I remember my Thunderbolt would say 2 or 3 bars and get super slow data speeds or nothing at all. My Nexus would say 1. This change, while good to keep things standardized, IMO is bad because it's misleading the user to some degree is it not?
There are definitely two sides to the whole signal->bars mapping. On one hand, you don't want to be overly conservative and lead subs to believe that a given carrier doesn't have great signal or coverage, especially when the competition is reporting many more bars than you are for the same field strength. On the other, too liberal and you end up just straight up lying to everyone and compressing all the dynamic range into a very mall range (just like things were on iOS 4.0 before the iPhone 4 fiasco changed it all).
It's a balancing act. The other side is of course picking the right quality metric, as there are a number - RSSI, RSRP, RSRQ, SINR.
I'm all for just picking a mapping and sticking with it, but also reporting the value as an integer for those of us not afraid of actually reading numbers.
I hope the industry doesn't move the direction television marketing has moved. I don't want to lie but my competitor is lying so I better lie to. Now we have a competition to see who can create the bigger buzz with nonsense fake technology.
I'm just waiting for the day when I get 5 bars and no signal strength.
Leave it to Verizon to screw with a Nexus... This must be why CDMA devices are no longer developer devices. So pissed! 3bars=/= 4 bars. Better yet, let us have an option to show dB instead of bars!
Really dude? Have you not been paying attention? Verizon isn't really screwing with anything. The Galaxy Nexus reports signal strength differently that their other phones which has created confusion. In order to rectify said situation they've had Google change the way the phone reports the signal. And as for why CDMA phones were removed, it's because Google can't legally distribute the code relating to the CDMA radios. Every CDMA phone was removed from the list, not just Verizons. And the phone is still a developer phone and the Android source code is available to anyone that wants to create ROMS from it. They just have to get the proprietary bits elsewhere.
RSSI is SOOO WRONG for LTE!!! It's not telling you a dang thing other than if your throughput is low and the bars are high then you are hosed because the network quality is terrible. That's reassuring eh? RSRQ, and RSRP are better measures than stupid RSSI. I'll post something on this at sonlte.com when i get a chance.
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cmdrdredd - Monday, February 6, 2012 - link
I remember my Thunderbolt would say 2 or 3 bars and get super slow data speeds or nothing at all. My Nexus would say 1. This change, while good to keep things standardized, IMO is bad because it's misleading the user to some degree is it not?Brian Klug - Monday, February 6, 2012 - link
There are definitely two sides to the whole signal->bars mapping. On one hand, you don't want to be overly conservative and lead subs to believe that a given carrier doesn't have great signal or coverage, especially when the competition is reporting many more bars than you are for the same field strength. On the other, too liberal and you end up just straight up lying to everyone and compressing all the dynamic range into a very mall range (just like things were on iOS 4.0 before the iPhone 4 fiasco changed it all).It's a balancing act. The other side is of course picking the right quality metric, as there are a number - RSSI, RSRP, RSRQ, SINR.
I'm all for just picking a mapping and sticking with it, but also reporting the value as an integer for those of us not afraid of actually reading numbers.
-Brian
tayb - Monday, February 6, 2012 - link
I hope the industry doesn't move the direction television marketing has moved. I don't want to lie but my competitor is lying so I better lie to. Now we have a competition to see who can create the bigger buzz with nonsense fake technology.I'm just waiting for the day when I get 5 bars and no signal strength.
curtisas - Tuesday, February 7, 2012 - link
Leave it to Verizon to screw with a Nexus... This must be why CDMA devices are no longer developer devices. So pissed! 3bars=/= 4 bars. Better yet, let us have an option to show dB instead of bars!cj100570 - Sunday, February 12, 2012 - link
Really dude? Have you not been paying attention? Verizon isn't really screwing with anything. The Galaxy Nexus reports signal strength differently that their other phones which has created confusion. In order to rectify said situation they've had Google change the way the phone reports the signal. And as for why CDMA phones were removed, it's because Google can't legally distribute the code relating to the CDMA radios. Every CDMA phone was removed from the list, not just Verizons. And the phone is still a developer phone and the Android source code is available to anyone that wants to create ROMS from it. They just have to get the proprietary bits elsewhere.bnowrooz - Tuesday, February 7, 2012 - link
RSSI is SOOO WRONG for LTE!!! It's not telling you a dang thing other than if your throughput is low and the bars are high then you are hosed because the network quality is terrible. That's reassuring eh? RSRQ, and RSRP are better measures than stupid RSSI. I'll post something on this at sonlte.com when i get a chance.