You left out a rather important fact here. Did you have an Intel or Qualcomm 8 before?
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iPhone 11 Antenna Gain
- Thread starter robrobrobro
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You left out a rather important fact here. Did you have an Intel or Qualcomm 8 before?
My apologies. It was an Intel 8. I seem to be one of the few with a better experience with the Intel modems. For example when my daughter is at basketball practice, the Qualcomm iPhone 6S I had before would barely work in the school, even though it showed 1 bar of LTE service. When disabling LTE and forcing it to 4G, it worked perfect. It was as if it was going to hang onto that one bar of LTE no matter what because it was there. When I upgraded my iPhone 6S to an 8, I thought my service was going to be worse after reading some of the comments in this forum, but to my surprise the iPhone 8 performed very good, it automatically switched from the weaker LTE signal in the building to the stronger 4G signal. And then when I would exit the school it would switch back to LTE again. When my 8 died I was upset (I like that phone and the form factor). I do keep an SE as a backup, which I used while in transition to the 11. After reading some of the comments on this forum about the XS from last year and the new design and the whole Intel vs Qualcomm thing and reception issues (even witnessed it myself with some co workers), I was nervous getting a new phone. But so far so good with the 11, very pleased.
I'm not surprised that the 11 is better than the Intel 8, since it's much newer. The 6s was pretty good with RF AFAIK, but it's also an older device compared to the 8, so it may not have as good antenna gain, and a newer Intel chip may match an older Qualcomm chip, as I know that Qualcomm has made continuous improvements to their radios year after year.
The real comparison that I want to see is the iPhone 11 Flomax vs. the Galaxy Note 10+ both on fringe reception and the NYC subway.
You are wasting your time. The 11 Pro and Pro Max have a bad antenna design, just like the XS and Xs Max from last year. Same design, same poor reception. A new phone won't help. Best bet is go to an 11 or Xr. They have a better antenna design. Has nothing to do with the modems. People need to understand that.
Nope i had a Xr for 8 months getting better reception with my 11 pro.
I am on Telstra North Coast NSW, and getting better reception with my 11 pro than the Xr i had, better than the SE i used for 2 weeks after i sold my Xr too.
I travel through rural areas too.
I've had every iPhone since the iPhone 3G and this is the first iPhone I've ever had reception issues with.
The Xs and Xs Max are just as horrible. I have had both the Xs Max and 11 Pro. Equally as bad in weak areas. Redesigned antenna in the Xs carried over into the 11 Pro models. Can't fix bad antenna design with a FW update. Apple was never able to fix it with the Xs versions, so don't expect it with the 11 Pros.
With the XS it was never just about having signal. It was times that you had signal there would be no data flowing at all. I tested this on multiple XS phones on different providers. I really want one of the new Iphones but likely going to stick with my Qualcomm X
How is it bad if it works better than a Qualcomm X?
Also, the XS had worse antenna gain and the older Intel chip. You can’t say that the 11Pro is the same as the XS. It’s a false statement.
Not exactly true. The 11 is a 2x2 mimo and the Pros are 4x4 mimo.
Why is this thread called ‘antenna gain’? As opposed to ‘antenna loss’? Is it meant to be ‘antenna gate’?
My 11Pro works way better than my Qualcomm X. I have signal and data in places where my Qualcomm X doesn’t (T-Mobile NYC). Why don’t you buy it and give it a try to see how it goes in your case? You can always return in within 14 days.
Many of these kinds of threads are just kids having fun, they’re not intended to contribute meaningful content.
Agreed. My XS would have a signal but would still require me to toggle airplane mode at times because data simply stopped working. That's not an "antenna" issue BTW and I don't personally think it's an Intel vs. Qualcomm modem issue in most instances. If you can toggle airplane mode to fix the problem, then the modem & antenna are both amply capable. That tells me that the issue is firmware/software related in that the modem isn't making the correct choices on it's own - at least not in a timely enough matter.
My 11 Pro has been great so far and I haven't had to toggle airplane mode at all. I agree that I think you should try the 11/Pro. The Qualcomm modem is not the panacea everyone makes it out to be. I've had plenty of issues with numerous Qualcomm iPhones over the years as well which required me to toggle airplane mode as well when I shouldn't have had to. I attribute that to crappy modem firmware in iOS more than anything (both Intel and Qualcomm), but I could be wrong.
I don't think there are any real-world issues with the 11/Pro. Numerous people in this thread have reported better performance vs. previous iPhones. On paper (based on the very first post in this thread), perhaps the antenna is not quite as well designed vs. some of the competition, but that doesn't always translate to real-world performance issues. Maybe the 11/Pro loses the ability to be usable at a signal strength of -122dBm vs. -124dBm where the very best phones become unusable. I'm just making these figures up to illustrate a point - I don't know the exact dBm levels where phones become unusable. Just making the point that if I'm in an area with a signal better than -122dBm 99.9% of the time, then it personally doesn't benefit me if there are phones that can perform slightly better in super fringe areas that I'm almost never in.
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