iPhone 11 Antenna Gain

[Sappharad]

No new update yet compared to my post on Friday. Although the phone (edit for clarification: iPhone 11 Pro) seems to struggle more in some low signal areas to get reception, (e.g. I had to toggle airplane mode in an area with weak service for internet to work) it's still been functional at low speeds everywhere I was getting a poor signal. As long I don't experience a battery drop due to low/no signal in the places I usually am (work + home) over the next week then I will probably keep it. It's a bit too early to say this definitively, but bluetooth reception & behavior seems better than the X. I have an old pair of wireless earbuds (the original Bragi Dash launch model, not pro so before they fixed reception problems) and I didn't get any random audio dropouts from them yesterday when the path between my right earbud and phone had something in the way. Also my Garmin smartwatch picks up notifications on first connect after phone reboot now, I usually had to toggle bluetooth on the watch for it to reconnect a 2nd time to get notifications working.

Are you using a certain app to take these measurements? A website?

Just like @Packers1958 screenshots I also used the hidden field test mode built into the phone.
I suggest searching online for more information, as it's different on different modems and iOS versions and most of the information you won't care about or understand.

I'll post one more follow up tomorrow night after I've had a chance to compare my field test measurements against my X from my desk at work. I'm expecting worse signal numbers but they'll probably be better than I get at home.

 

[stylinexpat]

Anyone with the regular 11 have input? I’m not even considering the Pro at this point with their antenna setup. Coming from Qualcomm X.

Where we live T-Mobile and Verizon reception is quite bad as the city pretty much does not allow cell providers to put up cell towers in the city. If you live by the freeway then you will have better service as the state mandates that then. There you will are amazing reception from pretty much any telecom provider.
At home I have one of those T-Mobile 4G LTE CellSpot Boosters which works amazing. With it on I get full reception on any of our devices. With it off all drop and barely get signal while the Huawei P30 Pro has the strongest of all of them

 

[Fred Zed]

Where we live T-Mobile and Verizon reception is quite bad as the city pretty much does not allow cell providers to put up cell towers in the city. If you live by the freeway then you will have better service as the state mandates that then. There you will are amazing reception from pretty much any telecom provider.
At home I have one of those T-Mobile 4G LTE CellSpot Boosters which works amazing. With it on I get full reception on any of our devices. With it off all drop and barely get signal while the Huawei P30 Pro has the strongest of all of them

View attachment 862173View attachment 862174View attachment 862175

I agree Huawei is superior in it's radios , even compared with other top flagship Android devices. It consistently gives me higher radio LTE connectivity. I've noted radio performance in my home location with many devices. I never judge signal strength solely based on "bars".

 

[mlo0its]

I took some screen shots of the field tests on my iPhone X (qualcomm modem) and iPhone 11 Pro (intel modem). I turned wifi off and restarted the phone upon insertion of the SIM cards. Because one is a qualcomm modem, the field test menu looks different than the other. Does anyone know which values to use to compare the qualcomm and intel signal strength? I know with the intel modem field test, rsrp0 and sometimes rsrp1 are typically used. Also I included a pair of screen shots comparing the two phones using my tmobile (GSM) sim card and another pair of screen shots using Visible (CDMA) sim card. Any insight would be greatly appreciated

 

[stylinexpat]

I agree Huawei is superior in it's radios , even compared with other top flagship Android devices. It consistently gives me higher radio LTE connectivity. I've noted radio performance in my home location with many devices. I never judge signal strength solely based on "bars".View attachment 862191

In Asia most cities have many cell towers on top of buildings so cell reception is not an issue where as in many cities here in California if someone brings up a cell tower wanting to be installed it is like asking them to install a Nuclear Reactor Plant in the city. Telecom providers pay good monthly rent for those towers too so it is not like no one is getting paid for it either.

 

[Fred Zed]

In Asia most cities have many cell towers on top of them so cell reception is not an issue where as in many cities here in California if someone brings up a cell tower wanting to be installed it is like asking them to install a Nuclear Reactor Plant in the city. Telecom providers pay good monthly rent for those towers too so it is not like no one is getting paid for it either.

Yep. We're using TMobile USA, that's where I got my comparisons in regards to radio reception sensitivity device wise.

 

[Packers1958]

In Asia most cities have many cell towers on top of them so cell reception is not an issue where as in many cities here in California if someone brings up a cell tower wanting to be installed it is like asking them to install a Nuclear Reactor Plant in the city. Telecom providers pay good monthly rent for those towers too so it is not like no one is getting paid for it either.

