moeSizlak

Now idk if it's just mine, but I just noticed that when the display is turned on there is a veeeeeeery faint high pitch whining sound coming from the speakers. Is anyone else having this issue?

Others have complained about this, and said it's worse when the display is set to dim.  I haven't noticed.

I'm with you. How can we verify whether or not it's true?

A reliable source on XDA is saying "thats not true...the back of the box lists the supported bands, which includes GSM".  I don't have the box with me to check right now,

I'm curious about the alleged lack of GSM and WCDMA.  I travel in Canada a lot and this would really suck if true.

Going to pick mine up in an hour.

This article claims the wifi antenna has major issues & suffers from "grip of death":

http://www.androidpolice.com/2016/04/19/htc-10-review-a-very-good-phone-but-one-that-costs-too-much-money/

Vis a vis wireless, traveling to Canada has now become almost no different from traveling to the UK.  You need a GSM/W-CDMA capable handset -- because Bell and Telus were basically asshats in preemptively ditching CDMA2000 for GSM/W-CDMA, circa 2008.  My understanding is that the CDMA2000 network now is almost entirely shut down, and Sprint has removed CDMA1X/EV-DO roaming from its latest PRLs.

 

Regardless, if you care about RF capabilities in your flagship handset, do not take anything for granted.  You should always read our FCC OET article before making a purchase.  And we typically publish within a day or two of the FCC OET authorization going online, thus usually weeks before the handset hits stores.

 

I have to assume that you did not read our article on the HTC One M9.  We devoted an entire paragraph to its lack of domestic GSM/W-CDMA bands (i.e. GSM 850/1900 and bands 2/4/5 W-CDMA).

 

 

http://s4gru.com/index.php?/blog/1/entry-383-summer-of-69-samsung-and-htc-rock-out-with-their-flagships-for-the-season/

 

AJ

Thank you for the information.  I did indeed read that post while I was researching this problem.  So does this mean the m9 is completely unable to roam in Canada, period?  I was able to swicth to GSM-only mode and get a strong Rogers signal.  However attempting to make any call resulted in the call immediately dropping.  I also had Sprint international "enable" my phone for roaming and they were the ones that advised trying GSM mode.

The M9 is the first HTC phone I have ever owned that does not work in Canada, at all.

The evo, evo 3d, m7, and m8 all worked flawlessly in canada. The m9 gets no signal. I called support and they also sent me to international support, and neither was able to get it working. Obviously roaming is enabled, as well as international voice. Still no signal whatsoever. I then went into *#*#4636#*#* menu and tried changing the preferred network type to every possible option. On the GSM options, the phone would actually get a signal, but whenever you attempt to make a call it just drops immediately.

I'm using the Sprint HTC m9 with (.30 OTA).  At home in Hamburg, NY I have no issues.  At work, on east side of Buffalo, NY, near intersection of E Delevan and Grider I get repeated and non-stop "Failed to initialize wireless data connection: EHRPD" followed by an error number which varies but in the last 10 minutes I've gotten -3, 65540, and 65535.

I didn't really have this issue with my HTC m8.  My m8 usually parked on a weak LTE signal and stayed there, my M9 is rarely on LTE.  So either network issues started around same time as a switched to m9, or the m9's radio is faulty.

Any ideas?

Actually, it looks as if the tower is now broadcasting on LTE band 41.  SignalCheck LITE reports:

UL Channel: 58978

DL Channel: 40978

Normally, when I'm on band 25, the app will also report the frequencies (ie, 1912.5 MHz).  But for some reason the app doesn't know what frequency these 2 channels are.  However I was able to find one website that claims that channel 40978 is band 41, 2628.8 MHz.

This means that Sprint is upgrading towers in Buffalo to use band 41.  This is cool because we're not getting any band 26 (800 MHz) action in Buffalo due our proximity to the worthless country of Canada.

However, I was literally about 1000 feet, line of sight, to the tower and was getting an extremely weak signal:

RSRP: -105 dBm (18 asu)

RSRQ: -8 dB, SNR: 18.6 dB, CQI: 1

Is this normal for band 41?

Thankfully, the tower came back online yesterday.

Yes. Definitely report it.

