Whats the gprs and 3g reception like?

[sean32]

Hi.

I have a diamond and compared to my vario 2 the reception on gprs and 3g is very poor.
I only need to be about a mile from the mast and reception drops out while my vario 2 still has 2 bars and my friends nokia n95 has 3.
Could anyone try a comparison. I need to know if the radio is better than my diamond before spending a lot of money on the raphael.

Thanks in advance.

Sean.

[dabs]

I have had both devices in a lab environment and the radio performance (at least on the radio versions I tested) was as near identical as makes no difference - as would be expected due to the hardware being practically identical.

Comparing signal strength by number of bars (especially on devices from different vendors!) is an exercise in futility.

[Black93300ZX]

Comparing signal strength by number of bars (especially on devices from different vendors!) is an exercise in futility.

Biiiig 2nd. The iPhone 3G's got complained about a lot because "they only have 1 or 2 bars of service" yet the people would never complain of dropped calls or slow data connections. I think the 2.0.1 update did nothing more than lower the signal required to get a bar.

[Syphon Filter]

My reception levels seem ok (i.e. bars) but my data speeds feel slow.

[b0yce]

I work in London and get HSPA, 3G and GPRS completely fine and of course the unit switches between them accordingly fine! This is on my HTC Touch Pro, but sadly I don't have the Diamond to compare with, but logically it should be the same since same hardware.

FWIW I updated the weather using HSPA whilst on the train this morning without problem, so I guess it's all down to coverage as always! Vodafone are pretty good in London.

[Syphon Filter]

I work in London and get HSPA, 3G and GPRS completely fine and of course the unit switches between them accordingly fine! This is on my HTC Touch Pro, but sadly I don't have the Diamond to compare with, but logically it should be the same since same hardware.

FWIW I updated the weather using HSPA whilst on the train this morning without problem, so I guess it's all down to coverage as always! Vodafone are pretty good in London.

Hrm I'm in London too but on T-Mobile. My Kaiser is fine but the Touch Pro is definitely having data issues.

For example, it doesnt always initiate a data session when you need one, like whne you want to refresh your RSS or sync email etc.

[b0yce]

Hrm I'm in London too but on T-Mobile. My Kaiser is fine but the Touch Pro is definitely having data issues.

For example, it doesnt always initiate a data session when you need one, like whne you want to refresh your RSS or sync email etc.

Sorry to hear that, hopefully a ROM update (more specifically the Radio) will help you out! As always, the first ROM versions can be a bit funny which later versions iron out!

Out of coincidence, when you first started your Touch Pro, did you automatically set the settings according to the Network when prompted or did you perform this manually? I did this automatically as set by Vodafone network and all seems well!

[Syphon Filter]

Sorry to hear that, hopefully a ROM update (more specifically the Radio) will help you out! As always, the first ROM versions can be a bit funny which later versions iron out!

Out of coincidence, when you first started your Touch Pro, did you automatically set the settings according to the Network when prompted or did you perform this manually? I did this automatically as set by Vodafone network and all seems well!

Auto configured as usual...

[sub69]

Also in London, on Vodafone, and I'm going to say that the Raphael is pretty much identical for signal strength as the Diamond. Not found any places where it won't work yet (rail tunnels excepted). 3G signal still isn't available inside my house. But it never was with any phone.

I never had any problem with the Kaiser, Hermes, Universal, Magician, or any other device. All the reflashing of Radio ROM's that goes on around here for an extrordinarily marginal (and subjective) improvment completely baffles me...!

@Syphon Filter - My wife is on T-Mobile with an original Touch. Can't get a signal in our house at all unless she hangs out of the window or stands in the garden, but that's T-Mobile in South-East London for you...

[foo]

Oh that's bad news. I was hoping the different housing could give the Raphael some improvement on 3G reception.
The Diamonds 3G reception is definitely worse then the reception quality of my TyTN and if the Raphael is identical to the Diamond... :(

[sub69]

Oh that's bad news. I was hoping the different housing could give the Raphael some improvement on 3G reception.
The Diamonds 3G reception is definitely worse then the reception quality of my TyTN and if the Raphael is identical to the Diamond... :(

Like I said, it's all subjective. I've never ever struggled for 3G reception on my Diamond in any location where my Hermes (TyTN) worked. Even in low signal areas, the Diamond has never failed me.

