Dissappointed with V3xx sensitivity

[email protected] writes:

> I live in a pretty marginal area for Cingular signal.
> I upgraded from a Motorola V551 to a Razr V3xx about a week ago.
> So far, I am unimpressed with the receive sensitivity.
>
> The V551 would occasionally show no signal strength when I pulled it out of
> my pocket, but I would almost always be able to make calls.
>
> The V3xx shows no signal, and call attempts fail, in the same places
> around the house. The web browser is almost useless, rarely able to
> display a page in places where the V551 would work.
>
> I think I'm going to return the V3xx and get something else.
> What would be a good model?
>
> I thought 3G was good, but I don't have 3G near me.
> I like EDGE and Bluetooth. The camera doesn't matter.


The Krzr K1 has been an excellent performer for me--more so than any
of the other phones I've had. So far (knock on wood), it's never
dropped a call.

Phones I've had previously include the original Razr V3 (which totally
sucked and dropped calls in areas where the K1 has been happy as a
clam).

--
Todd H.
http://toddh.net/

---

› See More: Dissappointed with V3xx sensitivity

In alt.cellular.cingular Todd H. <[email protected]> wrote:
> > I live in a pretty marginal area for Cingular signal.
> > I upgraded from a Motorola V551 to a Razr V3xx about a week ago.
> > So far, I am unimpressed with the receive sensitivity.

> The Krzr K1 has been an excellent performer for me--more so than any
> of the other phones I've had. So far (knock on wood), it's never
> dropped a call.

> Phones I've had previously include the original Razr V3 (which totally
> sucked and dropped calls in areas where the K1 has been happy as a
> clam).

That's two votes for the Krzr. I like the form factor, too. But it's kind
of pricey. I could argue that my wife is happy with my hand-me-down V551,
and I could get the Krzr instead of two v3xx ;-)

Since I am not in a 3G area, and the Cingular Video isn't available, and
the Cingular Radio is $9.99 per month... I would be better off with the
Krzr. If it is also a superior radio, I should go for it.

Staying with Cingular is easier for me this week ;-)

--
Clarence A Dold - Hidden Valley Lake, CA, USA GPS: 38.8,-122.5

[email protected] writes:

> In alt.cellular.cingular Todd H. <[email protected]> wrote:
> > > I live in a pretty marginal area for Cingular signal.
> > > I upgraded from a Motorola V551 to a Razr V3xx about a week ago.
> > > So far, I am unimpressed with the receive sensitivity.
>
> > The Krzr K1 has been an excellent performer for me--more so than any
> > of the other phones I've had. So far (knock on wood), it's never
> > dropped a call.
>
> > Phones I've had previously include the original Razr V3 (which totally
> > sucked and dropped calls in areas where the K1 has been happy as a
> > clam).
>
> That's two votes for the Krzr. I like the form factor, too. But it's kind
> of pricey.

For what it's worth, I got mine at Walmart where they were going for
just $77 with a 2 year extension, $50 more than that for 1 year.

But that might not do you any good depending on where you're returning
your v3xx


--
Todd H.
http://toddh.net/

In alt.cellular.cingular Todd H. <[email protected]> wrote:
> For what it's worth, I got mine at Walmart where they were going for
> just $77 with a 2 year extension, $50 more than that for 1 year.

Amazon has a $0 Krzr for Cingular new customers, and for extensions.
But, in reading the fine print, it says I can't upgrade one phone in a
family plan. I might need to talk to them about that.

> But that might not do you any good depending on where you're returning
> your v3xx

I called the Parrot Cellular store in Napa, where Kristina knew far more
about my phone, and what I was trying to do, than any of the phone people I
talked to, including "Premier" support. They can't accept my returned
phone, I have to go back to the web/phone for returns.

I might just return it to the web, and cancel my contract extension, if
it's possible to return me to the plan that I had, which is no longer
offered... Family Talk instead of Family Plan, I think... And then I
could start fresh. I'm not sure that the 30 day cancel is an "undo"
button. I suspect not, given the gyrations Cingular has to go through
every time any change is made.

Or, since I have two phones on the old deal, and want three phones on the
new deal, maybe I could ... I don't know. I absolutely abhor this sort of
"shopping", where the same product varies in price by $500 unsubsidized to
somewhere between $0 and $200 subsidized on the same carrier. The $199
from Cingular verses $0 at Amazon makes no sense to me.

