How is signal strength displayed?

PurpleTwinkie

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White is available while blue means that you have a functioning Internet connection that can connect to Google servers.

Ok cool. That's interesting info but.....what does that mean? If it's white its pretty much useless right? So what's the significance of knowing the color difference? I can only use the data if it's blue but sometimes I have full white 4GLTE. What the hell?

Thanks!

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aaf709

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Ok cool. That's interesting info but.....what does that mean? If it's white its pretty much useless right? So what's the significance of knowing the color difference? I can only use the data if it's blue but sometimes I have full white 4GLTE. What the hell?

Thanks!

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Well, not completely useless. If there's no icon you wouldn't try to check Droid Forums, the Android Market, etc. But if you have a white icon data has become available, and it should turn to blue when it's completely connected. In theory, of course.
 
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FoxKat

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Stop griping about signal so much....

Yes the number (represented as a negative DeciBel watts per squared Meter, which you would see as -95 dbm for example) is a direct corrolation for the "quality" or "strength" of the signal. Yes, as a matter of fact, the data speed you get is directly tied to this number. The closer this number is to 0 (best I've ever gotten is -36, in a parking lot a block away from a major tower) the faster your ping times, download and upload speeds will be >capable< of. There are also other things like how many people are using that tower, etc. that make your speed fluctuate.

Excellent post (at least I think so being a Techno geek.)

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FoxKat

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Ok cool. That's interesting info but.....what does that mean? If it's white its pretty much useless right? So what's the significance of knowing the color difference? I can only use the data if it's blue but sometimes I have full white 4GLTE. What the hell?

Thanks!

Sent from a Phone

The benefit to displaying the white bars is simply knowing that the signal is there but that internet is not yet connected. If you didn't see the white bars then you might think that 3G or 4G was down and blame Verizon when it's not really their fault.

Also it lets you know that it's at the ready while on WIFI.

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My 4G is blue when im using it. It turns white when im using wifi. Then when I turn wifi off it turns back to blue. Blue- 4G is being used White-4G is basically on standby because its not being used

I am also curious about 4 bars 3G vs 1 bar 4G but I agree 4G always seems faster even at 1 bar

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PurpleTwinkie

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My 4G is blue when im using it. It turns white when im using wifi. Then when I turn wifi off it turns back to blue. Blue- 4G is being used White-4G is basically on standby because its not being used

I am also curious about 4 bars 3G vs 1 bar 4G but I agree 4G always seems faster even at 1 bar

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Agreed. However, sometimes it's just white and won't transition to the Blue. Therefore, no data. This is very rare for me now but it does happen.

What about you guys?

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Joshison

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None of you have answered the OPs question. He is asking whether or not the bars next to the 4G logo are representing his 4g/3g/data or his network strength. I was under the impression that the bars next to the 4G symbol represented your network strength and has nothing to do with data since there are no other bars on the phone..

According to the manual there isn't a measurement of 4g strength or 3g, and the bars correspond with network strength. https://docs.google.com/viewer?pid=bl&srcid=ADGEESgYIqQH07XdgVBGLqCpG5eLYnY23CEvTVz3ORbZRe8vQQXGkT0XJOyHqnSNt90V31btiqk0WMEdwMmQXkqDEUm9ktjbLL9BSQQr7FnCzA1rfaCJMySQSvzmgJhU-ANhPV1K0HFs&q=cache%3AcltL32eAZNMJ%3Awww.motorola.com%2Fstaticfiles%2FSupport%2FUS-EN%2FMobile%20Phones%2FDroid_Bionic%2FDocuments%2FStaticFiles%2FDroid-Bionic_Verizon_EN_UG_68014847001A.pdf droid bionic manual&docid=fb829a61a3ec1a462a9d531a095ede38&a=bi&pagenumber=11&w=800
 
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Joshison

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My 4G is blue when im using it. It turns white when im using wifi. Then when I turn wifi off it turns back to blue. Blue- 4G is being used White-4G is basically on standby because its not being used

I am also curious about 4 bars 3G vs 1 bar 4G but I agree 4G always seems faster even at 1 bar

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As I stated in my last post there are no 4bars of 3g and 1 bar of 4g. you either have 3g or you have 4g, the bars you are seeing are your network strength.
 

aaf709

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None of you have answered the OPs question. He is asking whether or not the bars next to the 4G logo are representing his 4g/3g/data or his network strength. I was under the impression that the bars next to the 4G symbol represented your network strength and has nothing to do with data since there are no other bars on the phone..

