Anyone returned the Razr?

[jch81]

I live in a two story house and the router is on the first floor. My bedroom is on the second floor and from my bedroom I get 2-3 bars consistently on wifi. I think the wifi antenna works great. Never had any trouble. I have the original Razr.

 

[FoxKat]

So true! That's why in the end we only hear the good things about their phone...


Sent from my Moto RAZR

I actually don't agree with that assessment. We hear the good, bad & ugly and we spend countless hours, members & moderators to learn and help people through the various issues they encounter with their phones.

We often find the problems experienced are as a result of a unique combination of settings or application conflicts. There are a seemingly limitless number of settings and variables that can be changed, and with the ability to multitask, the phone can have multiple apps running that create multiple issues that are complicating matters.

This phone you're carrying is more powerful than desktop computers of only several years ago in some ways, and of mainframe computers of a decade ago. Just like any computer it will only do what you tell it to. Sometimes we do things that we may not realize actually cause the problem. There are other phones out there which are less customizable and so may give you less problems, but they give you far less ability to personalize and tend to be more expensive for the software.

There are some simple troubleshooting techniques and tools that can make identifying and resolving issues go more smoothly and productively. One effected way to isolate issues is by booting into safe mode. Power down the phone first, then after initiating the power up sequence, once you see the red m logo, press and hold both volume controls until the phone vibrates twice, one long and one short.

Now the phone will be in Safe mode. You will see the words Safe mode on the bottom left corner of the screen but the phone will function normally, except that there will be no user installed applications running to conflict with the phone's operation. Also all user-installed apps will be temporarily gone from the app tray, but they will be on the home screens as shortcuts if they are there normally. No widgets will load automatically. If the problem goes away, the problem is an application at the root of the cause. If you are having trouble with a particular user-installed app, you can run it in Safe mode by selecting the icon on the home screen. Again, if it works normally, then there is another app that's causing the problem.

Most suspected hardware problems can be troubleshooted this way as well, and don't be surprised to find that what didn't work before now works fine.

Sent from my DROID RAZR using Tapatalk 2

 

[fekish]

But why should the user search for solutions? why should always be the case that an Android user should log in xda to find a solution? Somethings should be assumed to be working and if you want something additional you should search elsewhere...
Wifi connectivity should not be a problem, and I should have been able to hold the phone in any way I like to have wifi connectivity...

Sent from my Moto RAZR

 

[FoxKat]

I have to say that WIFI connectivity is perfect for me and on both a home router supplied by Verizon as well as on the router I purchased and installed at work (Linksys). As well as it working at the local courthouse, the coffee shop below my office, the Starbucks down town, the hospital my wife and father-in-law have been recent (and ongoing) patients at, and everywhere else I've connected. Most of the connectivity issues with WIFI are traced back to the wireless router itself. For instance, someone recently was having major connectivity issues with her router, then she cleverly realized that the router was a B/G router, and decided to set it to G only...problem solved. So her router was trying to be compatible with older wireless cards, she didn't have any need for the older technology, and once she turned it off things worked perfectly.

In another example, a router was working poorly for a member, and after many hours of troubleshooting, he contacted the router manufacturer who told him to try flashing the newest router firmware...problem solved. Yet another example was someone who was having problems and decided that since the router was a few years old and couldn't come up with a solution, he'd try buying a new one - seeing as how cheap they are now...problem solved.

What I am saying is that the greatest percentage of people are having NO problems with their phones, they work the way the want and expect the to, and they don't need to go looking for solutions to problems that don't exist. It's typically those who have problems that come to these forums to find a solution, and fortunately for those people, there is a huge desire for those who have benefited from the information they received on this forum to want to give back. There are others who frequent the forums to find out new things, and still others who come her for one purpose only, to help - even if they themselves have never had a problem.