Wait until they try and bring 5G in. Mini cell towers on light poles all over the place.

 

[kirk.vino]

Anyone with the regular 11 have input? I’m not even considering the Pro at this point with their antenna setup. Coming from Qualcomm X.

You might be pleasantly surprised though. Just like I posted above my 11 Pro showed better single re-acquisition than my Qualcomm X. I think this generation of the Intel modem is vastly improved. Considering that they’ve improved the antenna gain a little bit as well, it might give you a solid phone.

 

[Momof2.1107]

You can check to see which cell towers are nearby. You need to use the carrier which has a cell tower nearby where you live and work for better cell reception. US is big and spread out so it makes a difference as to which carrier you use. Many cities have and run monopolies as well

Verizon, T-Mobile and AT&T are the best carriers in my city. It’s all based on how much a person is willing to spend. I have a better paying job, so I don’t mind using Verizon. I just need to pay my S4 and XS Max off before upgrading and switching carriers next year.

 

[Velin]

I took some screen shots of the field tests on my iPhone X (qualcomm modem) and iPhone 11 Pro (intel modem).

Hoping someone can interpret your results.

 

[gadgetfreaky]

You might be pleasantly surprised though. Just like I posted above my 11 Pro showed better single re-acquisition than my Qualcomm X. I think this generation of the Intel modem is vastly improved. Considering that they’ve improved the antenna gain a little bit as well, it might give you a solid phone.

yep- so for some improvement in low signal areas for me as well

 

[Sappharad]

I returned my iPhone 11 Pro today. I'm going to keep my Qualcomm iPhone X for another year. I'm hoping if they do a redesign next year it will give them an opportunity to improve the antenna design.

It was looking promising over the weekend, the Intel modems have definitely improved since the last time I used one. But I already get a weak signal at home and work, and after reading this thread a few days after I pre-ordered decided if I saw "No Cell Coverage" in battery history at all during work it was going back. My iPhone X did not have that (e.g. coverage was never lost) for the entire 10 day history prior to switching to the 11 Pro and if the Pro is getting it on the very first day (in the morning) when I got back to work I didn't want to take any chances.

I was usually getting -70dbM for RSRP at work on the X. My 11 Pro was getting -110dbM for rsrp0. This was kind of odd though, lower than I'd expect. My signal varies between 1 and 3 bars at work, and 1 and 2 bars at home. I later realized that field test was 'stuck' and kept displaying data from the morning well into the afternoon.

The other thing that was not promising about it - due to the weak signal, my numbers from the speed test app were coming back worse than the iPhone X. On the 3rd try an hour later I did manage to get better numbers than the X had, but I suspect it took the modem longer to settle on what LTE channels to use.


It is not my intention to scare people away from the 11 Pro. The results were better than I expected and honestly if I had not seen this thread I would not have noticed a difference because I would not have been looking. The actual coverage bars matched what I was used to seeing from the X. And every time I was actively using the phone, I could get service from it. I had already been on the fence about getting it in the first place because the only thing I wanted it for was the camera upgrade. Finding a problem like the reception was enough to push me back in the direction of not wanting it. Unless you already get bad reception, you probably won't notice a difference. And the regular 11 (not Pro) should have better reception than the X did, so it might be worth considering if reception worries you but you want a new phone.

 

[stylinexpat]

I received my iPhone 11 Pro (normal sized) model earlier today. It's going to take me a few days to get a full idea of how well it works, but from an ignorance standpoint it's been identical to my iPhone X so far. My Qualcom iPhone X usually reads between 1 or 2 bars when I'm at home, and anywhere between 1 and 3 while I'm at work. The Intel iPhone 11 Pro is reading the same way at home. (work untested)

The story changes once I pull up field test mode. My iPhone X was reading -110db this morning, whereas the 11 Pro is reading -118 to -126db right now in the same place. I had intended to get field test readings over the span of a few days, but unfortunately I only took several measurements at work so I don't have good data to compare to. I will compare to the several readings I got at work to get a better idea of how much different it is. Based on some signal test graphs, -126 was the lowest the XS could go before losing a signal and -130 for the X so I'm right on the bottom end of where the phone can keep a connection. This is somewhat concerning, but I haven't actually lost service yet which was my threshold for keep vs. return. I have Wifi calling so as long as my cellular service works at home with Wifi off and data works too it meets my threshold. I'm only getting about 8mbit down over cellular with my signal at home, but that's comparable to what I got with slightly better reception on the X with the slower modem.