According to the manual there isn't a measurement of 4g strength or 3g, and the bars correspond with network strength. https://docs.google.com/viewer?pid=bl&srcid=ADGEESgYIqQH07XdgVBGLqCpG5eLYnY23CEvTVz3ORbZRe8vQQXGkT0XJOyHqnSNt90V31btiqk0WMEdwMmQXkqDEUm9ktjbLL9BSQQr7FnCzA1rfaCJMySQSvzmgJhU-ANhPV1K0HFs&q=cache%3AcltL32eAZNMJ%3Awww.motorola.com%2Fstaticfiles%2FSupport%2FUS-EN%2FMobile Phones%2FDroid_Bionic%2FDocuments%2FStaticFiles%2FDroid-Bionic_Verizon_EN_UG_68014847001A.pdf droid bionic manual&docid=fb829a61a3ec1a462a9d531a095ede38&a=bi&pagenumber=11&w=800

Your link gave me an error message. In case others are getting that too, here's the page I think you wanted to show.

View attachment 46388

What they are missing is a grey 3G and 4G with the explanation of being "in range."
 
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km75

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None of you have answered the OPs question. He is asking whether or not the bars next to the 4G logo are representing his 4g/3g/data or his network strength. I was under the impression that the bars next to the 4G symbol represented your network strength and has nothing to do with data since there are no other bars on the phone..

According to the manual there isn't a measurement of 4g strength or 3g, and the bars correspond with network strength. https://docs.google.com/viewer?pid=bl&srcid=ADGEESgYIqQH07XdgVBGLqCpG5eLYnY23CEvTVz3ORbZRe8vQQXGkT0XJOyHqnSNt90V31btiqk0WMEdwMmQXkqDEUm9ktjbLL9BSQQr7FnCzA1rfaCJMySQSvzmgJhU-ANhPV1K0HFs&q=cache%3AcltL32eAZNMJ%3Awww.motorola.com%2Fstaticfiles%2FSupport%2FUS-EN%2FMobile%20Phones%2FDroid_Bionic%2FDocuments%2FStaticFiles%2FDroid-Bionic_Verizon_EN_UG_68014847001A.pdf droid bionic manual&docid=fb829a61a3ec1a462a9d531a095ede38&a=bi&pagenumber=11&w=800

I think that you are the only person who actually got what i was saying. I gave up trying to get an answer. I guess everyone is failing to realize that even when they didnt have 3g or 4g when we had the outages everyone was still able to make phone calls. So if those bars actually represent data signal strength and call signal strength then why were we still able to make calls? Apparently I'm not articulating the question properly.

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Joshison

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I've come to the conclusion the bars just represent signal strength. and you don't measure 4g or 3g strength using them.
 

Joshison

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I've come to the conclusion the bars just represent signal strength. and you don't measure 4g or 3g strength using them.
 
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km75

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I've come to the conclusion the bars just represent signal strength. and you don't measure 4g or 3g strength using them.

I agree with you.

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aaf709

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I think that you are the only person who actually got what i was saying. I gave up trying to get an answer. I guess everyone is failing to realize that even when they didnt have 3g or 4g when we had the outages everyone was still able to make phone calls. So if those bars actually represent data signal strength and call signal strength then why were we still able to make calls? Apparently I'm not articulating the question properly.

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I understood, but we got off topic with the Blue/Grey comments. The bars for signal strength is pretty common around cell phones, both smart and dumb. Wasn't there a series of commercials where every shot had four (or five) things in a row with the smallest on the left and the tallest on the right? The point of those commercials was that their company would give you full bars all over the country so you could make (or take) a call anywhere.
 
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