Signal Reception in Hong Kong

[Jonathan W]

Dear all,

I am very interested in the O2 xda but I've heard that the xda has reception problems:

1) it seems to require a strong signal;
2) once entered a low-singal area, it requires a long time to reacquire the signal (this topic appeared in this forum before but nobody really answered)

I live in Hong Kong and my job requires me to be reachable most of the time. I used Treo 180 before but it really really let me down. Not only it required a strong signal, the other party over the phone often heard loud echo. I only used it for 2 months and I had to give it up.

You know, O2 xda is not a cheap stuff and I don't wanna waste money again. Really really grateful if anyone can tell me how it is doing in HONG KONG?

[Anonymous]

I used my 32M o2xda over 6 months without any porblem. I was using 1010 now switched to orange with very good reception particularly GPRS for emails & internet pda news.

I used in China Shenzhen, Ningbo, Shanghai, Xiamen with China Mobile (CMNET) and is also working perfert.

What I like is the battery. The standby time takes three days plus I used it as alarm clock when I was in the hotel. I recharged only once for my four days trip in Ningbo.

[Jonathan W]

Dear Henry,
Thanks so much for your quick reply.

Did you mean both telephone and GPRS singal reception are good? or only one of them?

Best Regards

[Smash]

I bought my XDA in Hong Kong, (Mongkok) and it worked perfect.

[Anonymous]

Both telephone & GPRS signal are okay.

At night time I turn off the telephone by press and hold the red hook up button for around two seconds, it will beep and turn off. The morning I do that again and the telephone is turned on.

The other good thing is the speaker phone, when I drive on the road, I just make a phone call then press and hold the green recevied button for two seconds and the phone will be turned to speaker phone feature. Just speak and drive on the road.

Another thing is the buttons can be locked by setting phone - option - hardware button lock - tap the lock all button except power button.

[vpreHoose]

There are two things that determine the radio reception performance of a GSM phone. Receiver sensitivity and Network signal strength.

The xda has about the minimum sensitivity required by a tier 1 operator. That means that where the network has planed to have coverage the device should work. In practise the actual network coverage does not 100% match the predictions the operator uses to plan and design their network. Phones with high receive sensitivity will work better in marginal areas, but if the network has no signal (or specifically if the signal is less than the minimum value accepted by the network rxlev_access_min) then no phone will work, regardless of sensitivity.

In general phone sensitivity has been getting worse (phones get more deaf) over the last 5 years. Operators have had to build "better" networks. This is usually done by increasing power and increasing the minimal acceptable signal strength. So it is more likely that if you get coverage you will be able to make a call.

GSM in Hong Kong is pretty advanced by world standards, so the xda should work fine.
:)