Using my T-mobile sim in the i8510, I notice the signal appears much worse than the N95. At first, I was annoyed, but now it seems like it might just give a different scale than have crap reception.
e.g. on my N95 i get full 3G everywhere upstairs. On i8510 it can vary from 5-6 bars down to 1 bar. I thought it was getting a crap signal, but I noticed theres some places where my N95 wont work but I get 1 bar GSM/3G with i8510. Both on T-mobile.
My conclusion is that they both have similar reception in reality, but the i8510 only shows a strong signal if there is a very strong signal, while the N95 is happy to consider less of a signal "full", then drop off to none very quickly.
Anyone else got any thoughts?
I am experiencing the same issue with my 3 SIM card. It gets full bars for signal in my old 6120 Classic but only a couple with my new i8510.
Same here on o2 in the UK. Next to my N95 and wife's C902 the i8510 shows about a third of the reception the other phones get.
I think this is affecting the battery life as well.
My N95 has always been better in Low Signal areas than my old HTC phone.
I "show" slightly less than my N95, but much more than my W960i, but in terms of actual performance (which is what counts) the signal is just as good, if not better than my N95 and significantly better than my W960i.
For example, on the 8510, I get HSDPA coverage even if I only have 1 bar of network - there's no way my N95 can do that!
Ive also found this as a problem with the i8510
the reception is very very poor. its always around 3 bars. GSM reception is better than 3g reception
im on the o2 network and with the N95 the reception always shows full and never looses 3g reception but with the i8510 its about 3 bars and sometimes falls back on to Gsm reception
the only time ive really seen it full 3g reception is while driving around in the car
I am also having poor reception in areas where reception has never been a problem with any of my previous phones (N95, 6630, 6600, SEw800i, 3510i)...
I'm referring to my house,where I would always get full, or near full bars in my bedroom.
I am currently looking at my i8510 which is saying "Searching..." where it should say 02.
This is clearly not right, and not a result of the sim card which works perfectly in any of the above phones I have mentioned...
I agree with the above the sammy doesnt seem to have as good an signal as a N95.. but its never dropped a call either
mine has been good, never dropped a call whereas my D900 would
You've got to remember that what you see in terms of "bars" of reception means absolutely nothing at all! Those bars are merely an indicator and bear no real relation to what's actually going on. And of course it's completely up to the manufacturer as to how those bars represent the available signal.
The point about reception is whether you actually get a signal and whether you can make a phone call / access data with that signal.
In that respect the 8510 seems very good; it is certainly good at holding on to a signal in known weak areas.
So...the fact that it may "show" less signal than an N95 means jack - the signal is clearly as good if not better!
Sorry Stu, but my experience is based on experience, not the bars shown...
The fact it can't always pick up a network in my bedroom makes it worse than my old N95 in that respect... I either get "Emergency Calls only" or "Searching...", so it doesn't even appear to be network specific. If that was the case I'd get Emergency calls only all the time.
Further more, it periodically has signal outage during phone calls. By that, I mean that I can be talking to someone and their voice will periodically drop out, and it will sound like they're not saying every other syllable. Again, that had never been an issue with my N95, and doesn't seem to be specific to any particular area. It just happens during a random selection of phone calls.
I can confirm that the number of bars appears lower, but when the phones call do work, and hav elow level signal, the sound is clearer than on my N95. Its just that a larger percentage of phone calls seem to fail either partially or completely.:con?