[HTC One S] cowgaR:
the worst reception ever...

well I lied a bit - as most of the time I'm getting no reception at all;/

sometimes around 60-70% of the time with no signal (when I click the cell stats in battery meter) and often when picked out of the pocket the phone is showing NO SIGNAL warning for one second...

Unlocked HTC One S, UK version, ceramic black, bought beginning of April

I had this problem from the start, but was hard to prove to get a new phone replacement, as when it does have good reception when signal coverage is great - with 10MBit/s download 3G speed which was amazing compared to my Desire Z (max 4MBit on 3G). The problem is, signal reception fluctuates a lot to a point of loosing it...

Wifi is affected as well, for example after a fresh reboot the Wi-Fi is at full speed, but give it an hour of mobile usage and it is at half of its performance. Wi-Fi isn't that critical (although I do not have signal in my garden where my Desire Z or iPad doesnt have any problem with my home wifi!) but the weak radio is!

I wasn't scared so much as I thought an update will come, and it did, so I have updated radio to 0.16 (1.78 RUU) from 0.15 (1.53 RUU) in a hope things will improve, and they did for 1 day - then I realized it was a placebo effect what I'm seeing.

In network stats I am mostly on -97 to -107 db in signal strength with 0-5 ASU, and when I have -93db I can celebrate! (which is considered pretty weak on my other android phones)

Researching this problem led me to believe it might be a software bug as well, as it varies - when you're doing a phone call, signal strength is simply stronger, you're out of a sudden see more ASUs and are say on -92db. As long as you hang the call, you're at -101 db again, soon after you can loose the signal when you're in placed with weaker coverage (park, too many in London).

Then I have places where I am absolutely unable to make a call, and the other day I do have 2 bars there and I am able to call without a problem.

Then the other day I can try 10 times and no chance - no signal, immediately rejected from a call app, can't even call voicemail.

The top icon notification is 'mad' most of the time - showing full strength from time to time only to fall to 1 bar (or no bar) on 80% of the time.

I would welcome some idea how to prove this thing to a seller to get a replacement, but as I said, if One S sees 20+ more ASUs (city coverage is great), you don't notice this thing and it can work flawlessly.

My conclusion is that HTC One S has only problem when the signal coverage becomes weak and it can't properly get hold of it like other phones do (Samsung Galaxy S Plus, for example, is ten times zillion million better than this - having much stronger signal when covered with pillows closed in a stainless steel box ;-)

Should we start writing the serial numbers here so we can see which batch of HTC One S phones is bad?

P.S. The USA T-Mobile update 1.83 is promising some fix to signal fluctuation - I don't know it this would help european version, even if it would not fluctuate, it would still be weak.

P.P.S. Switching ON the 'best wifi performance' haven't made a single difference for me, neither for radio strength nor in wifi. The only difference was big hit on battery life.