[Q] Poor reception on moto x? - Moto X Q&A

After 9 painful months of using an HTC 8X windows phone (the pain was in the OS, not the phone) I was ready to get a new android phone. Finally there were new releases and picked up a moto x. While I like the phone and availability of apps I was missing, the signal quality is no where near that of the HTC 8X. This is both in phone call quality and 4G data reception.
So, has anyone else noticed this, or experiencing similar symptoms?
captain video

My reception has been better on this phone than all of my previous ones. That includes literally every flagship that Sprint and AT&T have had since the HTC Hero. Motorola is famous for their radio quality. Not sure what's going on in your case but I know the vast majority of Moto X owners are quite pleased with it in this regard.
Sent from my XT1058 using XDA Premium 4 mobile app

I have a Verizon Moto X and while in use, the reception is fine, I'm wondering how they decide to show their bars. I've NEVER seen this thing have a full 5 bars. I can be 3 feet from my network extender, and its 2 bars. It works fine, voice is clear, LTE with 3-4 bars is in the 30mbit range, but it has never hit 5 bars.

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Signal Reception, Moto or HTC One

im on my second htc one. reception is horrible, it wont stay on 4g, and barely has any signal on 3g. internet doesnt work most times i need it. are the moto phones better at receiving signal. im thinking of a moto x or a maxx. my time is almost up to exchange phone
thead73 said:
im on my second htc one. reception is horrible, it wont stay on 4g, and barely has any signal on 3g. internet doesnt work most times i need it. are the moto phones better at receiving signal. im thinking of a moto x or a maxx. my time is almost up to exchange phone
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Click to collapse
I had the One, and while I didn't have any issues with reception per se, I can tell you that the Moto X is hands down the most bulletproof phone I've owned in the reception department.
There's no real contest between HTC & Motorola radios (I have both) -- Motorola wins every time.
plasticmoz said:
There's no real contest between HTC & Motorola radios (I have both) -- Motorola wins every time.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Agreed, I have both and the X beats it easily.
My Moto X loses LTE a lot more than my GPe One.
I have had every Android phone to date and can safely say this Moto X and other Motorola phones have always had the best reception / RF quality
Sent from my XT1058 using XDA Premium 4 mobile app
thanks guys, i made the switch from htc one to moto maxx. and this phone is great. it has not left 4g since i got it 2 days ago. simply awesome and the huge battery is a bonus
Verizon one is terrible.. I have a network extender and it had a heck of a time changing between the terrible signal in my area and the extender. X is great... Best signal I've had yet.
My Moto X is the only phone that gets LTE where I work. Better reception then S3, N4. But best reception I've ever had was on my s2 I9100 (non LTE). That's the only phone that ever got signal on the subway in Toronto. I've had full phone conversations on the subway.
Sent from my XT1058 using Tapatalk 2
I had the One X & Atrix HD @ the same time. My Atrix HD always got the best reception whereas the One X struggle to pull the signal. I imagine its the same if not better with the Moto X.
We were out of town recently. My wife's Moto X had a signal strength of 23 ASUs. My HTC One X was 5 and I had only 4G whereas she had LTE.
Sent from my Nexus 7 using XDA Free mobile app
I had a Nexus 4 before getting my Moto X(XT1053) and the reception is noticeably better and the internet is more reliable when it's on LTE vs HSPA+. I'm on AT&T's GoPhone plan with my unlocked Moto X., and I live in an area with marginal coverage for most carriers. Anyway my Moto X and my Mom's Moto G LTE get great signal most of the time; I can't comment on the HTC One as I don't know of anyone who has one.

