CDMA/LTE Galaxy Nexus 4.0.4 Update Changes Signal Reporting

by Brian Klug on 2/6/2012 5:27:00 PM
Posted in smartphones , galaxy nexus , LTE , Verizon , Android 4.0

Back when the Verizon CDMA/LTE Galaxy Nexus released, there was much talk of a signal related issue, which we investigated. The findings back then were that there was nothing wrong with the device itself, the problem was merely a discrepancy with how 4.0.2 was painting signal bars. Since then, I've been watching for an update which would change the way the device reports signal, and it appears that these changes are included in the 4.0.4 ROM which has emerged for the mysid (CDMA/LTE) model. I spent some time playing around with our CDMA/LTE Galaxy Nexus with this ROM installed and have a few impressions.

 
Three bars on 4.0.2 (left) versus four bars on 4.0.4 (right) at -93 dBm

First, the update does indeed appear to change the signal strength to signal bars mapping. In the same reported signal strength (-93 dBm in this example), the device has gone from 3 bars on 4.0.2 to 4 bars on 4.0.4. The rest of the change points seem to be accordingly lower as well, meaning you'll see more bars for the same field strength. This change makes the Galaxy Nexus more in line with the reporting I've seen on other Verizon LTE devices.

I believe that there's a good chance that the Galaxy Nexus as of 4.0.4 is reporting signal strength based on LTE RSSI (Received Signal Strength Indicator) which is the summation of power from adjacent cells, interference, and thermal noise, as opposed to LTE RSRP (Reference Signal Received Power) which is the power of a reference signal from a specific cell. Lately, Verizon has been making a concerted effort to standardize reporting on LTE handsets to a 5 bar scale reflecting LTE RSSI instead of LTE RSRP, starting with the recent HTC Rezound update.

  
Dock options, power menu

A few other observations address some other cellular performance characteristics - specifically hard handover speed from 4G LTE down to 3G EVDO and back up. Going both directions on the Galaxy Nexus now seems much, much faster compared to the device's original shipping state - doing the handover and getting data flowing now is basically instantaneous. This is a big improvement if you're frequently in an area with marginal 4G LTE signal. Other changes are subtle and include some UI tweaks: the camera launch from lock screen now feels faster, there's a subtle tweak to the power off menu, and inside settings is a "Dock" category and options tab (shown above) which was present in 4.0.3 but new for the CDMA/LTE Galaxy Nexus. Performance through our benchmark suite remains the same, however. 

Print This Article 5 Comments View All Comments Post a Comment Standard is good...more accurate representation is better by cmdrdredd on Monday, February 06, 2012 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? cmdrdredd Reply RE: Standard is good...more accurate representation is better by Brian Klug on Monday, February 06, 2012 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 Brian Klug Reply I hope signal bars don't become television specs marketing by tayb on Monday, February 06, 2012 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. tayb Reply !?!?! by curtisas on Tuesday, February 07, 2012 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! curtisas Reply RSSI vs RSRP by bnowrooz on Tuesday, February 07, 2012 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. bnowrooz Reply Subject Comment Post Comment Please login or register to post a comment.
User Name Password Remember me? Login 1 View All Comments Post a Comment Follow AnandTech
Latest from AnandTech Pipeline Submit News! Intel Updates Sandy Bridge Graphics Drivers Google Releases Chrome For Android Nokia Announces White Lumia 800 Droid 4 Available February 10th for $199 AMD Announces Turks Based FirePro V3900 LG's G6 Series: A New Kind of Google TV Partnership Clevo Refreshes X7200 With X79-Based P270WM, AVADirect First in Line Lenovo ThinkPad Tablet Gets Ice Cream Sandwich in May Micron CEO Steve Appleton Dies in a Plane Crash AMD: The Flexibility is in the Fabric Motorola Droid RAZR, RAZR MAXX Update Enables CDRX for Better LTE Battery Life DailyTech Ex-Acer CEO Slapped With Lawsuit for Joining Lenovo Quick Note: PlayBook 2.0 Calendar, "Bridge" Smartphone Control Demoed Quick Note: Google Launches Chrome Browser for ICS Smartphones, Tablets Bush Defends Auto Bailout Amid Romney Attacks Woman Ordered to Decrypt Laptop in Bank Fraud May Have "Forgotten" Password 2/7/2012 Daily Hardware Reviews China Prepares to Fine Apple, Possibly Ban iPad for Trademark Abuse Fisker Loses Access to DOE Loan, Lays Off Delaware Factory Employees Nikon Announces 36.3MP D800, D800E D-SLRs GM Makes eAssist Hybrid Standard on Buick 2013 Regal, Still Lags Behind Competition HTC Prepares Quad-Core Edge, Razor-Thin "Ville" to Fight Sinking Revenue Anonymous Spies on Secret FBI Conference Call, Posts Audio Clip Woman Receives World's First Complete 3D Printed Lower Jaw Implant 2/6/2012 Daily Hardware Reviews -- Intel 520 240GB SSD Edition AMD Concedes Die-Shrink Race to Intel, Considers ARM Cores Google Hires Former Senior Apple Director for "Secret" Project Corning, Samsung Mobile Display Announce OLED Glass Partnership Twitter RT @anandtech: Intel SSD 520 Review: Cherryville Brings Reliability to SandForce http://t.co/GaRoGhhE RT @nerdtalker: I strongly believe we need a barebones search engine alternative that cares about objective result quality and not pushing it's own services RT @anandtech: Understanding AMD's Roadmap & New Direction http://t.co/eySXYtz3 @anexanhume already did :) http://t.co/MNY0RArM RT @anandtech: AMD's 2012 - 2013 Server Roadmap: Abu Dhabi, Seoul & Delhi CPUs http://t.co/ohG0B8BE RT @anandtech: AMD's 2012 - 2013 Client CPU/GPU/APU Roadmap Revealed http://t.co/zqYWKdRS  

