Note 5 compared to Note 4 reception - Galaxy Note5 Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting

How does the reception on the Note 5 compare to the Note 4 ?
Sent from my SM-N910R4 using Tapatalk

I have been working on a business trip on long Island where the Verizon signal is really lousy. On the Note 3 with the weak signal, the phone would drop the calls all the time. I switched to the Note 5 - and even when the signal is extremely weak the call is still crystal clear and rarely drop. Hope this helps. It sure helped me!

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[Q] Poor Wifi ?

as previous owner of a g nexus it's has very poor WiFi signal compared to other phones looking to get the note but it's has the same poor WiFi and disconnects every time ?
Not in my experience, no.
thanks that the reason that i sell my gnex loosing wifi all time
in mine dosen't disconnect or something like that.. but it's true that has poor wifi... for example now my laptop has full reception meanwhile the note gets1-2 out of the 4 bars...
My wifi seems pretty good most of the time. I get it at the other end of our hose where my laptop just fizzles out.
I recall reading a post here about different frequencies. Could it be your router has a frequency that the Note does not support well?
My Note is better than my Dell Studio laptop by far - the note will pick up the wifi when I pull up in my detached garage... and the router is in a bedroom at the back of the house. Best by far for wifi out of all the other phones I've had, and as a wifi hotspot too.
My bluetooth devices remain connected up to about 30 meters too.
Most of the Samsung phones I've used have poor wifi atleast compared to my iPhone 4 and my laptop but it's bareable
Galaxy Note GT-N7000 on Tapatalk
In fact compared to my SG2, the Note Wifi is better.
Sent from my GT-N7000 using Tapatalk
as a previous owner of SGS2 and current owner of Galaxy Note.
I can tell you, the WIFI in these phones are the worst I ever used, sam spot, same AP, same ISP.
the distant between the devices and the ap only has 10 -12 ft at best (has one concrete wall between them tho)
my iPad 2 and my old HTC desire has full bar WIFI signal
and SGS2 or Galaxy Note only has one bar , even they are connected to the AP but the connection is very unstable, sometimes the traffic is dropped even the wifi indicator still connected. the best scenario, the downstream has 5 mega bit per second, the upstream has 0.2mega bit per second.
horrible wifi modules in SGS2 and Galaxy Note I'd say
damm that sucks