Initial conclusions:
- Field test data compared with iPhone X matches expected results - it's slightly worse, but unless you were already at the very bottom of the threshold it's probably not enough to take your signal away.

I'll follow up next week with how things are the first few days, how signal strength compares when I'm at work since I have multiple field test measurements there, and whether I've decided to keep it or not. I'm nervous about being at the very bottom of the reception limit but so far it's holding stable.

Out of curiosity which Telecom provider was this with?

 

[Sappharad]

Out of curiosity which Telecom provider was this with?

Cricket. (AT&T's network)

As mentioned in my previous post, I returned the phone primarily because during the 10 days prior to the 11 Pro coming out, there was not a single entry for "No Cell Coverage" in my battery drain history for the iPhone X. It showed up with 1% on the 11 Pro sometime yesterday morning at work and freaked me out because it hadn't happened on the X so I wasn't comfortable keeping it.

Today I was back to my iPhone X and at the end of the day I checked the history. 1% battery loss due to no cell coverage. Same time of day as yesterday on the 11 Pro. As to why it wasn't there for the 10 days leading up to the 11 Pro's release, perhaps it was lower than 1% and got bumped out of the list? Or there are other factors that affected service this week.

In other words, aside from some unreliable field test numbers, (as it didn't seem to always be updating on the 11 Pro) I'm no longer comfortable stating that my reception on the 11 Pro was worse than the X. The one piece of data that I deemed most important to my decision was disproven. Everything else seemed roughly the same while I was using it, aside from a few speed test runs in low coverage being slower. I regret not coming up with some kind of better way to compare the two in advance, or swapping back and forth during the 14-day period instead of returning it after 4 days.

I'm kind of dissapointed in myself for not getting better before data. Despite getting worse performance in some of my low signal speed tests, if the actual service held on in the same places it would have been worth keeping just for the additional battery life. Shipments have slipped until mid October so I don't have plans to try again.

Sorry this wasn't more helpful.

 

[stylinexpat]

Cricket. (AT&T's network)

As mentioned in my previous post, I returned the phone primarily because during the 10 days prior to the 11 Pro coming out, there was not a single entry for "No Cell Coverage" in my battery drain history for the iPhone X. It showed up with 1% on the 11 Pro sometime yesterday morning at work and freaked me out because it hadn't happened on the X so I wasn't comfortable keeping it.

Today I was back to my iPhone X and at the end of the day I checked the history. 1% battery loss due to no cell coverage. Same time of day as yesterday on the 11 Pro. As to why it wasn't there for the 10 days leading up to the 11 Pro's release, perhaps it was lower than 1% and got bumped out of the list? Or there are other factors that affected service this week.

In other words, aside from some unreliable field test numbers, (as it didn't seem to always be updating on the 11 Pro) I'm no longer comfortable stating that my reception on the 11 Pro was worse than the X. The one piece of data that I deemed most important to my decision was disproven. Everything else seemed roughly the same while I was using it, aside from a few speed test runs in low coverage being slower. I regret not coming up with some kind of better way to compare the two in advance, or swapping back and forth during the 14-day period instead of returning it after 4 days.

I'm kind of dissapointed in myself for not getting better before data. Despite getting worse performance in some of my low signal speed tests, if the actual service held on in the same places it would have been worth keeping just for the additional battery life. Shipments have slipped until mid October so I don't have plans to try again.

Sorry this wasn't more helpful.

Apple doesn’t really talk much about antenna improvements for cell reception. They concentrate more on their A13 chipset performance often leaving out cell reception improvements. I suppose this is difficult for them to do so as there are too many telecom companies out there to cover.

 

[The Oak]

Remember that the X was 2x2 MIMO where the XS and 11 PRO are 4x4 MIMO. Hence, the reception numbers are not really comparable as they could be completely different bands.

"My X had -90, but my Pro had -110, so the Pro sucks." (Paraphrasing)

If the Pro however was on the same band(s) as the X, it might have -90 too.

US carriers at least seem to be all about aggregation in an attempt to get the fastest download scores from the big reviewers. They seem to be pushing folks to the higher bands (hence faster) as a result. This though does have the impact in that with those higher bands, the signals do not travel as far and their in building use gets limited.