I've read so many threads about people who have a problem with a phone, can't resolve it, get it replaced, the replacement has "the same problems", get that one replace, and...you guessed it, that one ALSO has "the same problems". Now what are the odds that 3 consecutive phones out of perhaps tens of millions of phones in circulation just so happen to have the same problem, when mine doesn't, and none of the other members' phones do? Possibly as much as 90-95% of the phones which "have a problem" are having a problem - but one that is related to the user and what they are doing with it, and not a problem with the phone itself. Nobody wants to think that it's their fault, but truth be told, it usually is.

 

[fekish]

As I am writing this message now:
If I hold my phone with my right hand, no lines of wifi connectivity, but I an still connected.
Now i hold the phone with left and write with my right, one line appears.

Now I search with my Nook Color for wifi and there are 2 lines of connectivity.
I search with my sisters iPhone, there are 2 lines of connectivity.

If we do a bit search on the net, there is a big number of people that have this problem. Yes I do have wifi, but it is definitely weaker, and I have to hold the phone in a specific way.

Concluding: is definitely NOT users fault but Motorola's fault. Unfortunately most probably this would be a hardware problem, thus an update would not fix this.
Obviously unfortunately there is no current fix for this on the phone...

By the way do you have a case on your RAZR? Maybe the fix that iPhone users implemented a couple of years ago might fix the wifi reception for holding the phone with right hand... I currently do not have a case on my phone.

Sent from my Moto RAZR

 

[FoxKat]

As I am writing this message now:
If I hold my phone with my right hand, no lines of wifi connectivity, but I an still connected.
Now i hold the phone with left and write with my right, one line appears.

Now I search with my Nook Color for wifi and there are 2 lines of connectivity.
I search with my sisters iPhone, there are 2 lines of connectivity.

If we do a bit search on the net, there is a big number of people that have this problem. Yes I do have wifi, but it is definitely weaker, and I have to hold the phone in a specific way.

Concluding: is definitely NOT users fault but Motorola's fault. Unfortunately most probably this would be a hardware problem, thus an update would not fix this.
Obviously unfortunately there is no current fix for this on the phone...

By the way do you have a case on your RAZR? Maybe the fix that iPhone users implemented a couple of years ago might fix the wifi reception for holding the phone with right hand... I currently do not have a case on my phone.

Sent from my Moto RAZR

Slight reception increases and decreases mean very little when it comes to actual connectivity. Frankly there's no correlation between 2 bars on your phone and 2 bars on any other brand or model of phone. The individual manufacturer sets the number of bars arbitrarily to a particular decibel level that they themselves determine fits within a range that they can get usable connectivity. If your phone remains connected in that situation, that's all that matters. A better evaluation would be to look at the actual signal strengths of the various devices in decibels, and then see if there is a considerably higher or lower decibel level from device to device. You may be quite surprised to find that the decibel levels are comparable. Furthermore, Motorola radios are arguably the best radios on any phone, and even with lower signal levels they are able to maintain connectivity, due to highly refined filtering, distortion and crosstalk elimination techniques. So even at lower decibel levels, the Motorola radios often outperform other radios with stronger signal strength.

As for the cases, no I don't use a case, but unless the case is metal it shouldn't either negatively or positively influence signal strength. The problems that the iPhone had, called "Antennagate", was related to the fact that the metal shroud (the silver strip that runs around the outer edge of the phone), is actually segmented into 2 (and in some illustrations 3) separate parts and each one is in itself an antenna.


View attachment 51098View attachment 51097View attachment 51095View attachment 51096



In the first picture you see the circle around the line at the bottom on the volume control side of the phone. That line is a separator between the antennas. It's the same line pointed to in the 2nd pic. In the third pic you acutally see two separate antennas, and in the 4th pic, you see the old (showing 3 antennas) versus new, where the lines have been eliminated or moved. The problem was that when people would hold the phone and touch both antennas at the line, the connection made with their finger or palm caused the two separate antennas to become one, and that created a problem for the phone.

The Motorola phones don't use external antennas like this. The antennas are actually inside the casing away from fingers or palms, so a case won't prevent anything that's not a problem already.