Especially bad low signal battery life

My house has terrible reception in general (T-Mobile!), but I've never had a phone drain THIS quickly due to searching for signal.
I've set it to 2G only (I only get EDGE at my house anyway, THANKS OBAMA) and it seems to be helping.
Is the Nexus 5 or Kit Kat in general aggressive with searching for 3G/4G signal in anyone else's experience?
Like I said, other phones haven't had this issue.
Cheers
Sent from my Nexus 5
Ajfink said:
My house has terrible reception in general (T-Mobile!), but I've never had a phone drain THIS quickly due to searching for signal.
I've set it to 2G only (I only get EDGE at my house anyway, THANKS OBAMA) and it seems to be helping.
Is the Nexus 5 or Kit Kat in general aggressive with searching for 3G/4G signal in anyone else's experience?
Like I said, other phones haven't had this issue.
Cheers
Sent from my Nexus 5
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I have terrible signal too and standby time is horrible. I'll try using faux kernel and report back.
I have same setup as you except my network settings are set to LTE even though there is no lte in my area. Not saying i have great battery life, but it isnt 49% looking for signal.
Sent from my Nexus 5 using xda app-developers app
I have this SAME problem, and the signal on my phone is terrible compared to my last LTE phone.
same problem at work...... I dont know how 1 place can go from lte to 4g to edge all with in a small building with 1 floor. First day while being at school i got 3 hours screentime on lte, today at work i got like 1.5 hours.
27% over 12 hours with one bar seems just fine to me..
Sent from my Nexus 5 using Tapatalk
Mine reacts different with st att. I get 1 bar of lte in my home when I force lte. If I do auto switch gsm/lte it opts to 3 to 4 bars of hspa, which of course I prefer at home on Wi-Fi.
I've used tmobile for most of my smart phone life and always used tasker to switch to edge when connected to Wi-Fi. Saved a lot of battery. So your experience has been what I normally get.
Sent from my Nexus 5 using Tapatalk 2
I have T-mobile as well and my house is in a bad spot. I found that with my note 2 I could use the dialer debug codes to manually set the phone to what ever freq and service I wanted. I found this to greatly help my battery as the modems for T-mo are particularly bad at determining the correct type of service to use and needlessly killing battery.
Sent from my Nexus 5 using Tapatalk 2
At least I'm not alone. It's just annoying to have to switch to 2G only when I go home. -.-
Sent from my Nexus 5
Are you guys using wifi while at home? If not then you really should. It generally makes the data modem go into a lower power state if wifi is connected saving battery. Thats how it is on my VZW galaxy nexus.
blackhand1001 said:
Are you guys using wifi while at home? If not then you really should. It generally makes the data modem go into a lower power state if wifi is connected saving battery. Thats how it is on my VZW galaxy nexus.
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I do use WiFi at my house.
Sent from my Nexus 5
I have full data bars in my area. If I turn WiFi off and just use data the battery drains significantly faster.
I am new to T-Mobile, I was with Verizon and my house on Verizon barely gets LTE. My galaxy nexus never got LTE but with T-Mobile my Nexus 5 has 3-4 bars of LTE. So I've been using LTE lately and my battery life has been great. I get 5 + hours screen on time with LTE.
Of course Verizon says my area has great 4g service too but anybody who has came to my house either gets 1 bar of LTE or 3g on Verizon. Trying to acquire a signal will of course eat battery though but I will tell you what I am very happy with T-Mobile so far, a lot better then I expected.
I am happy with the battery life and signal strength where I live and travel to.
I noticed this issue today as well... hoping for a solution...
kgptzac said:
I noticed this issue today as well... hoping for a solution...
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Like I said, manually switching to 2G-only when you're in the affected area removes the problem, but you'll need to switch it back to LTE when you go anywhere with a better connection time. Settings > More > Mobile Networks > Network Mode.
If you're worried about battery life. There's a few things you can do. I found that turning off my "Ok Google" hot word detection increased battery life immensely. Also try turning off Google Now sometimes. I realize that the highlight of this phone more or less was Google Now, but if you don't need it for a certain period of time, turn it off. Doesn't hurt to try.
Try out Faux kernel also. On his test 7 (I think he just put out test 8) I was on track to get 60 hours of standby time. I'll try and dig up the screenshot..hopefully I didn't loose it one of my many wipes..
ZenithHammerhead said:
Try out Faux kernel also. On his test 7 (I think he just put out test 8) I was on track to get 60 hours of standby time. I'll try and dig up the screenshot..hopefully I didn't loose it one of my many wipes..
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Click to collapse
Do you mean Franco? Faux kernel is only on 002 beta 2, Franco's is on test build 8.
I had this problem and I sent my phone back and got a new one. The new phone doesn't do it at all just got a day and a half with over 4 hours screen time. I think some of the nexus 5's are a bit dodgy.
Sent from my Nexus 5 using XDA Premium 4 mobile app
D3_ said:
Do you mean Franco? Faux kernel is only on 002 beta 2, Franco's is on test build 8.
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Yes. Sorry, I had flashed both kernels and decided on Franco for now because it seems he's had the most progress so far. He also received his own device today so he should be able to get even more things done!
Looking forward to both of their kernels!
kurnis said:
I have this SAME problem, and the signal on my phone is terrible compared to my last LTE phone.
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+1. It looks like my N5 gets 5-8 dBm worse signal than my N4.