Copyright © 1997-2012 AnandTech, Inc. All rights reserved. Terms, Conditions and Privacy Information.
Click Here for Advertising Information

Google+ gets a 'goodie basket' of changes

Google has announced a 'goodie basket' full of Google+ changes – including a way to dial down the noise and a redesigned Google bar.

The social network got off to a promising start, but Google is aware that all the good work will be for nought if it cannot keep building audience.

So, a raft of changes will certainly be welcomed, especially the headlining feature that allows you to, in Google's words, 'graphic equalize' your stream.

Noisy

In our words that means making the interesting people louder and the spam merchants we follow for the occasional nugget of insight a little quieter.

"When viewing the stream for a particular circle, you'll now see a slider at the top that lets you adjust how posts from that circle should be blended into the main stream," explains Google's Bradley Horowitz on the company blog.

"That way you'll never miss a post from that special someone, and you can tweak these settings to form your own "perfect stream".

Other features include a redesigned notifications system allowing sneak previews and an easier way to check out what has changed since your last visit along with changes to the way in which brand and business pages are administrated.

Bevy of photo improvements

Last but not least is a 'bevy of improvements' to the photo experience – which was a much-needed change for the social network.

"Viewing a photo in Lightbox has been completely redesigned with improved navigation, enhanced comment legibility and better overall utility," added Horowitz.

"This design makes the photo the hero letting the content itself shine through. And we're introducing a completely new photo-tagging experience that's both fun and fluid, and lets you quickly focus on the people in your photos."

Exclusive: Nokia promises big changes in Windows Phone Apollo

Nokia has told TechRadar that it believes users will really start seeing the potential of its tie-in with Microsoft on Windows Phone Apollo - likely to be the codename for Windows Phone 8.

Niklas Savander, executive VP of Markets for Nokia, said that while it's always hard to offer something fresh to the market, the Finnish firm has no qualms about using the same OS as a number of other vendors:

"When you talk about differentiation, there are different ways of looking at it: the most common comparison is not between the Windows phones, but versus Android."

Agreement

"When you look within the Windows Phone ecosystem and compare how the Lumia performs, there we have a contractual agreement with Microsoft for a certain amount of engineering which we can use for differentiation.

"However, we have to be very careful on how we use that one because we cannot fragment the developer ecosystem. If that starts forking, that's not useful at all.

"We made the decision to go to Windows Phone when Mango was pretty much done, so we were able to impact some elements of it but you'll really see the fruits of what we can do with Microsoft when the Apollo version of Windows Phone comes out."

With the likes of HTC and Samsung pushing hard in the new Windows Phone, many predicted Nokia would struggle to create an alternative to these well-established smartphone brands, as Microsoft has created a stringent set of specifications for brands to design Windows Phones to.

Wiggle room

But Savander said that Nokia has enough tools to be considered different enough, pointing to the likes of Nokia Drive (free turn by turn navigation) and the improved camera power:

"The areas we can drive are design, navigation, imaging, and then there are many things we can do around how the product reaches the consumer, when it comes to distribution.

"We have a contractual 'wiggle-room' [with Microsoft], one of the things we're working on with them is getting the price points of the phones down, we have a lot of engineering expertise they don't have, and that's going to serve us well."

Savander also echoed CEO Stephen Elopin hinting that we'll be seeing more Nokia Windows Phone handsets soon, but refused to be drawn on whether these would be running Mango or a future version of the OS:

"Two phones is absolutely not enough in the market; it's a good start, but there are new markets we need to conquer, and this [the Nokia Lumia 800 and 710] is the beginning of our portfolio."