9930 Signal Strength issue?
 

I upgraded my manager to a 9930 from Bell. He used to have a 9630 Tour.

When he went to his cottage, he had SOS for signal on the 9930. On the 9630, he would have 2 bars and could tether.

Has anyone seen a lowering of signal strength with the 9900 compared to previous BB?

I am sending him back this weekend with an old 8330 Curve as well as the 9930 to compare signal strength. I will add to this post with the results.

Re: 9900 Signal Strength issue?
 

Mine is about the same as my 9650. The 9930 has a metal band around the entire edge where the 9630/50 had a chrome-looking plastic trim piece. That could potentially hinder reception.

Re: 9900 Signal Strength issue?
 

I see a reception drop as well on my 9900. I've had two of them and they both have poorer reception than my 9780...but they're not dropping calls any more at this point than my 9780 did.

Re: 9900 Signal Strength issue?
 

My manager ran some tests with the 8330 compared to the 9900.

The 8330 showed 3 bars of signal in the usual place where he would put the BB while tethering.

Then he accidentally stumbled on the solution. While cleaning, he moved the 9900 to a part of the desk he would normally not use. It went to full 5 bars of signal. Moved back to the usual place (about 3 feet away) and it returned to searching for signal then SOS.

I'll let the more electronically-minded debate the cause. My manager's happy and so am I.

I guess the moral of the story is if you find your new 9900 isn't getting service where you used to get it, physically move it around a bit.

Thanks,

Re: 9900 Signal Strength issue?
 

So far I'm seeing signal reception improvement. My every day worst case scenario is my office. I have to be near a window -- or had to be -- and even then it was barely one bar on EDGE. First day with 9900 I had 4G solid with the BlackBerry on my desk, downloading podcasts one after another. Never could do that with earlier BlackBerrys, much less be able to download large podcast-size files on the mobile network.

Re: 9900 Signal Strength issue?
 

For the sake of clarity, no one should compare a 9900 (GSM) to a 9930 (CDMA). It causes a bit of confusion as you really can't compare signal quality between the two. If you want to compare an 8330 to a 9930, fine. As a (soon to be) 9900 owner, the signal strength on the 9930 is immaterial to me.

Re: 9900 Signal Strength issue?
 

NJ,

Your clarification is exactly correct.

Sorry, that was a typo in my original OP. I just re-read and I made a mistake.

It should not have been 9930 but 9900. If you or another mod could edit that, I would appreciate it.

Thanks,

Re: 9900 Signal Strength issue?
 

Actually there were others in the threads making comparisons - it wasn't exactly directed to you :)

I will edit the post. Thanks!

Re: 9900 Signal Strength issue?
 

And the antenna on the 9930 is on the bottom of the phone where they put a small plastic piece apart from the metal on the rest of the phone so that shouldn't hinder the reception.

Re: 9900 Signal Strength issue?
 

Using a 9900 on Telus in Barrie/Orillia area, signal is much worse than my 9700. Dropping to nothing or 1 bar the majority of the time, hoping this can be fixed with firmware soon as I can't see myself keeping this thing very long if this continues. Works fine in the Toronto, but my 9700 worked good everywhere.

Re: 9900 Signal Strength issue?
 

True. My bad. Wasn't paying attention.

Re: 9900 Signal Strength issue?
 

Grumpy guy kicked in. Thanks everyone :-)

Re: 9900 Signal Strength issue?
 

i noticed the 9930 seems to have worse reception than my old evo4g. hopefully software can address this.