Data reception of Pure Edition on AT&T

If you have a Pure Edition on AT&T how is your data reception? Is your LTE better or worse? Do you have a harder time holding onto LTE and you are dropping down to +HSPA more often? Is your dBM lower on the Pure Edition? Or do you find the Pure Edition to have great reception?
I have not noticed any worse reception with LTE on my Pure Edition, coming from a Developer Edition Gen 1 Moto X. As far as I can tell my data connection is fine... and might actually be a little faster. But that could just be the faster device itself.
This is, of course, after I called AT&T to actually get access to the LTE network - at first I was stuck on HSPA and couldn't get any data, including Snapchat downloads. That took about 45 minutes online with a rep to give them my IMEI (I think that's all they needed) but it was completely painless and they might have fixed that issue already. The only reason I knew about it was due to a thread I saw either here or on reddit, but thankfully I saw that before I realized my data wasn't working.
Coming from a Nexus 5, my LTE reception is waaaay better. As much as I love the N5, its radios are definitely not one of its better qualities. Motorola is known for having among the best radios in the business, and of all the devices I've owned, both Moto X's have had the best reception.
Thanks. I bought a pure edition through swappa. I has always had great luck with Motorola and reception. I was just nervous because the Nexus 5 had terrible data reception for me and even the GPE HTC One was sub par compared to the AT&T version.
Reception has been great. Best of any phone I have ever owned.
I love the LTE reception on AT&T compared to my Nexus 5. I did notice today when i went to an area with crappy signal my phone didnt have any data. It kept showing LTE bars but i wasnt able to load any sites. I then had to force it to use 3G to get any data connection.
Anyone have similar issues?
I ordered a Pure Edition due to the Cyber Monday Sale and the fact that I have been reading a lot about the Engineering Motorola put into the radios in this device.
To prevent this becoming a primer on Antenna tuning and Impedance, suffice it to say Motorola developed their own custom antennae tuner for the Moto X, electing to not go with the Qualcomm offering. The take away here is that this special antennae tuner is capable of actually detecting capacitance changes at the antenna and adjusting the impedance accordingly.
So, one of my biggest reasons for moving from the Nexus 5 to the Moto X 2014 Pure Edition was the antennae which should give me (in theory) far better reception than my Nexus 5.
I am glad to see from other posters that it may in reality give me better reception on at&t, not just theory.
Dan

[Q] Signal strength (radios)