Stronger wifi

It seems that the Wi-Fi on the nexus 5 is a lot more sensitive then on the Nexus 4. With no changes in network gear I'm able to get WiFi in more places than before. It even stronger than my old HP laptop.
I noticed that as well although at first I paniced because the wifi bars would show weak signal.
Sent from my Nexus 5 using XDA Premium 4 mobile app
I've experienced the exact opposite.
It does do really well on WiFi huh? I was surprised a few days after I got it, sitting in a parking lot trying to swipe some free WiFi and the Tab 8.9 wouldn't connect, but the Nexus 5 did. It's almost on par with my HP ultrabook, which no mobile device has touched.
Does well on 5ghz too, which is a nice bonus, since I prefer to use 5ghz to avoid all the clutter on the 2.4g band.
yeah it's awesome. I live on the 6th floor of an apartment building and I was able to get signal from the first floor (not the void deck but in the open space surrounding my building though)
WiFi signal strength was my concern after a few users reported weak WiFi reception. My N5 got great WiFi reception, which is similar to SGS3/4 reception and better than iPhone 5 has.
Sent from my Nexus 5 using xda app-developers app
Moostafa29 said:
I've experienced the exact opposite.
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Same.
At home in my bedroom across the house from my router I would have no trouble with my N4. Not so much with my N5.
What is strange for me is that I can see APs that I couldn't see with my Galaxy S2, but the AP I m connected to has now a weaker signal.
I hope that is only software related...
wow!
A mostly positive thread about a nexus 5 feature. My WiFi is great and faster also than my htc's.
Mine consistently shows weaker signal on both Wi-Fi and mobile network compared to my s4. Using Wi-Fi analyzer I see more networks with my s4. I tried turning off n5 battery saving on Wi-Fi and it makes a slight difference. I feel the signal is weak for the n5.
Sent from my Nexus 5 using xda app-developers app
Any coverage of the top half of the back of the phone sees a big drop in WiFi reception for me.
If I'm in a different room from the router, even placing the phone down on its back sees a big drop in WiFi strength.
Those in this thread saying they have strong reception, what happens when you do the above?
waspattack said:
Any coverage of the top half of the back of the phone sees a big drop in WiFi reception for me.
If I'm in a different room from the router, even placing the phone down on its back sees a big drop in WiFi strength.
Those in this thread saying they have strong reception, what happens when you do the above?
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That can actually severely hamper landscape usage if true.
I did some testing and Wi-Fi speeds do match my S4 despite the meter reading showing lower signal. Also, even with 1 bar less than max for mobile, I get incredible LTE speed.
Sent from my Nexus 5 using xda app-developers app
Seems about the same to me vs the N4.
darkgoon3r96 said:
That can actually severely hamper landscape usage if true.
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I really had to cup my hand over top to get the signal to drop. So unless you hold your phone as if it was a baby bird, you should be fine.
I think the opposite of this phone. In the back of my house I get 1 bar on the N5. On my old S3 I would get 2-3 bars and wifi worked just fine. With the N5 and 1 bar wifi is not working nearly as well. I also noticed that the signal is weaker on the N4.
coolguy949 said:
Mine consistently shows weaker signal on both Wi-Fi and mobile network compared to my s4. Using Wi-Fi analyzer I see more networks with my s4. I tried turning off n5 battery saving on Wi-Fi and it makes a slight difference. I feel the signal is weak for the n5.
Sent from my Nexus 5 using xda app-developers app
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This is exactly what I've found as well. But to be honest, I think the S4 is able to get really good signal. I had a iPhone5 a couple of months ago and wasn't able to get signal in a certain part of my house (same with my N5). With my S4, I was able to get signal just fine.
Has anyone tried the 802.11ac band yet? I don't have a router that can broadcast on that.
Caelrie said:
Has anyone tried the 802.11ac band yet? I don't have a router that can broadcast on that.
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I am using 5ghz and as mentioned a couple posts above the signal seems worse at the back of my house. Maybe I will switch to 2.4ghz tonight and see if that makes any difference.
EcPercy said:
I am using 5ghz and as mentioned a couple posts above the signal seems worse at the back of my house. Maybe I will switch to 2.4ghz tonight and see if that makes any difference.
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But unless it's actually the ac wifi, you don't have access to beamforming, which is supposed to help with the range weaknesses of the 5ghz band. The nexus 5 is one of the very first devices to support it, so I'm curious.

How is signal strength?

