koiulpoi

Ok, so.

 

I got really annoyed and drove out to the closest LTE site, and parked 300 feet away from it. Brought my MiFi 500 with me, which was connected fine, at -75 dBm RSRP. Cycle airplane mode on the G2 a couple times, stuck on 3G. At this point, I'm worried. This isn't a signal strength issue, it's more like an LTE auth issue, like what plagued the EVO LTE at launch.

 

Muck with my LTE band selection settings in ##DATA#. Nothing. Toggle airplane mode, Profile/PRL Updates, nothing. Worried I may have mucked something up, I do a ##RTN# (completely wipes the device, including programming and network info), and when it reactivates... nothing.

 

I get an idea. I go in to Mobile Network Settings, switch it from "LTE/CDMA" to "CDMA Only" and back to "LTE/CDMA". It connects! And then... disconnects, after working for about 30 seconds. Bars drop to zero, and a notification pops up that says "Unable to establish wireless data connection". Following that, it connects to 3G again.

 

Once I get back here (where LTE was at around -110 on the Note II), I do the same thing again. It connects to LTE! That puts its signal strength ability at a bit less than the Note's. However, it does the same thing, refuses to stay connected.

 

As such, I am not going to be offering any more opinions on the G2's signal strength, and will be operating on the assumption that mine is defective. This will be this way unless there is an official release or update to correct it.

 

Thanks. Another G2 user posted in the SignalCheck thread about 1X showing no data when connected to LTE, let me know if you see any issues along the way.

 

-Mike

Actually, in my small amount of testing just now, Signalcheck Pro shows "no cellular connection" and shows no data at all while connected to 4G LTE on B25. This is true even after enabling "show hidden data". Again, not sure if this is simply my device being defective, or something else.

To the people reporting poor Band 25 reception.

 

Did you enable Band 26 and Band 41?

 

Maybe Sprint was already ahead of you on this and you actually are causing the problem?

 

Maybe they made the reception thresholds vary depending on Band settings and by turning on Band 26 and Band 41 you have actually created a problem that wouldn't exist if you had left them disabled, until Band 41 and Band 26 started popping up.

Excellent thought, seems not to line up in reality. I'm sitting in the aforementioned spot where the Note II got LTE, and the G2 does not. Disabled Band 26 and Band 41, rebooted, PRL and Profile updated, Airplaine cycle, and, nothing but EHRPD.

 

Meanwhile, I'm connected to my MyFi 500 is cruising along on B25, back indoors...

 

LTE is not new. LTE on Band 25 is not new. Multi-band LTE devices are not new. Only thing new here is TDD LTE on Band 41. I don't think there is a hardware issue here affecting Band 25. Just a feeling though.

 

I would like to know what people's G2 LTE Engineering screens say when they are in these weak signal areas and won't connect.

 

Robert via Samsung Galaxy Note II using Tapatalk

Eh, looks like junk data honestly.

 

How does SignalCheck look.. everything seem ok? Right now you won't see any indication of what LTE band you are on, but I hope to find a way to get that in there..

 

-Mike

Looks pretty normal. Haven't had a chance to look at it while connected to LTE. As I've mentioned before, there's no B26 or B41 around here yet, either.

"social life" what the heck is that? You find out everything there is about this phone in detail for us, pronto

 

 

 

 

lol j/k of course

It's where you do things with people outside of the internet. It can be pretty scary.

As I'm a natural introvert, today (being a day off from work, too), will be my "stay indoors and don't talk to anyone" day. After this, I'll be great for another week or two.

That being said, device testing will be limited.

 

Is it possible that the weaker than expected band 25 performance is a symptom of the phone being a tri-band device? Maybe this is where you are supposed to fall back to band 26? Not that it's helpful right now, but perhaps it keeps you from using band 25 until it's unusable, and instead kicks to to band 26. Just a thought until we actually have band 26 to test with.

I had the same thought, honestly. This seems especially likely, as the default "band order" is 25 > 41 > 26. If that stays, auto-kicking people from 25 on to other bands will need to happen.

The whole warranty thing. I won't be denied warranty for rooting if my USB port dies or my screen craps out. It's BS.

 

Sent from my SM-N900P using Tapatalk 4

Just so you (and everyone else talking about Knox) knows... you may lose your warranty from Samsung, but if you're paying for Sprint's ESRP in-store-coverage option (part of TEP), you'll still be covered. I have yet to meet anyone who says "refuse service to rooted people". Quite the opposite, in fact.

I know everyone loves the internet connection stats, but, if you could please compare later in the day the actual voice/call reception signal strength compared to other devices?