Hi everyone, waiting for my Nexus to get shipped from the GPS but I've seen some anecdotal reports on here and the Android Central forums about the signal strength not being so great on this phone. Specifically, some people report that their LG Nexus 5 shows a better signal in dB (not just bars) than their Nexus 6.
I'm a little concerned about this. I relocated just over a year ago to an area where I don't have the best coverage with Verizon at my work. At that time, I had a Galaxy S3 which had terrible radios where I literally had no coverage in many places. I upgraded to an S4 and had no issues since then although my wife's Note 3 seems to do slightly better getting LTE when I drop to 3G. Was looking forward to getting this phone as it will be my first Motorola and I've always read that Moto has some of the best radios (also read LG and Apple do too). Not gonna turn this into a Note 4 vs Nexus 6 thread because that one already exists and is a hot mess but I've been reading that the signal strength on the Note 4 is really good.
I have a ship date of 11/26 so I guess I'll find out soon enough but just wondering what people's experience has been with the Nexus 6.
Thanks!
I'm curious about this as well, I have a Nexus 4 and find its radios to be more powerful than my siblings and gfs Nexus 5s.
Sent from my Nexus 4 using xda-developers.com, powered by appyet.com
Mine has about the same reception if not a little better than my G3. Att is really bad where I live but I usually have LTE except for a few places but its much better than my wife's S5
i think people just get too caught up in graphical representations of signal (i.e. signal bars). Different phones and carriers show different things for the same level of actual signal. In my experience on T-Mobile on Long Island/ NYC - i get as good if not better signal than i did with my nexus 5. There are a few spots where i had no signal with my nexus 5 that i now get a stable weak signal with the nexus 6. To me, it really has been as good or better, but certainly not worse. With that said, graphically spots where the nexus 5 said i had full bars of service (5/5), the N6 reports as having (4/5), but the service is the same. Speed tests and dbm all match up, so i can just assume it's the way it's being displayed.
The sony Z3 I had had the same dbm that the Nexus 6 is showing in my office, but the visual bars on the Nexus 6 show as being lower. I haven't had any slower speeds anywhere with the Nexus 6 so far. One thing I have noticed is that I'm not getting 4G while on the phone the majority of the time. I haven't had that be an issue in the past. I'm on T-Mobile.
Now THIS is something that I have really been wanting to know. The fact that I too have heard about how good Moto's radios have been in the past really got my hopes up for this phone. I currently rock an AT&T Note 3. And IDK if I just got a lemon, or if Samsung really did throw the cheapest POS radio in their last year flagship phone. But of all the android phones I have owned (Sony, HTC, Moto, samsung) this one gets hands down the worst signal strength I have ever had. Further more, I make it a habbit to compare this thing to every other AT&T phone I can, from friends and family. And not one of them has ever had worse signal strength than I. The closest one had about -3dB less than mine. Most had -5 or even -10dB better. Even after flashing every single AT&T radio firmware, different cases, it still is just terrible. Right now sitting in my house it is at -100 and showing 3 bars. I work as a drive tester for cell towers, and my test phone is a sprint Nexus 5. So I cant compare it to my note, being on a different network.
But on to the topic of the N6, since it has radios for pretty much every network, would that mean that said radios are of a lesser quality? I had really hoped that this phone would blow my Note 3 out of the water on AT&T. Honestly, even if it isn't as good as other Moto phones, it still has to be better than my Note 3. Even dads S5 active and moms S4 get much better signal strength numbers than mine. Forgive me for asking this, but is this something that can be improved within the dev community with some flashing, or is it just a hardware limitation?
CCL X10 said:
Now THIS is something that I have really been wanting to know. The fact that I too have heard about how good Moto's radios have been in the past really got my hopes up for this phone. I currently rock an AT&T Note 3. And IDK if I just got a lemon, or if Samsung really did throw the cheapest POS radio in their last year flagship phone. But of all the android phones I have owned (Sony, HTC, Moto, samsung) this one gets hands down the worst signal strength I have ever had. Further more, I make it a habbit to compare this thing to every other AT&T phone I can, from friends and family. And not one of them has ever had worse signal strength than I. The closest one had about -3dB less than mine. Most had -5 or even -10dB better. Even after flashing every single AT&T radio firmware, different cases, it still is just terrible. Right now sitting in my house it is at -100 and showing 3 bars. I work as a drive tester for cell towers, and my test phone is a sprint Nexus 5. So I cant compare it to my note, being on a different network.
