3GS Reception Worse than 3G Reception

Kix

We live in a bit of a reception blackspot. When my wife got her 3G a year ago, she had very patchy reception at home (often "No Service'). Then Apple issued a OS patch and receptions issues cleared up considerably. Always has a signal now.

I brought my 3GS home today. Having problems getting a signal at home. Putting it side-by-side with the 3G, the 3GS is consistantly worse, when it connects to the network at all. It looks a lot like the day-one 3G.

Hopefully, this is a temporary glitch, and will get resolved, but the 3Gs was supposed to have faster connection speeds out-of-the-box.

I found one thread on the net where someone who was seeing something similar (but not as severe, just dropping back to Edge from 3G more often) claimed Apple told him that it was just that the signal strength indicator was more responsive in the 3GS. Don't know if I believe that though, there's no sign that my wife's 3G is losing network ever, and at the monent, my 3GS rarely has a connection.

Anyone else in a position to do a side-by-side comparison? I'd love to know how you get on.

Kix

A blurry-cam shot of the two phones beside each other (not that anyone didn't believe me, but still...). Despite the poor quality of the shots, it's easy to make out the relative signal strengths.

O2_Daryll

I saw someone with this issue earlier and he left it fully charge for a while and it fixed the issue. Do you want to give that a try.

Kix

Talk2O2: Daryll wrote: »

I saw someone with this issue earlier and he left it fully charge for a while and it fixed the issue. Do you want to give that a try.

Thanks Daryll, I'll give that a try.

TaxiManMartin

Ive noticed that even the normal iPhone cant get reception where most other phones can easily.
The phone would show no bars where the others would show 2.
Its terrible at picking up a signal in a hell of a lot of places.
More dropped calls than any other phone ive used too.
I would have thought the new iphone would have been better.

I'd love an iphone but the reception issue is the one thing that bugs me.If i get a contract iphone and i have no reception,what are the chances of the contract being cancelled?
A relative called to my home last week with the new 3gs to show it off,but he had no reception whereas my O2 Sony Ericsson had full bars.If this was resolved i would get one straight away!

eirlink

kix
try moving the phones apart.
the 3g is paging the base station in close proximity to the 3gs.

just as an experiment

beezkneez

i am also having signal strength issues with the 3GS. its my first iPhone so i have no idea what the 3G was like. I have just moved from Three where i never had issues with reception wherever i was but now just at home and work it does my head in that i have to move around when i get a call to get clear reception.
Apple would want to sort it out pronto or else it aint fit for purpose.

Leatherman

I'm having the same problem with a new iPhone 3gs- the reception is a complete disaster. I never ha a problem in my home before but now I constantly loose all reception "no service"! I hope a new fix will be sorted for this soon.

time42play

Same problem, though my old Motorola got 2-3 bars most of the time my 3GS constantly loses the signal. Perfect 4-5 bar reception everywhere I travel though!

blankcanvas

there are 3gs,3g and 1st gen iphones in our household and the 3gs isnt a patch on the other models.very dissapointed and even more so that apple havent addressed the issue.

byte

Same issue here, which is a shame, as otherwise, I love this phone.

BeeDI

Well, I have been seriously thinking of going to the iPhone, and have done a good bit of checking and research this past few weeks. Bottom line is I have spoken to 6 different users of the 3GS, and all say they are just totally frustrated with the reception issue. It's just awfull. It is a world wide problem, and Apple are not really doing anything serious about it.

It's believed to be a hardware issue, relating to the Infineon chip on board the phone. No amount of firmware or software updates will fix it for first genaration 3GS phones. Anybody thinking about getting a 3GS would be advised to wait another 6 months minimum, untill the manufacturing problem is resolved.

tadhgin trean

My experience with 3GS reception

upgraded from the 3g to the 3GS just before christmas. Reception was terrible on the 3gs. Its not the signal because I had no probs with the 3g.
Calls at work are going straight to voicemail. At home, (where I can see the base station out the upstairs window) it constantly drops calls. The call fails on at least half all calls
Brought it back to the O2 shop. Was issued with a new one just after christmas. No improvement.
Been holding on for a patch from apple or my bill from O2 to see the dropped call stats.
Drops voicemail all the time, sometime I have to check voicemail on the landline
It's definitley going back to apple again, very dissappointed with the 3GS.
I'd be wary if you havn't upgraded

cmyk

I wish I had bothered to search boards for this issue, switched last friday and completely frustrated with lack of signal. 5 people I knew have the 3GS and I asked them all individually was it worth getting...none of them flagged reception issue, batt life being their main grouch. I've missed calls everytime I walk into a shop!