It is all a big dance. With the lower frequencies you are going to get lower transfer rates but better reception numbers - generally speaking. However, the carrier may think, if I can push them to a higher band, so long as the phone can connect, it is going to get a better transfer rate than a stronger signal on a lower band.

 

[tekjunkie]

Kind of mixed results. From what I could read from his twitter feed, Verizon and AT&T models should have better reception since they user lower bands, while those carriers that use higher bands probably will not see any improvement.

That doesn’t really make since. Sprint is 850mhz which isn’t that low but T-Mobile is 600mhz which should be the best. Verizon and ATT both have low ands in the low 700mhz wavelength.

 

[tekjunkie]

I was also curious about any reports concerning the antenna design. Thanks for posting this. I have an XS that is barely useable. I have many locations where it shows 2 bars but no data connection. Sometimes there are spots along my drive where it shows full bars but momentary no data flow. I’m either going back to an X or upgrading. Hoping to read more soon on real world feedback about the new phones.

That just sounds like a bad phone.. no phone should be that bad no matter what.

 

[tekjunkie]

Never had major problems with my XS, but signal was clearly not as good as other phones. Only had the 11 Pro for a few hours, but was able to test one area of my neighborhood where I would lose signal on the XS, and I was okay on the Pro. Real test will be this week for work as I travel into the boondocks of Kansas, see how it does there. Will have a Note 10+ to compare with.

Can you give an update yet comparing the 11 pro with the Note 10+?? I’m eagerly waiting to see what you say.

 

[Sappharad]

Remember that the X was 2x2 MIMO where the XS and 11 PRO are 4x4 MIMO. Hence, the reception numbers are not really comparable as they could be completely different bands.

"My X had -90, but my Pro had -110, so the Pro sucks." (Paraphrasing)

If the Pro however was on the same band(s) as the X, it might have -90 too.

This is good advice and I completely agree. What I saw in practice ended up being that I got drops in the same places on both phones, I just didn't realize it until I went back to the X. From a service / reception standpoint, I think the 2 phones are comparable.

There is one piece of evidence that kind of makes me still feel better about returning the 11 Pro and keeping my X. As I mentioned previously, I had run speed test on my iPhone X when I was at my desk at work last week and noted those numbers. (I typically get 1 or 2 'bars' according to the status bar) With the 11 Pro, I had to run speed test 3 times before I managed to get numbers better than the X on the 3rd try. I did space the tests out for fairness. I'm not talking similar numbers either, I'm talking something like 40mbits on X versus 20 on the 11 Pro. Today I re-ran speed test 3 more times, every single test was in the 40's or higher. I can't explain that, but I felt a little better about returning the 11 Pro given there was at least some kind of measurable worse behavior.

Knowing what I know now, I'd be comfortable going back to an 11 Pro knowing at least that I'd have consistent service availability compared to my X. But I'm fine with the X unless something goes wrong and I'm looking forward to the 12 next year given the new rumors about the metal injection design to improve antenna performance.

 

[mwhals]

This issue confirms my decision to stick with my XS Max. I am not going to spend money on an 11 Pro Max if it is going to be as bad as my XS Max with wireless speed.

 

[Freakonomics101]

I must be a lucky 11 Pro buyer that is so far seeing similar signal results vs my Qualcomm X. All 4 carriers struggle in my apartment and Visible (Verizon LTE) has been doing well (as in a consistent working signal) just like it did with my X. Speeds are doubled.

The Xs struggled. Returned it 3 days later and stuck with my X. This time around I sold my X and decided I’m happy with my purchase.

So far I am surprisingly pleased.

 

[Teach4]

My XS Max was not good with antenna, but wow, with my 11 pro max I am able to make calls where I haven’t been able to before.

 

[Velin]

Need more reports. Review sites fail to give this issue the proper attention it deserves, nor can they duplicate real-world user experience, which is where it counts.

 

[Nhwhazup]

I am not convinced that any of last years XS phones don't have these reception issues. Tried 4 XS phones and they all had issues vs my Qualcomm X. I only tested 2K miles so I might have limited results but I will not buy this year till there is some real world testing done and reviews . What good is a phone if you can't make a calls and have data work properly when needed.

I totally agree with you. I have an X and am planning to wait another year. However, my husband has an 8 and is thinking about getting a new phone this year. We live in central NH and last year I returned 2 Maxes due to the poor connectivity issues. So looking forward to hearing how the new phones are before jumping in.