But on to the topic of the N6, since it has radios for pretty much every network, would that mean that said radios are of a lesser quality? I had really hoped that this phone would blow my Note 3 out of the water on AT&T. Honestly, even if it isn't as good as other Moto phones, it still has to be better than my Note 3. Even dads S5 active and moms S4 get much better signal strength numbers than mine. Forgive me for asking this, but is this something that can be improved within the dev community with some flashing, or is it just a hardware limitation?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Some radios worked a little better on my note 3 but some were worse ...it was a crap shoot. ....but none were far and away better ....like you my note 3 got horrible signal on sprint ....g3 was worse for me so this has to be better lol
nexus6R3plicant said:
Some radios worked a little better on my note 3 but some were worse ...it was a crap shoot. ....but none were far and away better ....like you my note 3 got horrible signal on sprint ....g3 was worse for me so this has to be better lol
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Haha I am not alone! Well, here's to better signal in the N6!!!
Seems to me that the nexus 6 reports low signal as time without signal. Hasn't been an issue here as I'm always connected to lte even in places I'd drop to 3g
So anything new on Signal? I'm trying to buy a Nexus6 but haven't been able to on Verizon. Hope there is some good news there has been a lot of bad.
wooddale said:
So anything new on Signal? I'm trying to buy a Nexus6 but haven't been able to on Verizon. Hope there is some good news there has been a lot of bad.
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Click to collapse
Best and most consistent connection/speeds of any device I've owned on Verizon.
Sent from my Nexus 6 using XDA Free mobile app
Make sure when u unlock your device that you change your cellular networks to LTE. When I unlock my device I wasn't getting no cell signal or phone call and I noticed my networks were set at ( Global ) so I switched it back to LTE.
mr pnut said:
Make sure when u unlock your device that you change your cellular networks to LTE. When I unlock my device I wasn't getting no cell signal or phone call and I noticed my networks were set at ( Global ) so I switched it back to LTE.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
What Carrier are you on?
wooddale said:
What Carrier are you on?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Tmobile
mr pnut said:
Tmobile
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Click to collapse
I'm on Verizon and really doesn't make much difference on my Droid Maxx. Maybe its something in 5.0. I gotta give it a shot can always send it back if I can ever get one. Pisses me off I got the money for the phone and I can't buy it. Maybe that's some kind of sign. lol
I get a little better signal than my wife's Note 4 in the same locations. She has an otterbox commuter case on though and I'm still running around naked.
I have similar experiences with my N6, or had. I've only had it for 2 days though, but I was having signal drop out and 3g/LTE switching a lot yesterday. I changed my APN protocol to IPV4/IPV6 instead of IPV6 and today its been fine. I don't know if that actually had anything to do with it or not, but thought I'd share. I think its just a coincidence and for some reason my signal just decided to work better. Worth a shot.
So I changed to LTE and now I don't have a global option.... I travel internationally for work very expensively (T-Mobile free worldwide data ftw) and had found previously on my Nexus 5 that I needed to be on global for it to work anywhere else...
Any ideas here?
When there's a CDMA SIM in the phone (Verizon/Sprint), it shows the global option where it can use both CDMA and GSM networks. When there's a GSM SIM in the phone (Tmo, AT&T, etc.), it seems to go into GSM-only mode (no need to display global, which seems to mean GSM+CDMA in the Nexus 6's case).
EmperorX said:
So I changed to LTE and now I don't have a global option.... I travel internationally for work very expensively (T-Mobile free worldwide data ftw) and had found previously on my Nexus 5 that I needed to be on global for it to work anywhere else...
Any ideas here?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
pdagal said:
When there's a CDMA SIM in the phone (Verizon/Sprint), it shows the global option where it can use both CDMA and GSM networks. When there's a GSM SIM in the phone (Tmo, AT&T, etc.), it seems to go into GSM-only mode (no need to display global, which seems to mean GSM+CDMA in the Nexus 6's case).
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Interesting change from the Nexus 5. Previously, I had to be sure global was selected overseas as opposed to just LTE, so you can see why I was originally concerned. Good to know. Thanks for the info man!

