Poor cell signal, battery, and wifi

[Sej1]

I just got 64 gb nylon and 32 gb red turbos for my wife and I. After 3 days I am seeing a poor cell signal on both. Frequently switches between LTE and 3G, even when my daughter's S5 has great signal right next to me. I changed settings to LTE/CDMA only and no difference. Also, the wifi is weak also. They cycle between a weak signal and no signal every minute or so. This is both at home and at work, and again my daughter's S5 and my past phones have had great wifi in those areas. Do these phones just have poor antennas or could I have gotten 2 bad phones? I am still within return window and am not sure what to do. Lastly, so far the battery has been pretty average. Down to 23% on 13 hrs 37 minutes of very light use today. Battery setting says screen 51% and everything else is less than 9%. Do these just have really power hungry screens or could the Motorola active screen thing use that much juice? Or, is it just that I got unlucky and have 2 bad phones?

[GalaxyClass · Accepted solution]

First I  don't think you have "bad phones" signals will vary from phone to phone even when in the same area. In regards to wi-fi radios both 2.5 & 5 Ghz bands are scanning and signal levels are in a cycle/use pattern change. Wi-fi and DATA could be shut off when not needed. On your battery issue I agree your run times should be much better but this could also be due to your cell signals and wi-fi signals being low as you stated. That will over-stress your battery life and shorten useful life times. Your screen use is high and you should be looking into that area to find any problems.

[Sej1]

I agree that phones vary, but I always thought Motorola had some of the best antennas in the business? I don't live in a fringe area. I have had excellent LTE signal in the past on iPhones. As for the wifi, I would imagine that the constant scanning is a feature that any phone with wifi would have, so I'm not sure why my phones would have such a poor signal. I can go from 30mb download on speedtest one minute to .90 the next. I just have never had any phone do that before, and my dughter's phone isn't doing it so it has to be something with the Turbo. When I mentioned screen at 51% that doesn't mean it used 51% of my battery today, just that it is 51% of the juice used. I haven't done any videos or anything. Just checking email and facebook every hour or two. Had a couple of short phone calls. Really is odd. We love the phones otherwise. I guess my issue is whether this could be a software issue that will be fixed or whether I should exchange the phones, either for new Turbos or go for another model. I am really interested if finding out if anyone else is having these issues and what the fix was, or if everyone else is noticing great cell signal, wifi connections, and battery life. If that is the case I may just try new Turbos.

[GalaxyClass]

You make some good points and perhaps if you feel they are not as they should be, while you have 11 or 10 days time return them. I would not wait for any upgrade or patch however.   Hope all go well for you.  

[firesafetybear]

It's been a known problem that it has terrible reception and wifi issues. The screen is also one of the worst to be used in a smart phone. Brightness sucks.

If I were you, i'd return it and wait for something else, or get a Note 4.

What we thought would be a beast from Motorola turned out to be a bust.

[Mattc816]

I got my 32g Ballistic Turbo last Saturday and i have not had any of those problems. I am at 53% battery life currently and there is 22 hrs since charging.I have very good signal compared to what i had with my G-S3. The brightness of the screen is good . Wi Fi does have one bar less then what i used to get with the S3 but its not affecting my connection speeds.

[B33]

Brightness can be adjusted on a Manual scale,  I never use automatic on my phones I sat my phones about 20% unless I'm Racing then I'll bump up the brightness..

[GalaxyClass]

Same here, 20 % and never auto eat up more battery.

[Ann154]

20%? I leave mine at 5% most of or all day. And sometimes that is too bright.

[GalaxyClass]

I only run 20% when in a high light area or for video Ann154. My S5 screen is not really hard on the battery at 20% and a normal battery cycle will give 21 to 25 hrs.  So I'm , and I don't like or use auto on the S5.