Admittedly speaker volume was better on the Hermes, but that's a different matter...

[foo]

Well it's not that subjective because it's simply counting bars.
Where Diamond shows 1 bar, TyTN shows 2 bars - same location, same time, same network.

[nuttyphilt]

Well it's not that subjective because it's simply counting bars.
Where Diamond shows 1 bar, TyTN shows 2 bars - same location, same time, same network.

But how do you know that 1 Diamond bar doesn't equal 2 Tytn bars?

[sean32]

hi

I understand about the bars but the problem is how far from the transmitter you can use the phone.
There are many places where I can make calls and use the interner on my tytn bus I can't on my diamond.
at work I can walk about and have a conversation with no problems on my tytn but with my diamond I can only use it by a window.
listening to internet radio while driving is no problem with the tytn but with the diamond I keep having to restart the stream at various places when I lose the signal completely.
This is why a comparison would be helpful
Thanks to everyone so far for the feedback on this

[foo]

But how do you know that 1 Diamond bar doesn't equal 2 Tytn bars?
This is of course a valid argument, but I also experienced, that the Diamond did not switch to 3G without forcing it by setting because of this weak 1 bar reception quality while the TyTN automatically switched to 3G.
So it seems that also the software internally assumed that the reception is too weak for 3G.
I would assume that the reception indicator is quite comparable between different HTC devices as the same operating system and the same manufacturer is involved.

[sub69]

Don't think I can add anything more to this discussion, on the basis that all of my 3G HTC devices have performed almost identically even in weaker signal areas.

I must just be very lucky? Best of luck to the rest of you though.

[steveoidm]

For me connection is definitely very very similar between the touch pro and tytn II. However I do think that the point at which is switches of 3g, becauase it doesn't think there is a good enough connection, may well be too early. It definitely seems to switch between 3g and gprs more often than the tytn II. Hopefully this can be fixed quite easily with an update.

[finisterre]

Mine's going back.

My Hermes and Kaiser never lose the network in my house. My Touch Pro is constantly on and off. All with T-Mobile SIMs.

Shame 'cos it looks like a great device.

[wibberly]

I have two phones here. TYTN II and a Raphael. Both on T-Mobile UK
The trusty TYTN II has 3 bars and always shows a 'H' whilst the Raphael is drifting from 'G' to 'H' and 1 bar occasionally losing a signal altogether.
I really want to like this phone but I might have to keep using the old one till HTC sort this out

[johnkorver]

I have both the Diamond and the Raphael side by side on the same network (Vodafone) and the signal strength is exactly the same.

[mrvanx]

Once again im amazed that veterans from older devices are quick to RMA thiers when they see poor reception.............on a device which is less than a month from official release!?!?

We have seen this problem on nearly ALL the devices and its generally sorted out with a radio update, what difference is a month going to make except for their being a method to easily update the radios?? You can still return the thing if you still aint satisfied, dont be so quick to jump ship before the device has any chance to mature and get an update!

[johnkorver]

I hope you're right because the 3G reception on both my TyTN II and X7500 is much better than both the Diamond and the Raphael.

I believe 6 radio updates in 2 months did not improve anything on the Diamond

[foo]

I can tell from my Hermes that it had some problems with 3G at the beginning, but it was not related to weak signal, it was more or less related to connection aborts or 3G/2G handover problems.
I think such problems are really software related, but a weak signal reception?

And the Diamond is out for some time now and already got the first official HTC update. I think the radio part is identical so the Touch Pro is not all new.

Even worse: The diamond suffers almost the same problems concerning the reception - still.

So I really hope you are right, because I want this device so badly, but I don't believe it this time.

I can take a lot: Resets, short hangs, lags, slow software - all no problem, but when it comes to reception I really need it as I'm a heavy user of the 3G network (especially data connection through my laptop). :)