Worse reception than 2013

I have both phones with me at my house that generally gets poor reception. I did a YouTube search and the 2013 x pulled it up quick. The 2014 x never completed the search. I'm going to keep the phone because it works fine in good coverage area but this is a disappointment.
Too add to this post my 2013 x has one to two bars saying 4glte the new one said h with no bars. Put it closer to my window and it showed lte with 2 bars. Definitely worse reception.
Sent from my XT1053 using XDA Free mobile app
I have also compared the two phones and find in some orientations the 2013 is better, in others the 2014 is better. Overall I suspect the 2013 has a better receiver/antenna system but it likely depends on which band the phones are using.
My home is definitely a dead spot but I can't even use the 2014 model here. Making calls is fine but data is useless.
Sent from my XT1053 using XDA Free mobile app

AT&T signal issues

Anyone else experiencing connectivity issues as well as signal quality issues..
Confirmed with other users but they are on Sprint.
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G920A using XDA Free mobile app
My signal is the best it's been with AT&T so far. Had a Nexus 5 and 6 on AT&T prior.
I wonder if the phone was using WiFi and LTE together because the WiFi here is slow.
EXYZ1000 said:
Anyone else experiencing connectivity issues as well as signal quality issues..
Confirmed with other users but they are on Sprint.
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G920A using XDA Free mobile app
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I unfortunately agree with you .... To be honest it seems that the fancier and better our smartphones have gotten, the worse my AT&T reception has gotten. I complained regularly about my M8 and I'm not sure that the S6 might not be worse.
I helped my M8 by forcing 3 or even 2G where it seems the towers are better or the radio is better for non LTE ??? Not sure if we can force 3G with the s6
EXYZ1000 said:
Anyone else experiencing connectivity issues as well as signal quality issues..
Confirmed with other users but they are on Sprint.
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G920A using XDA Free mobile app
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I have noticed it too. It happened to my note 4 after the latest update. All of a sudden I was getting weak 4g signal when I used to get lte. Then I noticed the update had changed my apn from "phone" to "next gen phone" or something like that. The "next gen phone apn" is the same as comes stock on our s6. When I manually input the old apn I find my signal gets better again on both devices. Maybe it's my imagination but I think it's worth trying.
When I was using my nexus 6 at home id get either 3 bars or none, very odd. But with this I get 2 or 3 consistently, never none so I'd say mine is much better
On LTE in the NYC area signal us better than my S5.
Yep I too am having an issue. I'm in Apex, NC. My previous phone was a HTC One X+. In my house, I had almost a full LTE signal with my X+. Now with my S6 I only get one to two bars in my house with no LTE. Even outside....
I'm reading online that all carriers are having issues with the S6.
Bars aren't always the perfect indicator of actual strength, especially across different devices. How about doing a speed test?
ChristopherXDA said:
Bars aren't always the perfect indicator of actual strength, especially across different devices. How about doing a speed test?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
In terms of signal strength my signal is -113 dBm in and outside my house. Everytime I get a call now my calls drop or are static. My HTC One X+ never did that. People are asking me what kind of phone I have and telling me my new one sounds like crap.
ManchuWarrior said:
In terms of signal strength my signal is -113 dBm in and outside my house. Everytime I get a call now my calls drop or are static. My HTC One X+ never did that. People are asking me what kind of phone I have and telling me my new one sounds like crap.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Strangely, I'm having the dropped calls intermittently as well. Weirdly enough rebooting the phone helps
Obviously I don't want to have to reboot just to make calls
I've been experiencing signal issues as well.
recently, I noticed there is a spot that is showing up on all my pics. lens glass is clean, so it's definitely on the actual lens itself. Even more strange, around the time I noticed this, my signal quality has dropped off dramatically. I go into my basement, I lose all signal reception (this isn't a 1950's bunker. I've always had reception in my basement - cell towers are nearby).
my wife has an s6 as well, and sitting them side by side outside on my patio, her phone has significantly better signal strength. Guessing I got a lemon. New one is already on it's way.
What type of cases do you all have on these phones? I've read reviews on the aluminum cases or aluminum bumpers cutting the cell signal and GPS signal significantly.
she has a silicone spigen case. I have the spigen slim armor. Neither had aluminum. she had significantly better signal strength on her s6.
I got home last night, at this point tired of the signal issues while waiting for the replacement to arrive. when i looked at my signal, I had 2 bars of 4G. Took out the sim, popped it into my old M8, signal was 4 bars of LTE.