I see the Krzr for $328 phone only, $138 renewed contract, $77 new
contract, online at Walmart. That's actually wallmart.letstalk.com.
I suppose I could do that online, or find a store that sells Cingular.
I'm headed to Ukiah tomorrow. Nope, no Cingular there, according to
letstalk.

Just to annoy me, I can't log in to Cingular this morning. It keeps timing
out... Finally. Now it's AT&T.

http://www.wireless.att.com/learn/go...stores-att.kmz
Gack. I should have bailed to Verizon.

Poor shopping on my part.

--
Clarence A Dold - Hidden Valley Lake, CA, USA GPS: 38.8,-122.5

On Thu, 31 May 2007 17:08:46 +0000 (UTC), [email protected] wrote:

>In alt.cellular.cingular Todd H. <[email protected]> wrote:
>> For what it's worth, I got mine at Walmart where they were going for
>> just $77 with a 2 year extension, $50 more than that for 1 year.
>

>I see the Krzr for $328 phone only, $138 renewed contract, $77 new
>contract, online at Walmart. That's actually wallmart.letstalk.com.
>I suppose I could do that online, or find a store that sells Cingular.
>I'm headed to Ukiah tomorrow. Nope, no Cingular there, according to
>letstalk.
>
>Just to annoy me, I can't log in to Cingular this morning. It keeps timing
>out... Finally. Now it's AT&T.

I paid $77 for a KRZR K1 at Walmart for an existing customer. Had to
sign a 2-year renewal, but doesn't matter as I'm not going anywhere.
Too many family members on Cingular to jump ship.

--
Posted via a free Usenet account from http://www.teranews.com

Dick <[email protected]> wrote:
> On Thu, 31 May 2007 17:08:46 +0000 (UTC), [email protected] wrote:

> >I see the Krzr for $328 phone only, $138 renewed contract, $77 new
> >contract, online at Walmart.

> I paid $77 for a KRZR K1 at Walmart for an existing customer. Had to
> sign a 2-year renewal, but doesn't matter as I'm not going anywhere.
> Too many family members on Cingular to jump ship.

That would make sense. One would think that a renewing 2 year contract was
worth about the same as a new 2 year contract, but that's not what it says
online.

So, in the store, either the rules are different, or the guy who signed you
up made a mistake that probably no one will ever correct.

------------------ On hold with Cingular --------------

I just made the on-the-phone exchange to stay with AT&T, getting a Nokia
6126. We'll see how that plays. Their other suggestion was the
Sony-Ericsson W300i.

WalMart doesn't sell either of those online ;-)


--
Clarence A Dold - Hidden Valley Lake, CA, USA GPS: 38.8,-122.5

Elmo P. Shagnasty <[email protected]> wrote:

> Phone prices are all over the board. Take what you can get--and try not
> to get ripped off.

Ripped off comes in three flavors:
Bogus things from bogus web sites.
Poor customer investigation and selection.
Some attempt to investigate, but too many hoops to jump through at once.

If I lived in the big city, some of this would be easier, but I'll survive
that, and forget about the inconvenience soon.

--
Clarence A Dold - Hidden Valley Lake, CA, USA GPS: 38.8,-122.5

In article <[email protected]>,
"Elmo P. Shagnasty" <[email protected]> wrote:

> In article <[email protected]>, [email protected] wrote:
>
> > > I paid $77 for a KRZR K1 at Walmart for an existing customer. Had to
> > > sign a 2-year renewal, but doesn't matter as I'm not going anywhere.
> > > Too many family members on Cingular to jump ship.
> >
> > That would make sense. One would think that a renewing 2 year contract was
> > worth about the same as a new 2 year contract, but that's not what it says
> > online.
> >
> > So, in the store, either the rules are different, or the guy who signed you
> > up made a mistake that probably no one will ever correct.
>
> Nope. No mistake.
>
> Wal-Mart sells the KRZR K1 for $77 with a 2 year, either new or renewal.
>
> Phone prices are all over the board. Take what you can get--and try not
> to get ripped off.

Not unlike airline tickets. You have to approach them with the same
sensibilities.

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To reply by email, remove the word "space"

In alt.cellular.motorola [email protected] wrote:
> That's two votes for the Krzr. I like the form factor, too. But it's kind
> of pricey.

