To buy or not to buy...volume and signal strength problems

I live in Houston so its metro and I had a Treo 700w/wx with Sprint. Supposively that is suppose to be "the" phone. It was terrible so I switch to the iPhone with AT&T. Service strength is way better and the phone is just so freakin awesome and addictive. As far as volume goes I always hear my ringer and the people on the other line (I have the bluetooth for it as well) and the speakers while listening to the iPod are amazing as well.

No complaints from this guy.

There is a noticeable volume boost after the 1.1.1 update across the board -- although the volume problem did NOT affect all iPhones even from day one. You didn't read here about the majority of users who did not have volume problems, the forums are skewed to the 5% of users who DO have problems.

I've travelled all over the country with no problems with GSM service on the iPhone.

I bought it 2 weeks ago tops... it is a 4GB since I didn't need all the storage and tried to save a buck. I think they are out of those now. Anyway it seems the volume got louder to be quite honest. The speaker phone was a little hard to hear at first(barely a noticeable flaw) but it is louder now (update said it would help this i dont know though). And I bought the bluetooth last night and it is amazing I like it a lot. Overall though the phone has always been easy to hear for me since day one (even before this last update).

Although it is a good idea to peruse these Discussions before making such a purchase, you shouldn't make a final decision based on these Discussions alone. This is like a hospital for Macs and Mac products - nothing but problems are reported here and a high "read" count for a particular subject posted here is just that and isn't necessarily correlated to any such conclusions.

This would be like visiting a hospital in your area that is full of patients and leaving with the conclusion that everyone in your community must be sick and dying. If one bases their purchasing decision entirely on these Discussions, they would never purchase any Apple products. Go to any such manufacturer's website provided for the same or similar and it will be identical.

My iPhone's earpiece sound is plenty adequate when set on full volume - IMO full volume should be too high and unbearable unless in an extremely loud/noisy environment. I rarely use the speaker phone function so this doesn't matter much to me.

Are you an existing AT&T subscriber? If so, you can transfer your number to the iPhone and you have 14 days from the purchase date to test drive the iPhone. You can return your purchase within 14 days of the purchase date for a refund with no questions asked less a 10% restocking fee if opened and if so, transfer your existing AT&T number back to your previous phone.

If you aren't currently an AT&T subscriber, you can become one with a new number and test drive AT&T for 30 days from your initial contract date. You can cancel such a new contract within the first 30 days without being charged the $175 early contract termination fee. If the iPhone's test drive is acceptable after 14 days and you decide to keep it, you can then port your old number from your previous cellular provider at that time.

You can make this determination for yourself.

Volume definitely improved with latest update.

As for signal strength, EVERYONE is different. You can't base this board on those problems unless the poster is from your area. As for me, ATT has actually provided me much better coverage in the New York City area than T-mobile did. I also get better reception in the surrounding areas I've been live upstate NY and Long island.... But I can't speak for ATT in other areas.

Definitely a great idea. I went into the Apple store a few times and played around with the iPhone before purchasing to make sure it fit my needs.

Not a fair comparison -- you can't compare an iPhone to a regular motorola or nokia (etc) phone. It is doubtful it could EVER be as loud as one of those. Compared to pre-update the volume is significantly louder. If you compare the volume to a PDA Phone (i.e. Blackjack, HTC 8125/8525, etc) you will find the volume to be about the same. Smartphones are never as loud as regular cell phones.

Where do these people live that AT&T service is so horrible??? I can honestly say that it has been quite a long time since I have seen a product so hated by so many people. I'm sorry that I'm going off topic but with this new update, what were people expecting to happen to their modified iPhone that they hacked to use with a different cell service provider? Seems to me the iPhone is the George Bush of the cellular phone industry, everyone loves to hate it.

hey trailmaker....sorry not directing my frustration to you. The iPhone is probably the best cell phone i have used. I have owned it since july 13th and have had it freeze only once and have had no "dropped" calls. Sorry again.

Motorola phones have always had a high ringer and speaker volume, however clarity has always been a short coming. I find that the default ringers are a little low in volume, however the iTunes ringtones are
much louder. The earpiece volume has always been very good, while not the loudest it has exceptional clarity. The iPhone is definently the best sound quality I have ever experienced from any cellular network with and handset.

Trailmaker wrote:
Thanks - I have visited an AT&T store and found the volume levels much lower than my Moto. In fact, I would use the iPhone on display to call my Moto and visa versa to see the volume difference in the same enviornment. I was hoping that the update made a noticable improvement but I haven't been able to get back to the store to see.

So far I have had no problems with volume or signal strength. I don't spend much time on the phone each day, but I do travel a lot, mostly small towns and rural areas - alomost never big cities. There is even a good signal in parts of Acadia National Park.