Surprising signal strength results
So, I came back to Blackberry when I decided to try the Passport. I had probably spent a good three years or more with an iPhone prior to that, but had been a Blackberry user for years before that.
I liked the Passport but wasn't sure I was a fan of the width or the unusual hybrid physical/virtual keyboard, so when the Q5 was offered for $159 I grabbed one.
I spent a few months going back and forth between the two--loving the screen and call quality of the Passport, but the size and the keyboard of the Q5 despite it being a bit underpowered.
Some of the apps I wanted to use (primarily bank apps with only an Android option) wouldn't play nice on Blackberry, and I have both business and personal lines, so I decided to try a dual sim Android phone-the Xperia Z3 dual.
I knew the Blackberries had great signal strength, but I didn't realize just how good it was until the first phone call I tried to make on the Z3 while driving dropped multiple times in strong signal areas. I didn't understand what the problem was, so I decided to start looking at the dBm signal measurements of all three phones.
Assuming that the signal strength readings you can obtain in Android settings, and the readings you get from the Blackberry signal app are true, what I have found is:
1. The Xperia Z3, which is said to have great signal strength, is consistently 25+ dBm *weaker* than the Blackberry Passport. That's huge!
2. My son's Samsung (can't remember which model ATM) had signal strength comparable to the Z3. Consistently 25+ dBm weaker than the Passport.
3. Even more surprising, my Q5 shows 3-6 dBm *better* signal strength than the Passport!
I need to check my wife's iPhone 5 and daughters iPhone 5C but I'm sure they will be perhaps marginally better than the Android phones but not close to the Blackberries.
I would have expected the Passport's Paratek antenna to outperform the Q5, but if the signal app shows true signal strength it seems the Q5 is better.
Given my preference for easier pocketability, but my desire for better performance, I've been contemplating purchasing a Q10 (smaller, cheaper than Classic, but slightly better specs than the Q5) or a Classic (bigger, tool belt, similar to Q10 though spec-wise) but now I'm wondering how they compare in terms of signal strength.
If anyone with a Q5 and either the Q10 or Classic (or both) is curious as well, I'd like to know what the signal app (It's free and just called "Signal" in Blackberry World) shows as the signal strength on the Q10 and/or Classic compared to the Q5.
(BTW I'm on AT&T when comparing the Q5 to the Passport side by side, with a personal SIM in the Q5 and business SIM in the Passport. Both are on LTE when looking at the readings. I suppose if I want to be truly sure I should switch the SIM cards around and make sure the Q5 still reads better signal than the Password with the SIM cards reversed.)