I decided $199 was too much for a Krzr. All I really want is voice
communications.

I called to return the V3xx. They said "just use the RMA labels on the
Order Confirmation that came in the box". Right. No such thing. Okay,
we'll mail some RMA labels.

What unit would you suggest? That didn't get much of a response.

How about the Nokia 6126? Okay. Sorry for the inconvenience. We'll ship
the Nokia FedEx Next Day Air at no charge. Of course, it took three days
to get the shipment to go out... The conversation was on Thursday, May 31.
The FedEx label does say Priority Overnight, but the shipping date is
02Jun07 3:47pm. No RMA labels in the box.



I was hoping to say that the Nokia 6126 was head and shoulders better than
the V3xx. It is noticeably better, but I don't think it's any better than
my V551.

The 6126 is thicker, but smaller to hold. It has a weird "switchblade"
effect to opening the flip with a little button on the side.

It holds calls where the V3xx would not. It surfs the web where the V3xx
would not. The free Nokia PCSuite is easier to use than the extra-cost
Motorola Phone Tools.

It has Voice Recognition dialing that is simpler to use than the V3xx.
The only down side so far is that it doesn't use a standard mini-USB cable,
so no charging from the laptop.

And it has a dinky-tiny signal strength bar, so it's hard to see how much
better than the V3xx it is, but the proof is in the surfing and talking.

--
Clarence A Dold - Hidden Valley Lake, CA, USA GPS: 38.8,-122.5

[email protected] wrote:

> It holds calls where the V3xx would not. It surfs the web where the V3xx
> would not. The free Nokia PCSuite is easier to use than the extra-cost
> Motorola Phone Tools.

It would be hard for any software to be worse than the flaky Motorola
Phone Tools.

> It has Voice Recognition dialing that is simpler to use than the V3xx.
> The only down side so far is that it doesn't use a standard mini-USB cable,
> so no charging from the laptop.
>
> And it has a dinky-tiny signal strength bar, so it's hard to see how much
> better than the V3xx it is, but the proof is in the surfing and talking.

But no HSDPA, only Edge.

At least it's quad band, so it's usable in Europe, Asia, and Australia.

SMS <[email protected]> wrote:

> It would be hard for any software to be worse than the flaky
> Motorola Phone Tools.

I run MPT on my laptop with Windows XP Home, on my desktop with Windows
XP Pro and Vista Ultimate 64, I've never had any problem with
installing, connecting to my E815, synchronizing or transferring files.
MPT has been solid and trouble free for me.

I'm wondering what kind of problems you've had?

--
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The Usenet Improvement Project: http://blinkynet.net/comp/uip5.html

On Mon, 28 May 2007 05:17:25 +0000 (UTC), [email protected] wrote in
<[email protected]>:

>I live in a pretty marginal area for Cingular signal.
>I upgraded from a Motorola V551 to a Razr V3xx about a week ago.
>So far, I am unimpressed with the receive sensitivity.
>
>The V551 would occasionally show no signal strength when I pulled it out of
>my pocket, but I would almost always be able to make calls.
>
>The V3xx shows no signal, and call attempts fail, in the same places
>around the house. The web browser is almost useless, rarely able to
>display a page in places where the V551 would work.
>
>I think I'm going to return the V3xx and get something else.
>What would be a good model?
>
>I thought 3G was good, but I don't have 3G near me.
>I like EDGE and Bluetooth. The camera doesn't matter.

You might want to try a different phone before giving up on the V3xx --
my own V3xx has significantly better reception than any of several
V551's I've compared it to, both on voice and on data.

--
Best regards, FAQ FOR CINGULAR WIRELESS:
John Navas <http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Cingular_Wireless_FAQ>

On Mon, 28 May 2007 17:32:49 +0200, Andreas Wenzel <[email protected]>
wrote in <[email protected]>:

>[email protected] schrieb:
>> [...]
>> I thought 3G was good, but I don't have 3G near me.
>> I like EDGE and Bluetooth. The camera doesn't matter.
>
>UMTS works on different frequency bands than GSM. That means, that a 3G
>phone needs to accomodate more antennas than a 2G phone. The more
>antennas the engineers need to integrate into the phone housing, the
>less freedom they have to optimize their design for each frequency band.
>Therefore, 3G phones tend to be less sensitive, and put out less power
>on GSM bands, than good GSM phones.

