Best current smartphone for reception in low reception area?

[B1ggest]

As title, upgrade time, awful signal where I live, anecdotally what handsets perform in this situation.

Cheers

[Liquid]

Hi there welcome to the forums:)

That's a problem there:(

I know the s3 are supposed to be very hardy little phones with signal quality.

I'd stay clear of any apple branded phones for this case.

What sort of signal do you get? Is it just generally naff? Is it supposed to be 2 or 3G in your area?

[Anonymous]

I'd say android phone, possibly the s3 with the tu go app as a back up

[Anonymous]

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@B1ggest wrote:
As title, upgrade time, awful signal where I live, anecdotally what handsets perform in this situation.

Cheers

---

Signal quaility on phones is not really the way to look at it, in the grand scale of things there is not a huge difference. Yes some phone are better than others but not to the degree I expect you are talking about. 

You may well be able to answer your own question better than people in this forum as you will know people that use different phones in your area.

Lets start from the beginning, have you checked via the signal checker on the O2 website to ascertain what the coverage is like in your area?

Ask yourself the questions of do you use your phone mainly at home, at work or on the go? It may well be a combo of all three. 

O2 have just released an app call Tu Go that may well solve a lot of your issues especailly at home or work. 

Picking a phone for signal strength issues will not solve your base problem.

[B1ggest]

Thanks for comments so far...

A bit more info. Been on O2 for 10 years plus, always been an issue, but all networks poor here. Last 18 months had a 4s and it's awful inside, but gets a signal outside. Used a Note 2 recently for a couple of days and it was as bad and in some ways worse as it took for ever to register back on the network when it found a signal.

Coverage checker s how's 2G only.

Tried TUGO on the note, but it was a pain, but I will download onto the 4S today to see what it does. I probably have a signal in the house 40% on4S so I was hoping a handset with a better signal could just be enough?

Thanks for your help

[adamtemp64]

Have a read of this thread I created.

http://community.o2.co.uk/t5/Pay-Monthly-and-Pay-Go/Do-you-have-poor-coverage-signal-Indoors-This-ma...

What is shown for your postcode on http://status.o2.co.uk in the bar graphs for 2g 3g and 3g 900 ? eg this is mine

Normal coverage for Voice, Text and Email (2G)

Making calls, sending texts, using email on your phone.

Good indoors and outdoors.

• 

  Normal coverage for Mobile Internet (3G)

  Fast networking. For smartphones, dongles and tablets.

  Sorry, we do not have coverage here.
• 

  Normal coverage for Mobile Internet (3G900)

  Fast networking. For smartphones, dongles and tablets.

  Sorry, we do not have coverage here.

[B1ggest]

Thanks Adam, my status at home post code is exactly as yours, but never seen anything approaching full bars on 2g indoor or out?
Switching 3G off has no effect.

So back to original question has anyone found a handset that performs better than their previous ones, with everything else unchanged?

[MI5 · Accepted solution]

Short answer is no, they are all pretty much the same these days...

[Anonymous]

I know this is an old thread but this might help a few of you out.

I too have a major issue with reception and have been putting up with O2's TuGo app for the past 2 years with my HTC 0ne mini. Whilst its not the perfect soloution its better than nothing.

Anyway to cut a long story short I had to send the HTC back for repair and dug out an old Blackberry 9780 which was locked to orange, after unlocking I was pleasently surprised to find it had a signal in places that the HTC had none. The problem was that I missed the features that the HTC gave me. One of my suppliers bundled a free Microsoft Lumia 435 with an order so I gave it a try - I wish I had known about this little gem 2 years ago the reception is excellent, where the HTC has none this little phone has 2 sometimes 3 bars. Almost everywhere I go around the farm this phone has a signal.

Yes it's cheap (very cheap in my case) and it difficult to read in sunlight but it just works and the bonus is I prefer the OS dispite the lack of apps.

I think the best recommendation is that two of my neighbours have since brought one and are as happy as me.

Unfortunalty the signal strengh doesnt carry through the range as my mates lumia 925 is worse than the HTC.