Very frustrating problem at my house in Orchard Park, NY.  I used to get a very good LTE signal from the tower located behind the firehall near 3426 Abbott Rd, Orchard Park, NY 14127 (near corner of Rt 179 and Abbott).  However for the last week (maybe more) that tower has not been broadcasting.  My phone now uses the tower near Ralph Wilson Stadium instead...which does not have LTE, and the 3G signal I get from it is so weak I often miss calls...  -100 dBm to -110 dBm

Would complaining to Sprint do any good here?

 

* My biggest complaint is the single radio path and the fact that the phone often does not connect to LTE even when there is a STRONG signal.  I've been told this is a tower/eCSFB issue not a phone issue.  I have a very strong LTE signal at both my home and my work, and most points in between.  All towers at home, work, and in between are at least 3G accepted.  Upon booting the phone, it will happily connect to LTE and stay connected.  If I drive for a while, to home or to work, it will switch to 3G and *never* switch back, ever.  Even if I drive back to where I started from (where I had a strong and consistent LTE connection).  The only way the phone will EVER connect to LTE again is if I either reboot it, or toggle airplane mode on and off.  That is very annoying.  However I do know that the LTE buildout in Buffalo is still underway.

 

The new radio firmware that came with the 1.54 update completely fixed this issue for me.

Interesting, thanks for the info.

 

Here's what I'm seeing with my HTC One M8 in Buffalo, NY:  I have a very strong LTE signal at both my home and my work, and most points in between.  All towers at home, work, and in between are at least 3G accepted.  Upon booting the phone, it will happily connect to LTE and stay connected.  If I drive for a while, to home or to work, it will switch to 3G and *never* switch back, ever.  Even if I drive back to where I started from (where I had a strong and consistent LTE connection).  

 

The only way the phone will EVER connect to LTE again is if I either reboot it, or toggle airplane mode on and off.

 

I am very frustrated and don't know if it is the phone, or an eCSFB issue, or what...

it's an eCSFB issue as you stated. My tower by be would do the same on my ONE max from November2013 till like maybe 3 weeks ago I had consistent tower irregularities due to that. Nothing is wrong with the phone. Sprint will just get to it optimize it when they can... So put it in your head it won't be fixed to July and go about your business. In the mean time u will have have to toggle the connection to keep it on if u don't lose it or hand off while in the same area.

The new radio firmware that came with the 1.54 update completely fixed this for me.

Happening to me too. I called Sprint and they said it's a site problem that bring fixed. Maybe it's not my site at all. If I take out and put back in the SIM, do I have to call Sprint to reactivate it?

I don't believe there is any SIM in the phone.  SIM's are for GSM.

I stand corrected, it does use one for LTE.

That's the way the screen was designed then.  There are a couple different ways to approach the issue and it appears HTC concluded that the best use case would be to allow viewing in landscape mode as most people will use polarized glasses while driving and you would still be able to see a nav app with the phone docked on your dash.

 

Here's a fun article that kind of gives an idea about how LCD's and polarization work and why you can't see LCD's properly with polarized glasses (they are already polarized).  http://lifehacker.com/5862795/hack-an-old-lcd-monitor-into-a-polarized-privacy-monitor/all

Sadly, that is not 100% true.  This article explains the problem:

http://www.zdnet.com/blog/apple/ipads-go-black-in-portrait-mode-with-polarized-sunglasses/12706

They could have used any of these solutions to allow the phone to look good in portrait OR landscape mode:

Using polarized sunglasses all iPads go black in Portrait mode. Other displays go black in Landscape mode. Much better is for the manufacturer to set the extinction at 45 degrees so the display looks good in both Portrait and Landscape modes. The Motorola Xoom behaves this way. Best of all, with compensating films this effect can go away almost entirely.

I kind of feel like they went cheap on this option.

That is a common issue with LCD displays and polarized glasses.  It is possible that previous LCD displays on phones you guys have used something to compensate for that like a circular polarization filter.  I'm curious, does this happen in both landscape and portrait mode?  IPads will do this in portrait mode and not landcape, I may have that backwards.

Wow.  You are absolutely correct.  When orientated in landscape mode the screen looks perfect with polarized shades.  When in portrait, it's barely visible.