I am willing to bet that the data rate your phone provides while on wifi, even when you are only showing 1 bar, will exceed what the other devices are able to show even with 2 bars. I sit on my bed in the bedroom, at the opposite end of my home from where the router is, I only get 1 bar in the bedroom, and yet I am still able to stream video and have never suffered any drops of connectivity with my RAZR, my wife's RAZR, or my new RAZR MAXX, as well as my earlier D2 and even the OG Droid. I'll bet if I had your phone in my home, it would perform just as well.

 

[fekish]

I am willing to bet that the data rate your phone provides while on wifi, even when you are only showing 1 bar, will exceed what the other devices are able to show even with 2 bars.

Ok I will use wifi analyser on all of my devices!
But i will not do the favour of holding the phone in the way that Motorola wants me to. I will hold the phone in the way that I am holding it for the last 15 years, with my right hand

Sent from my Moto RAZR

 

[FoxKat]

Ok I will use wifi analyser on all of my devices!
But i will not do the favour of holding the phone in the way that Motorola wants me to. I will hold the phone in the way that I am holding it for the last 15 years, with my right hand

Sent from my Moto RAZR

WIFI Analyzer will tell you the decibel levels, but it won't tell you what levels the radios in each device need to perform at a comparable throughput. The only way to test that is with Speedtest on WIFI rather than Cellular. Run speed tests with that utility on each device and let's see if my theory isn't proven accurate.

As for how you need to hold the phone...Motorola isn't telling you how to hold it, and considering the greater percentage of people are right handed and tend to hold their phone with the right hand, I would expect it to perform just as well for you as it does for me (right handed as well). Wikipedia: A variety of studies suggest that 70–90% of the world population is right-handed, rather than left-handed or any other form of handedness.

I hope you get successful results, and just like the battery meter which some people obsess over, I would say don't be so concerned for how many bars of signal you have on WIFI and also on 3G/4G. If it is communicating at a rate that isn't cramping your style, that's really all that matters.

Good luck and check back with us! :biggrin:

 

[fekish]

Cool thanks,
But 100% if I hold that phone with my left hand I have better wifi signal rather than right hand.

I gave it to my wife to see her reaction. She tried to surf and was holding normally the phone. She said that there was no wifi connection. Then I told her hold the phone with left hand, and she got connected...

Sent from my Moto RAZR

 

[FoxKat]

Cool thanks,
But 100% if I hold that phone with my left hand I have better wifi signal rather than right hand.

I gave it to my wife to see her reaction. She tried to surf and was holding normally the phone. She said that there was no wifi connection. Then I told her hold the phone with left hand, and she got connected...

Sent from my Moto RAZR

Any antenna will suffer reduced signal if you come near it with anything that is either conductive or dense enough to block or reflect signal. Your hand is conductive, and is also somewhat dense so it's quite conceivable that cupping the phone in your hand may place your palm directly over one or another internal antenna. This will have an impact.

The antenna locations are show in a pic here http://www.droidforums.net/forum/dr...passes-fcc-global-gsm-verizon-lte-radios.html

Also the problems you mention are not unique to Droid RAZRs OR iPhones...

Samsung Pulls an Apple, Tells Users How Not to Hold Their Galaxy SIIIs – Droid Life

 

[fekish]

I did a simple test last night. My old Motorola milestone and my tablet when they connect to wifi from by bed, they barely connect to a wifi network, with the tablet having slightly better connectivity.
The RAZR cannot connect at all. So this just confirms it, there is a problem with wifi on the RAZR.

Sent from my Moto RAZR

 

[add119]

Not really my phone is just perfect so far.

Sent from my DROID RAZR using Tapatalk 2

 

[add119]

How did you use static ip? My droid 1 always connect on wifi with no problem.

Sent from my DROID RAZR using Tapatalk 2

 

[fekish]

How did you use static ip? My droid 1 always connect on wifi with no problem.

Sent from my DROID RAZR using Tapatalk 2

I should use static IP instead?

Sent from my Moto RAZR

 

[add119]

If you having problem yes but to act like your phone is laptop. Pickup Wi-Fi that weak to make it stronger.

Sent from my DROID RAZR using Tapatalk 2