In regards to the iPhone 6, or Note 4? I am wondering if the device has good signal in fringy locations? Does it hold onto LTE in weak areas?
+1
MattMJB0188 said:
In regards to the iPhone 6, or Note 4? I am wondering if the device has good signal in fringy locations? Does it hold onto LTE in weak areas?
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This^
Every Samsung phone I've had has horrible service. Defaults to 3G when in my pocket and the signal strength is never as good as other brands of phones I've had ( Motorola, Apple, HTC). The only variable being different is the name brand, I've always been on Verizon and lived in the same place. My note 3 always defaulted to 3G, I can count the number of times my iPhone has defaulted to 3G on one hand( not just looking at signal bar strength). I really want the note 5 but if the signal strength is worse or similar( I'm especially worried about the aluminum material used) to other Samsung phones I won't get it. Even if you have the best phone in the world it's only as good as the cell reception.
Thanks in advance.
I can't speak in terms of the note 4 or iPhone, but my previous phone was a Galaxy S4. In my daily life, I definitely notice that the Note 5 has WAY better signal strength than the S4. I used to sit at this bench, but I couldn't use any internet there (not even 3G!) so I stopped. However, my note 5 is picking up LTE 3/4 bars in an area where a 2013 flagship phone couldn't pick anything up . Definitely an upgrade. Sprint btw.
desertboy83 said:
This^
Every Samsung phone I've had has horrible service. Defaults to 3G when in my pocket and the signal strength is never as good as other brands of phones I've had ( Motorola, Apple, HTC). The only variable being different is the name brand, I've always been on Verizon and lived in the same place. My note 3 always defaulted to 3G, I can count the number of times my iPhone has defaulted to 3G on one hand( not just looking at signal bar strength). I really want the note 5 but if the signal strength is worse or similar( I'm especially worried about the aluminum material used) to other Samsung phones I won't get it. Even if you have the best phone in the world it's only as good as the cell reception.
Thanks in advance.
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Yeah this is what I was afraid of. Should be getting the device today. I had read it wasn't the strongest in the signal department, which is why I asked.
zingo1zang said:
I can't speak in terms of the note 4 or iPhone, but my previous phone was a Galaxy S4. In my daily life, I definitely notice that the Note 5 has WAY better signal strength than the S4. I used to sit at this bench, but I couldn't use any internet there (not even 3G!) so I stopped. However, my note 5 is picking up LTE 3/4 bars in an area where a 2013 flagship phone couldn't pick anything up . Definitely an upgrade. Sprint btw.
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Exactly what I wanted to hear. Thank you for clarifying this information.
So???
MattMJB0188 said:
Yeah this is what I was afraid of. Should be getting the device today. I had read it wasn't the strongest in the signal department.
So how is the signal strength? Are you on Verizon?
On a unrelated note ( pun intended). How is the speakerphone compared to iPhone 6? Another shortcoming of my note 3 was the weak speaker.
Thanks fellow xda'er.
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i live in a rural area and while in the house i barely get 3g and occasionaly switch to the roaming tower. outside lte and was able to stream spotifiy for 3 hours while cutting the grass without problem. coming from a note 2 it's a huge improvement (used get 1x out there or 3g with no throughput). my n6 on verizon is pretty much the same, but i get a slightly better lte signal in the house by the only window where i can catch it - the note 5 sprint does the same, but just not as strong.
On t-mobile its amazing. I have super strong signal and even gets me through old dead zones near my house without dropping calls. so color me impressed. I would say its MUCH MUCH better than the note 3, I was always loosing signal bars when driving but night and day from work to back now, no more dropped calls/dropped internet

Signal Strength Issue

So I got my Verizon Note 5 and have noticed two things over the last 3 days. Exceptionally fast battery draining and slower data speeds. I turned on my LG G3 that still has a verizon sim in it and noticed it had full bars while my Note had 2. Checked signal strength and it was -78dBm on the G3 and -102dBM on the Note5. I'm assuming it is pretty obvious that I have a lemon... Can anyone confirm my feelings based on these findings?
I got better signal than my Samsung galaxy S6 active full bar in my house now.

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