Shentel must have pushed out an update last night in my area.  I've had the HTC One M8 since Thursday and needed to keep it in CDMA only mode to make and receive calls due to, what I assume, was the lack of CSFB in my area.  This morning, I put my phone back into LTE/CMDA mode and had LTE for my entire drive into work from Inwood, WV to Hagerstown, MD along Interstate 81. Before, my phone wouldn't connect to LTE in this area even when it was in LTE only mode.

How do you put it into LTE Only mode?  I do not see any such option.

I've been using my M8 for about 3 days now and here are my impressions:

* Build quality is awesome, much better than M7

* RF performance is better than M7

* I do not like M8's button placement.  I find it hard to turn the phone on or off without inadvertently pressing one of the volume buttons.

* I greatly prefer M7's recessed volume rocker to M8's non-recessed rocker.

* Very slippery, definitely need a case.

* For some reason the M8's screen is almost impossible to see when wearing polarized sunglasses.  The M7 did not have this problem at all.

* My biggest complaint is the single radio path and the fact that the phone often does not connect to LTE even when there is a STRONG signal.  I've been told this is a tower/eCSFB issue not a phone issue.  I have a very strong LTE signal at both my home and my work, and most points in between.  All towers at home, work, and in between are at least 3G accepted.  Upon booting the phone, it will happily connect to LTE and stay connected.  If I drive for a while, to home or to work, it will switch to 3G and *never* switch back, ever.  Even if I drive back to where I started from (where I had a strong and consistent LTE connection).  The only way the phone will EVER connect to LTE again is if I either reboot it, or toggle airplane mode on and off.  That is very annoying.  However I do know that the LTE buildout in Buffalo is still underway.

All in all, I still highly recommend this phone, but be aware that by using it on Sprint you are essentially an early adopter of this triband, single radio path, eCSFB system and are pretty much a guinea pig.

Interesting, thanks for the info.

Here's what I'm seeing with my HTC One M8 in Buffalo, NY:  I have a very strong LTE signal at both my home and my work, and most points in between.  All towers at home, work, and in between are at least 3G accepted.  Upon booting the phone, it will happily connect to LTE and stay connected.  If I drive for a while, to home or to work, it will switch to 3G and *never* switch back, ever.  Even if I drive back to where I started from (where I had a strong and consistent LTE connection).  

The only way the phone will EVER connect to LTE again is if I either reboot it, or toggle airplane mode on and off.

I am very frustrated and don't know if it is the phone, or an eCSFB issue, or what...

It stays on LTE periodically checks for calls and texts.

Well first of all, it does not "periodically check" for calls and texts.  That makes it sound like your device is polling for calls.  That would be ridiculously stupid.  Instead CSFB tells the device, via LTE, to switch itself to CDMA/1X to receive a call.  Texts are received over LTE without switching to CDMA/1X (To prove this just try sending or receiving SMS or MMS while on a call.  It works fine.)

Texts and calls go over 1x.

No, you can send receive SMS/MMS over LTE, as the article states:

http://s4gru.com/index.php?/blog/1/entry-357-nexus-5-and-lg-g2-experience-temporary-sprint-lte-connectivity-issues-due-to-circuit-switched-fallback-technology/

EDIT:  Since the initial publishing of this article, it was discovered that Triband LTE devices were capable of sending/receiving texts via LTE.  It is only voice calls that require Triband LTE devices to shunt back to the CDMA network via CSFB.  The article has been edited to make this clarification.

Just obtained an HTC M8 (One) with tri-band LTE and I'm curious if I'll be impacted by any CSFB issues in Buffalo,NY.  Looking at the maps, the vast majority of all sites in my area are 3G accepted, with about 60-70% being 3G/4G accepted.  So I'm assuming that I should be OK.

One question:  When you're in an area with an LTE signal and operational CSFB, but you are on wifi, does the phone maintain a connection to EVDO/1x to listen for calls, or to the LTE?  (In other words, does being connected to wifi preclude you from LTE/CSFB-related issues with call receiving?)

Thanks.  This site rocks.

In other locations, my phone connects to LTE pretty easily. I haven't really placed any calls, but texts aren't always going through.

CSFB doesn't effect texts as those are transmitted over LTE.