for that. Their website doesn't show europe models but you can call them and they'll have that information for you (just picked one up for my dad who is taking a trip to Italy soon).
I use (North American) one for my ride up to the cottage (and at the cottage).
*IF* you end up with one of these non "North American" you can use it effectivly with T-Mobile. They are 1900 MHz only throughout the US. I had to use them to use my XDA 2 in the US.
Humor from a Genetically Molested Mind
I on the other hand have the leaden ear of an engineer and the engineering skills of an orchestra conductor. But, I use cell phones a lot. I use my phone around 3500 prime time minutes a month, and I don't have any idea how many non-prime I use. I charge my phone nightly, and it usually needs it. I send over 1000 text messages a month. And, all I care about is how well they work. I don't care about the camera, I don't care about the video games, and I don't care about the lifestyle accessories.
All cellular systems suffer from the flaw that structure, geography and EM interference separate you from their network. That aside, you then look at the robustness of the protocols, the length of talk time, how well they work in noisy environments, what they make your voice sound like on the other end, whether or not you can hear the ring tone, how easy is it to place a call, how easy is it to add a number to the address book.
The really important thing to ask is how well does a given phone and network perform in the places where I need to use it? For me, it's the office, my house, my car and in large international cities. I need a reasonably up to date phone that supports all the network features.
Given these criteria, a GSM world phone is the only phone for me.
The most trying environments for my phone seems to be switching cells in rush hour traffic, my brother's house and a 150 yard stretch between my San Francisco apartment and I-80.
That said, I have settled on T-Mobile, because with them I get the talk time and text message count I need, and their international support is very good (after all my first T-mobile account was in the UK).
Now, onto the question asked. Assuming GSM and T-mobile, my history has led me to the Nokia 6230i.
I have used Motorola, Nokia, Samsung and Sony within these parameters and my conclusions are as follow:
[
and V600i gives 'service even in the wine cellar'
What an ostentatious name for your parents' basement!
I haven't used the other phones on your list, but I can weigh in on the T610 and the K300 (similar to the K500, but lesser gooda).
The T610 has great sound quality, is very well shielded (there is NO interference from the phone with my computer speakers), and the built-in software has a lot of little features to play with. The battery lasts for days (I use about 3 hours per day on this phone). I use bluetooth to get information between the phone and my T|X pretty frequently too.
On the dark side, the reception can be spotty. If you already know your reception at home is crap, this is not the phone for you. But when you have a good signal, it's as clear as a bell.
The K300 has slightly lower sound quality (still well within the usable range), and while the built-in software is simplified compared to the T610, it's also better. The reception is beautiful - I get a full-strength signal on this phone while the T610 actually disconnects from the network in places.
The problem I have with this phone is the shielding - my computer speakers go absolutely postal when this phone is about to ring. It also feels a little flimsy compared to the T610. I just wish it had bluetooth.
Dammit, I meant to post that anonymously!
It's also free from most providers, or can be had for $50 or less elsewhere. If you're looking to just try it out, hunt down a T-Mobile ToGo Nokia 6010 Starter Kit. This is T-Mobile's prepaid service, but the phone is the same as what you'd get on a postpaid account. Being that it's in a prepaid kit, you can usually return it to the store within 30 days and get your money back.
Also, being a Nokia, it's very easy to unlock so that it will accept the SIM of any provider. It also comes with support for both 850Mhz and 1900Mhz frquencies.
Give it a try - It just might suit you.
Consumer Reports reviewed phones, including this very feature, a couple months ago. http://www.consumerreports.org./ I think a subscription is required for that article, but it's only ~$25.
get a cell phone repeater. $500 or so, maybe.
You bet - all you have to do is shove a wire up it. A short wire.
noone's mentioned the Motorla V330. Waay more reliable than the V300, a decent camera, if it does take a long time to register the picture saves. I had no dropped calls, awesome reception everywhere but on the local mountain (cingular phones had reception up there, not my T-Mobile) and decent media features. I wouldn't recommend using the AIM client on it, it has some issues with 100+-member buddy lists.
But I lost that phone and upgraded to a T-Mobile (HTC) SDA (Hurricane) smartphone. Aside from the fact that it runs Windows Mobile instead of everyone's favorite operating system, and that the keys are incredibly close together and small, it's the best phone I've ever had occasion to handle. Relatively inexpensive, too.
Unfortunately, thanks to my credit rating, I am on SmartAccess for another 4 months, before I can get the data plan, so I can't really report on its GPRS/EDGE speeds or quality, but it does have decent WiFi support.
It doesn't use a standard mini-USB cable to connect to the computer, although it does charge with the same USB cable as I use to connect my PSP up.
This is not the sig you're looking for.
Honestly, is the mobilphone stoftware stable?
I have so far owned Siemens, Nokia and Motorola.
I hate to admit that the Nokia phones seemed to be the stablest ones: no hangups, excellent battery. But rumors out there say that there are plenty of SMS and MMS exploits out there in the wild for Nokia. And I don't like the menu system.
Both Siemens M35i and Motorola V220 tend to lock up and lose 80% of their battery capacity after about 1.5 years.
The antenna sensitivity seemed to be equal to all phones. But sometimes the callee complained that my voice was low when I used the Motorola V220.
stay away from samsung phones when you have GSM service...everyone i know who has one always blames the service provider when they don't get good reception, but i have a moto V551, and get flawless service at the same places the samsung owners get little or no service. Though i hear their CDMA phones are much better.
Linux is to the internet as Duct Tape is to the Universe.
I just wish you could get REAL specs - Sensitivity, S/N ratio, selectivity, image rejection, Audio Power - all the full specs that a REAL 2 way radio would give you - lets face it, that's what a cell phone IS
-- 73 de KG2V For the Children - RKBA! "You are what you do when it counts" - the Masso
I'd really like this phone except for three things: you can't assign different rings to different callers, the stupid camera button sticks out and gets pressed all the time making an annoying sound which can't be turned off, and the voice and microphone volume levels can't be controlled.
It's not the phone dropping the call - it's the network.
Each GSM cell phone tower can only handle a finite number of calls. Any more than that and you'll either fail to dial a call, or if you're handing over from one cell to another (and remember, GSM cells are quite small on some networks dependant on frequency) then you'll drop the call.
The GSM specs are even bright enough to force dropped calls if a user is in a cell that's full to capacity, and someone dials an emergency number - in this case it'll drop a few calls to let yours through.
You'll notice that some networks advertise their low dropped call rate...
...because some /. geek would sue them for it not working in his faraday-cage-lined basement.