EXYZ1000 said:
Anyone else experiencing connectivity issues as well as signal quality issues..
Confirmed with other users but they are on Sprint.
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G920A using XDA Free mobile app
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I've had poor signal too. By that I mean -101dbm or worse almost constantly, sometimes I will see -96, but generally its between -100 and -112dbm.
I have been on ATT in the same town for years. I have four other Android phones in my house (galaxy s3, Note 2, Lg G2, and Xperia z3), and they all get better signal strength than the S6.
I couldn't be heard on calls, so I complained to ATT and exchanged the phone. FWIW, I had (and am now on my second) 64gb gold colored s6.
I went through trouble shooting with the ATT tech services people and with the Samsung tech support people, they did all sorts of resets, and I even had me boot the phone into safe mode (from off, hold power button, then release it and hold volume down until it boots up).
I am a long time reader of XDA and am posting now because both ATT and Samsung said they had "no reports" of signal issues with the ATT S6. People with signal problems should post about it to get the word out. From what I have read, the s6 is the first or one of the first phones to feature Samsung's own cellular modem instead of Qualcomm's. Maybe its no good, hopefully its just buggy and things will get updated quick.
I was able to put my phone into Testing Mode by dialing #*#4636#*#* and change try different radio settings. The only one that improved signal was "GSM Only"
Switching to that radio setting made my signal go to -80dbm. But of course, GSM-only means 2g edge data. But for now, I am thinking about switching to it when I need to make a phone call.
professormad said:
I've had poor signal too. By that I mean -101dbm or worse almost constantly, sometimes I will see -96, but generally its between -100 and -112dbm.
I have been on ATT in the same town for years. I have four other Android phones in my house (galaxy s3, Note 2, Lg G2, and Xperia z3), and they all get better signal strength than the S6.
I couldn't be heard on calls, so I complained to ATT and exchanged the phone. FWIW, I had (and am now on my second) 64gb gold colored s6.
I went through trouble shooting with the ATT tech services people and with the Samsung tech support people, they did all sorts of resets, and I even had me boot the phone into safe mode (from off, hold power button, then release it and hold volume down until it boots up).
I am a long time reader of XDA and am posting now because both ATT and Samsung said they had "no reports" of signal issues with the ATT S6. People with signal problems should post about it to get the word out. From what I have read, the s6 is the first or one of the first phones to feature Samsung's own cellular modem instead of Qualcomm's. Maybe its no good, hopefully its just buggy and things will get updated quick.
I was able to put my phone into Testing Mode by dialing #*#4636#*#* and change try different radio settings. The only one that improved signal was "GSM Only"
Switching to that radio setting made my signal go to -80dbm. But of course, GSM-only means 2g edge data. But for now, I am thinking about switching to it when I need to make a phone call.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Same.....
FWIW i have my s6 (g920I) sitting here with one bar of LTE but under settings/About/status it is showing that my LTE is fluctuating between -109 and -112 db....On my wife's M9 it is showing 3 bars of LTE but under the settings her signal is actually worse than mine at -116 to -119 db....so it seems like the reception is better on the S6 but the bar display may be off...
I just switched from a Nokia Lumia 830 Windows Phone. I had a S4 and S4 Active before that. We just bought a new house, I work from home in a basement office. I had issues with calls dropping and failing to ring. Texts not coming through until I went upstairs, etc. The Lumia seemed slightly better. I've only had the S6 for a few days but I haven't dropped a call yet, and calls connect on the first dial, not third. Both phones show 1 bar of LTE. I was worried the metal would have issues ala iPhone 4. But not only is it more reliable the call quality seems better. I thought HD voice only applied to mobile to mobile, but toll free calls for conference calls sounds noticebly better on the S6 vs the Lumia and S4.
I still think a microcell would be nice, but way too expensive. Any suggestions on finding one cheap? I thought if I complained enough to AT&T with dropped and failed calls to prove the issue they would offer one. Buy 6 months and as many calls later, no luck.
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G920A using XDA Free mobile app
I have exactly same issue, but I'm using S6 Active.
Phone call drops everyday, I already requested a replacement, but I'm afraid it will be the same.
Oh, almost forgot to mention, my wife is using a unlocked T-mobile version S6 on my plan, and her signal is much better than mine.
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G890A using Tapatalk
I live close to a tower. 4 or 5 bars all the time, good sound quality, reliable data connection.

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