Not the ones I've tested.

I haven't taken the V3xx apart, but I'd be willing to bet it uses only
one antenna.

The real antenna issue is that it's hard to optimize an antenna for
multiple frequency bands, but that's a minor issue for 3G since the
frequency difference is so small as compared to the difference between
850 and 1900.

That said, there are several other factors at work, and it's not a given
that a 3G phone will be worse (or better) than a 2G or 2.5G phone.

>I've set a follow up to alt.cellular.motorola.

OK to add a cross-post, but not to hijack the thread.
alt.cellular.cingular restored.

--
Best regards, FAQ FOR CINGULAR WIRELESS:
John Navas <http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Cingular_Wireless_FAQ>

On Mon, 28 May 2007 16:41:08 GMT, Dennis Ferguson
<[email protected]> wrote in
<[email protected]>:

>On 2007-05-28, Andreas Wenzel <[email protected]> wrote:
>> [email protected] schrieb:
>>> [...]
>>> I thought 3G was good, but I don't have 3G near me.
>>> I like EDGE and Bluetooth. The camera doesn't matter.
>>
>> UMTS works on different frequency bands than GSM. That means, that a 3G
>> phone needs to accomodate more antennas than a 2G phone. The more
>> antennas the engineers need to integrate into the phone housing, the
>> less freedom they have to optimize their design for each frequency band.
>> Therefore, 3G phones tend to be less sensitive, and put out less power
>> on GSM bands, than good GSM phones.
>
>Actually Cingular in the US runs UMTS in the same frequency bands as
>GSM. They have no other spectrum. The US V3xx has no support for
>2100 MHz at all; they are triband 850/1800/1900 MHz phones, i.e. less
>frequency coverage than a V3.

But the same frequency spread, 850-1900, which is the issue in antenna
design.

>You are right that antenna performance is a problem when space is limited,
>but the compromises generally show up in the low frequency bands where
>efficient antennas need to be big (and hence the space which can be saved
>is largest). The fact that the two V3xx models support either 850 or 900
>MHz, but not both, is a likely consequence of being space-constrained
>for the antenna.

Actually cost.

>I'm not sure the performance in the higher frequency
>bands necessarily needs to be impaired.

It doesn't.

--
Best regards, FAQ FOR CINGULAR WIRELESS:
John Navas <http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Cingular_Wireless_FAQ>

On Mon, 28 May 2007 10:24:44 -0700, Dick <[email protected]> wrote in
<[email protected]>:

>On Mon, 28 May 2007 16:41:08 GMT, Dennis Ferguson
><[email protected]> wrote:
>
>>On 2007-05-28, Andreas Wenzel <[email protected]> wrote:
>>> [email protected] schrieb:
>>>> [...]
>>>> I thought 3G was good, but I don't have 3G near me.
>>>> I like EDGE and Bluetooth. The camera doesn't matter.
>>>
>>> UMTS works on different frequency bands than GSM. That means, that a 3G
>>> phone needs to accomodate more antennas than a 2G phone. The more
>>> antennas the engineers need to integrate into the phone housing, the
>>> less freedom they have to optimize their design for each frequency band.
>>> Therefore, 3G phones tend to be less sensitive, and put out less power
>>> on GSM bands, than good GSM phones.
>>
>>Actually Cingular in the US runs UMTS in the same frequency bands as
>>GSM. They have no other spectrum. The US V3xx has no support for
>>2100 MHz at all; they are triband 850/1800/1900 MHz phones, i.e. less
>>frequency coverage than a V3.
>>
>>You are right that antenna performance is a problem when space is limited,
>>but the compromises generally show up in the low frequency bands where
>>efficient antennas need to be big (and hence the space which can be saved
>>is largest). The fact that the two V3xx models support either 850 or 900
>>MHz, but not both, is a likely consequence of being space-constrained
>>for the antenna. I'm not sure the performance in the higher frequency
>>bands necessarily needs to be impaired.

>Interestingly, The KRZR K1 has only 85% of the volume of the V3xx, but
>is a quad-band phone.

There's _lot_ more to size than the number of bands (actually frequency
spread) -- the antenna is a relatively small part.

--
Best regards, FAQ FOR CINGULAR WIRELESS:
John Navas <http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Cingular_Wireless_FAQ>