Not sure how much help I can be; I'm a "data first" type of guy, rarely using over 60 minutes a month. Additionally, everywhere I'll be today, my 1X signal should be at least -85 dBm, usually better. It's -77 dBm right now. For the record, SMS has been fast, and the one call I made sounded better than the Note II.

 

A Sprint employee in another forum said the G2 suffers from LTE connectivity and requires a profile/PRL update to reconnect to LTE on b25. You think this is the issue? Signal strength imo is of the most important factors for me.

Dunno where that info came from; as of yesterday, the SKUs for it don't even exist. My account says I'm running a "NOTFOUND". I've done both Profile/PRL in B25 LTE areas, and it hasn't done anything. If the signal is strong, I have seen it scan and pick it up normally. Naturally, all my conclusions are from minimal testing - I've been trying to have a social life while simultaneously sneaking off to check engineering screens, heh.

 

Edit: It now says my device is a "LG G2 Pre-order" on sprint.com.

It's well known that the Note 2 is an RF beast. It's unfair to judge the G2 against it in that respect. Holding my Note 2 an S3 and an iPhone (all on Sprint) in the same location I would consistently have a better signal and speeds on the Note 2 than both the 2 other devices. So I would imagine the G2's RF performance is average and not as terrible as some of you might fear.

 

It's better for the user anyway that the G2 doesn't want connect to a poor -110Db signal as it would increase the drain on the battery and not be very reliable anyway.

I'll be doing more tests later on today, but mine also seems to be worse than the iPhone 5 for B25 LTE, a device I'd call middle of the road.

 

That -110 dBm signal is far from unusable. My MiFi 500 works great on it, with nearly identical strength to the Note II. It runs at around 4 Mbps with 50ms pings, during peak hours. It also did not drain the battery - at least not enough to be noticeable. Also, I'd rather a -110 dBm RSRP LTE signal than a - 105 EVDO and 1X signal.

 

In other news, after doing a PRL update, it connected to BC10 just fine, with better strength than the Note II.

 

Also, the device (while stock) shows your bars based on the data connection, not voice, so LTE bars are more or less "correct".

 

Sent from my LG-LS980 using Tapatalk

 

 

So, impressions.

 

Love KnockOn. Absolutely my favorite feature of a phone in a long time. It's like touchwake or slide2wake, but it actually works really well, and I still get engineering screens.

 

Battery life at first was abysmal. Then, once everything settled and all my account synced, it was telling me I would be getting ~36 hours on a full charge with my usage. Which is awesome. I'll see how it goes tomorrow.

 

B25 4G LTE has, so far, been inferior to the Note II. Where I am now, on the Note, I would pick up a weakish (-110 dBm) LTE signal, but it was very usable. On the G2, I have yet to have it find LTE at all at this same location. It's not an auth problem, as 4G LTE works elsewhere.

 

I have yet to see B26 or B41 LTE, but, I live in West Michigan, so I'm not expecting anything where I go for at least 3-6 months.

 

I've already rooted it. I couldn't hold off. I could not stand that LG made a device with a navbar, and then forced one of the buttons to be a menu key - which then disables the 3-dot Action Overflow bar in all your apps. Having to "check" for hidden menus on every screen is not something I like doing. Luckily, there are others who share my sentiments:

http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2477586

Now, I'm back to Nexus-style back-home-appswitch. 

 

I'll have to get used to no SD card slot, but that's what G+ Photos (slash (Drop)box) and Google Play Music are for.

I think some screenshots in the Band Priority screen with the options available to choose from would help a lot.  Thanks for bringing us this info thus far. 

 

I believe I saw a sneak peak of the Band Priority Menu on XDA which contained a "1" for B25.  I assume when you mean "high" and "low" it gives you an option of "0" or "1"? 

Yes, the options are 0 and 1.

 

In the same category, it seems to prioritize 25 first, 26 second, and 41 third. So, for "extended LTE hunting" I would set 41 and 26 as 1, 25 as 0. That puts it 26 > 41 > 25. I wish I could do 41 > 26 > 25, but it seems it won't let me.

 

Band Priority is editable, with your MSL. You can set a band to "high" or "low" priority, and it goes from there.

 

LTE info will have to wait until I'm home and actually in an LTE area for longer than a few minutes at a time.

Well, when will we be seeing a full spread of engineering screen porn?  Start with the usual suspects:  ##DEBUG# and *#*#INFO#*#*.  In this case, 1080p screenshots are fine if you do not have time to resize them.

 

AJ

AJ, why am I "not allowed to use that image extension on this community."? Just uploaded a series of PNGs to imgur, and they won't post.

 

Anyways, here's the gallery:

<snipped because I'm silly>

As you can see *#*#INFO#*#* doesn't work. Launching it through SignalCheck Pro gives that error.

