Good bye bionic

[mountainbikermark]

Well then, your towers work differently than my local towers. Which proves one thing. It's not the devices. It's Verizon's patchwork network. A Motorola Bionic sitting here at my desk on ICS will get full bars. A Samsung Galaxy S3 on Verizon will get 2 bars. I had the two devices sitting in front of me last week, and that was my experience.

The number of bars in a location is only important to alcoholics . When idle cdma and lte numbers can and often are a lot different than when you attempt to use it.
Take a look at your dBm numbers, they are your true signal strength.

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A Rezound phone was used for this Tapatalk post

[Mustang02]

Well then, your towers work differently than my local towers. Which proves one thing. It's not the devices. It's Verizon's patchwork network. A Motorola Bionic sitting here at my desk on ICS will get full bars. A Samsung Galaxy S3 on Verizon will get 2 bars. I had the two devices sitting in front of me last week, and that was my experience.

Not just you. I was at a football game and someone pulled out an S3 and it had low signal while my bionic had full.

[jntdroid]

In order to intentionally derail this a bit...

For years I've always heard/read that Motorola has the best radios, strongest signal, etc. etc. etc. Maybe this is just my historical ignorance coming through, but where did that idea come from?

If a software tweak can cause the Gnex to hold a 4G/LTE signal when I walk into a building at a similar level to the Razr Maxx, what makes Moto's "stronger"? I'm using the Gnex and Razr/Maxx as an example, b/c the Gnex has a class 3 radio which is actually capable of higher throughput than the Razr/Maxx's class 2 radio. I know that doesn't necessarily translate to "strength" and reliability, but I wonder sometimes if Moto's rep gets a little blown out of proportion.

I remember for the first 6 months of the Bionic's life, people "in the know" talking about how Moto reworked the Bionic's radio from scratch and how great it was. But tell that to all the Bionic owners.

I'm not saying there's no truth to it, but all I ever see/hear is hearsay, and I wonder sometimes if Samsung's "weak radio" and Moto's "strong radio" reputations are a bit overdone. But that's why I'm asking, so enlighten me!

[94lt1]

IMHO the talk about motos radios stems largely from the years of 1x and 3g.. all manufacturers are having issues with LTE.. but the thing is that a lot of the data drop issues are on Verizon's end.

They make a tweak to the network and issues start popping up...

But the issue with the razr m could be similar to the issue with the razr after the ics release... remember?? All of a sudden we started getting worse signal readings with ics..

Idk... to many variables. but moto had better get it figured out. :banghead:

[Dave12308]

In order to intentionally derail this a bit...

For years I've always heard/read that Motorola has the best radios, strongest signal, etc. etc. etc. Maybe this is just my historical ignorance coming through, but where did that idea come from?

If a software tweak can cause the Gnex to hold a 4G/LTE signal when I walk into a building at a similar level to the Razr Maxx, what makes Moto's "stronger"? I'm using the Gnex and Razr/Maxx as an example, b/c the Gnex has a class 3 radio which is actually capable of higher throughput than the Razr/Maxx's class 2 radio. I know that doesn't necessarily translate to "strength" and reliability, but I wonder sometimes if Moto's rep gets a little blown out of proportion.

I remember for the first 6 months of the Bionic's life, people "in the know" talking about how Moto reworked the Bionic's radio from scratch and how great it was. But tell that to all the Bionic owners.

I'm not saying there's no truth to it, but all I ever see/hear is hearsay, and I wonder sometimes if Samsung's "weak radio" and Moto's "strong radio" reputations are a bit overdone. But that's why I'm asking, so enlighten me!

It came from the fact that Motorola (in their original form prior to 2011) has been in the telecommunications game since 1928. Radios are what they do, plain and simple. There is a reason that Motorola communications products are so highly regarded in public safety and business use. If anyone understands radios, what makes them tick, and how they work; it's Motorola. Moto invented walkie talkies, and they invented cellular phones. If you look into a police car/fire engine/ambulance/etc, chances are very good that the radio system you will find will be a Motorola. It's not so much that other radios are "bad", it's just that Motorola's are so "good".

[Dave12308]

IMHO the talk about motos radios stems largely from the years of 1x and 3g.. all manufacturers are having issues with LTE.. but the thing is that a lot of the data drop issues are on Verizon's end.

Has absolutely nothing to do with cellular communications at all, truth be told. The reputation comes from 84 years in the communications business.

[mountainbikermark]

Has absolutely nothing to do with cellular communications at all, truth be told. The reputation comes from 84 years in the communications business.

I have to disagree slightly. It comes from years of Moto phones making and holding calls where Nokia, Qualcomm, LG and Samsung dropped or couldn't make them on cdma and tdma .
At any rate my Rezound is supposed to have a great radio, some say better than my brothers Bionic but at his house they both are paperweights along with his wife's Nexus and sons Charge. We all have approx -100dBm but the cell there is so over taxed it might as well be -120

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[nomadh]

Has absolutely nothing to do with cellular communications at all, truth be told. The reputation comes from 84 years in the communications business.

I think it used to be a decent rule of thumb. Dont think it applies so much now and now that moto isnt moto anymore without really any chance of their old comm biz cross pollinating over it will mean even less. Plus even the best can come out with a clunker. They still need to go smaller cheaper etc to stay competitive. Thats where the problems come up. I would love to see more people doing side by side dB comparisons as proof. The bars mean nothing comparing to other phones and very little even from update to update.

[josh1980]

The Bionic will ALWAYS be remembered for the data drops only because it was newer to the 4G market than the S3 and others. When I bought my Bionic there was only 1 other 4G phone in the store. Now it's over 80%. 4G was new territory when the Bionic came out, and the S3 came out after the 4G market had done some maturing. The "next" phone we all get will be "even better" only because the network infrastructure has been built out more.

Could the phone just suck.. yes. But if you check the other forums everyone's complaining of dropped data. There's no way any individual could really troubleshoot their problem right down to the phone.

[k1ngr4t]

I honestly was trying to avoid any debating of a beaten horse (That's why I said they were equal). Sure, according to the forums, yes the S3 has reception issues. According to the 4 people I know with an S3, they have no issues, whether it's 2 bars or 4. Just like the two others I knew with a Bionic never had data drops. The fact your experience is different than mine is proof neither is superior. What matters is clarity and consistency. I have not had any problems with data or reception on my S3. Wish I could say the same for my Bionic. Also theres a good handful of people who DIDN'T get great results from the ICS leak. And also as another mentioned, rooting/ROMing may not be an option for work phones.

While Motorola may have been king for many years, times are changing, and how great they were decades ago means little when their LTE devices don't seem to have that same quality of excellence. In time I'm sure that will change, but as of now.....And as much as I loved my Bionic, the fact you have to gut it open and tinker with it to get it to work is just a damn shame...


Edit: Also, my biggest issue with the whole "towers" defense (get it?), is my Rezound never ONCE dropped data OR calls. If it was TRULY a tower issue, then all LTE devices would suffer equally. It just doesn't add up....