Samsung Galaxy S(20+) poor antenna design?

My S20+ finally arrived today (2 days early) and I’ve been busy setting it up.

My wife said to me last night, that her S10 was getting a poor signal, compared to her old Huawei P-Smart. Looking at the S20+, it seems like this is a “standard feature” of the S-series?

The S20+ is getting 1 bar at home, on my Mate 10 Pro I was getting full bars. I’m also getting (4G) 0.3mbps down and 0.0 up – I usually get around 5 – 15mbps on the Mate 10 Pro.

Does anyone else have experience with Samsung S series, compared to other phones?

I really like the S20+, although some of the widgets don’t display propery (Audible and PocketCasts), but if I can’t get a signal, there isn’t a lot of point keeping it!

Conversation 10 comments

  • GT Tecolotecreek

    11 March, 2020 - 9:06 pm

    <p>Bars mean nothing as you don't know how they are calibrated. </p><p>Download speeds are more relevant. </p>

    • wright_is

      Premium Member
      12 March, 2020 - 12:52 am

      <blockquote><em><a href="#530501">In reply to GT_Tecolotecreek:</a></em></blockquote><p>Yes, and 0.3 mbps is a lot worse than the 15 I get with my old phone</p>

  • wright_is

    Premium Member
    12 March, 2020 - 4:36 am

    <p>Overall, it isn't giving the wow feeling that my Mate 10 Pro did. The screen is nice, but the OneUI is not as good as EMUI, when it comes to widgets – the PocketCasts and Audible widgets are very small and the 5×1 Audible widget takes up 2 rows, so I can't fit it in the same position as I did on my Mate – where the 5×1 does what it says on the tin and only uses 1 row, it also isn't resizeable on the Galaxy.</p><p>It is certainly very nice and it looks good, I have the blue, it isn't as iridescent as the S10 in blue, but it still looks good (although it spends most of its time in a Spigen Air case at the moment). It certainly feels quick, but not really quicker than my Mate. The 120Hz doesn't really seem that different to my eyes.</p><p>One other minor problem that I've encountered is my desktop stand. It is fed by the USB power from my monitor. It slowly loaded the Mate 10 Pro and my P20 during the day. If I plug the Galaxy S20+ in, it says that it is charging and approximates how long it will take to charge (E.g. 96%, 22 minutes to full charge), yet it doesn't charge and the battery continues to drain!</p><p>Overall, it is an interesting phone, a mild step up from my previous phone, but has a couple of slight problems (signal strength and USB charging over a "USB port" as opposed to a charger).</p>

    • Shehzad Joss Yousaf

      30 March, 2020 - 6:07 am

      <blockquote><em><a href="#530545">In reply to wright_is:</a></em></blockquote><p>Hello, it's been very interesting reading about your thoughts on the Mate 10 Pro. I'm still using an S8, and with the battery now declining, was looking to upgrade to a newer Galaxy. I hadn't till now considered Huawei, but the better battery life and reception quality are two things I would value in a phone, and the Mate 10 Pro is really good value now as it's a few years old. </p><p>Please correct me if I'm wrong, is there any issue with using the Google Play services on Huawei (just going on what I've heard during the trade war / US spat with Huawei). </p>

      • wright_is

        Premium Member
        30 March, 2020 - 7:58 am

        <blockquote><em><a href="#534962">In reply to thegooner:</a></em></blockquote><p>New Huawei devices are affected (Mate 30 and P40 series), the older devices are still working with the Google services.</p><p>The Mate 10 Pro being over 2 years old now isn't getting updates regularly/at all. The last update was the December 2019 update, which is one of the main reasons I switched. The Mate 10 Pro is a great phone.</p>

        • Shehzad Joss Yousaf

          31 March, 2020 - 7:59 am

          <blockquote><em><a href="#534968">In reply to wright_is:</a></em></blockquote><p>Thank you for responding – shame about the updates then….. I always feel uneasy about the risk of some future security incident compromising data…. One area Android smartphone vendors could really take a leaf out of Apple's book is the length of support, but with the proliferation of handsets, they would need to balance that against the cost of maintaining the updates…. whereas Apple can afford to support relatively fewer combinations of device &amp; OS.</p><p>Thanks again, and have a great day.</p>

  • evox81

    Premium Member
    27 March, 2020 - 11:12 am

    <p>I know this is an old post, but my experience with Galaxy S flagships over the past few years have shown signal strength/data speeds to be a major issue. With the S10+ I current have, the problem was apparently primarily with T-Mobile users. Samsung indicated they would fix it with a software update, and they certain did fix the signal meter… but the actual data speeds never actually improved. I'm still using it, it's been a great phone, but the data speeds are poor.</p><p><br></p><p>I had a similar problem with the S8+ when it was brand new, although it did seem to improve over time. </p>

  • earlster

    Premium Member
    30 March, 2020 - 12:25 pm

    <p>I have an S10 on T-Mobile in the US and it's on par, or a little better, than my my wifes One+ 6T, or my previous LG G6. I don't have any major complaints about reception. That said, my Lumia 950 did have noticeably better reception.</p>

  • smidgerine

    Premium Member
    30 March, 2020 - 1:18 pm

    <p>Not too useful I don't think, but my S20 ultra is better than my Note 10 + was.</p><p><br></p><p><br></p><p>With the Note 10 +, I switched to Verizon though, and their service is not good in my area compared to ATT. But ATT wouldn't let me use my unlocked phone on WiFi calling, so I'd had enough.</p>

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