$20 Nokia gophone gets better reception than my iPhone

**jbl9316** · 08-06-2011, 01:37 AM

So I've read lots of good things about nokias so I decided to buy a gophone at Walmart and drive to a road thats a known weak zone. In the area labeled 'moderate' on the map, nokia kept signal (5 bars even though bars dont matter). iPhone went to searching for network and finally gave up and said no service. i toggled airplane mode which didn't help either. iPhone lo62st service about halfway down the road (about 4 miles). Nokia kept it the entire way, made calls with good quality (I called 611) and sent texts. The Nokia also had service in places the AT&T map said there wouldn't be any. Bottom line is the $20 Nokia has better RF than my $600 iPhone :hehehe:

Just to clarify, I wasnt comparing bars. One phone said 'no service' and wouldn't call, the other still displayed 'AT&T' and placed calls. Obviously the iPhone does more I just thought it was amusing

**Yourasssmells.** · 08-06-2011, 05:42 PM

Did you disable 3G?

**synfulpinion** · 08-07-2011, 07:21 PM

Yes I did. Bars are higher with 3g anyway. I believe the nokia is GSM only (but I could be wrong)

**Ut a melior locus** · 08-08-2011, 05:33 PM

@jjuiop

I think you would get the same result with Iphone vs (most phone)

Iphone reception is still pretty unstable. I get full bars and a few hundred feet away I have no service. And the crap thing is Iphone sometimes stays in "no service" and dont know how to recover and needing a reboot.

**AccsA** · 08-08-2011, 09:01 PM

Well I did the same test and the Bold was a tad better but the v3xx was almost as good as the Nokia

http://freeweb.t-2.net/s56oa/img/HTCvsNokia.jpg

theres an example

**scifnutt** · 08-09-2011, 10:08 AM

Yes they are, 3G bars are far less linear to the actual -dBM. Maybe it has something to do with it being W-CDMA.
Switching 3G off, I notice some of the time the bars are usually less, like at 3 or so.

I will say that my TP2 gets excellent 2G reception, but the 3G seems to be just acceptable. I found my TP2 getting 3 bars (EDGE) in a brick room, and the iPhone only having 1/about to lose service on the T-Mobile network. Nokia reception isn't great across the board either, the 2720 gets ok reception.