I've found the same thing here in Canada on Rogers. With the L920, I get a max of three out of five bars for signal. The odd time it will pop up to 4 bars but then quickly disappears. However, calls still go through and the 3G seems to work fine. No issues with service yet.
I usually get 3 out of 5 bars too. Like you when i manage to get 4 bars, it doesn't stay that way for long haha. I don't have any issues with dropped calls either
Interesting. Ive only had the phone a few days and today has been terrible. I'm stuck on 2-3 bars and Edge a majority of the time. I'm wondering if ATT is having an issue. My iPhone and up through yesterday was pretty solid. Today has been terrible. And it's NOT coverage. I live in silicon valley and it's been rock solid. Plus I've noticed I'm hardly ever on LTE mode... hrm
Same here with the three bars (E75 had 4 or 5 bars in the same location) mostly when I'm indoors, when I go out to town I usually have 4 or 5. I wonder if this is affecting battery life in any way. Call quality is pretty good, even with 3 bars.
I hope everyone understands that there is no universal way of displaying signal strengths in bars, therefore you cannot really say the 920 has a lower signal strength because it may have 4 bars when another phone shows 5 in the same location.
I love my Lumia 920 and everything about is very interesting and new to me.. I'm having an issue with signal strength as well (I'm on Rogers). My girlfriend often tells me that she calls me repeatedly and she'll get sent to voicemail almost everytime, even though I'm not using the phone in anyway or in an area where I wouldn't think there would be low signal strength. I also can't send text messages some times because of this. I was wondering if anyone else was experiencing this or if this is just a problem with Rogers?
Yeah the bars on phones are relative because say 4 bars on a Lumia 920 may mean Xdb rating where 4 bars on an iPhone 5 may be Ydb rating and X may not = Y. That being said, I would expect if the signal strength is not optimal that Nokia would patch some tweaks in their next firmware upgrade as core functions they tend to take care of as soon as possible.
Dial ##3282# and pick your current connection type (GSM/WCDMA or LTE) and check the value for RSSI (for GSM) or RSCP (for WCDMA) or RSRP (for LTE).
Those values are (a bit simplified) your current received signal strength. Compare it with another device on the same carrier and preferable location as well.
Results may differ due to different cells but that's also possible to monitor.
I'm writing this because my now returned 920 had worse reception on 3G/WCDMA compared to a SGS3 and my recently bought 820 even worse...
I'm sitting at 4 bars and get 5 bars regularly here in Greenville, TX (although, no LTE, we at least have HSPA+). Maybe it's your location? When I went to OKC a couple of weeks ago, I was 3-4 bars the whole time, and consistent LTE the whole time.