 

So, LG's skin is ugly. But we knew this.

 

Just installed Signalcheck Pro, Nova Launcher, and Swiftkey. Much better.

 

@AJ: Screens incoming.

When you have a chance to activate it, can you verify if manually enabling B26 and B41 through MSL code sticks and allows us to use B26 and B41 LTE?  I am sure everyone is interested in this.  This way we can get an answer and put this question to bed.

It sticks after a reboot.

So, koi, you want to dig into this bad boy to see if B41 is enabled out of the box?

I don't live in a BC41 area, so I can't test it. It says "band disabled" in the ##DATA# menu after activation, but it's easy to enable if you have your MSL.

 

Another Sprint employee from Android Central states that 4G connection drops on band 25, and requires manual airplane cycling to enable it again.  Any input on this?  He said the LG rep was aware of the issue.

That just sounds like normal 4G LTE scanning issues, but no, I haven't heard anything like this, nor experienced it. I was going to look it up in some of our internal systems and see, but the SKU doesn't even exist for Service and Repair yet...

As I indicated yesterday, a users thread needs to be started.  Koi, are you going to do the honors?

 

AJ

If you insist...

http://s4gru.com/index.php?/topic/4886-lg-g2-users-thread/

This thread will be a discussion for all of those lucky enough to be awesome enough to have LG's G2.

 

First impression: it's awesome.

 

And.. go!

Where did you order from??  Best buy?  I just noticed that the pending transaction from best buy on my credit card disapeared.

I'm a Preferred Retailer Employee, so yeah, our own "private store".

 

Well well well, look what I just got and activated.

When Verizon switched to the share plans, all 3rd party partners lost their ability to work with old plans.

 

Sounds like the same situation. I would deal with corporate sprint stores and phone service exclusively if youre staying on the old plans

As an employee of a preferred retailer, this isn't true. We can still perform upgrades normally on people on the "old plans". We can even add lines up to the limit of the share plans - normally 5. The only thing that forces you on to the My Way plan is if you want to use Sprint One Up for a smartphone.

 

Beyond that, corporate store or no, only escalations groups will be able to return customers to old plans once moved off.

Name a laptop that supports wifi ac or 5ghz frequencies for that matter.

802.11n has the option of being used on 5 GHz instead of 2.4 GHz. The n spec has been available since 2009, and has been regularly included in devices since then. Draft-n has been available since 2007. That's a lot of laptops

I don't leave my wifi on all the time and it isn't for battery life either. I don't like my phone automatically connecting to open networks. I connect then fire up my VPN on open networks.

Um... if your device is auto-connecting to unknown, open networks, you have a more severe problem than battery life. Even with Sprint's "connections optimizer", you'll only connect to networks that you've previously connected to.

I'm with AJ. I frankly find it hard to believe that the 5 GHz band is congested at this point. Just hold out until your G2 arrives in the mail

Hm, this again?

 

Yes, the old Everything Data plans are now "expired". That means that new accounts cannot be put on it, and an account that moves off of it cannot move back to it. This happened on 10/11/2013, Sprint-wide.

 

If you are already on the Everything Data plan, you can keep doing upgrades as normal. If you are below your 5 line limit, you can (credit willing) even keep adding lines to Everything Data, up to 5 per plan. 

 

Sprint did communicate this to Preferred Retailers and Corporate Owned Retail fairly well. For co-branded stores like Best Buy, well, I don't know how you work, so I have no idea. I heard it from the Sprint Playbook, as well as my manager, and his manager (whose distro list I'm on), as well as our Account Executive...

 

"Everything, My Way" is Sprint's current plan pricing structure from here on out. Also remember that for the One Up program for smartphones, you need to be on a My Way plan, so there have already been some switchovers.

How would I force my Note II to use 800 SMR data (and voice) and not EVDO in the HDR/1X menu?  There's Hybrid/CDMA/EVDO/EHRPD 1X, etc.  Just for testing, not going to leave it at that setting.

 

I know at least Robert has questioned if the Note II is really using 800 even though it seems like it is..  I'd like to test it out! (yes, I have another non-200x PRL flashed already)

Wait, what? What do you mean by "seems like"? I've personally confirmed through both experiential evidence and engineering screens that the Note II works just fine on 800 MHz CDMA - very well, in fact.

Is Google Hangouts even available for iOS?  I honestly do not know, as I do not keep up with what Apple does or does not anti competitively prohibit from the App Store.

 

AJ

Yes, they do. I've never used it myself on iOS (as I own no iDevices), but I've done a few chats with people who have, and haven't noticed any issues.

Maybe the ipads will support Band 41.

That might almost convince me to buy one. Almost. We'll see what Apple has in store...