My iphone 4 works great until I go inside a building.
I've tried a couple of cheap cases that said solved the reception problems but fail to fix it 100%

It was all going ok but then I went indoors. So i'm wondering if there is a case that would solve this problem with dropping service/3g?

A case won't fix that problem no. What network?

i'm on orange.

If your old phone had signal indoors (if you were on Orange previously) then maybe the phone is faulty?

Are you losing 3G or all service? if so you do have it on dual mode 2G/3G not 3G only or anything.

Cases won't improve signal.

I don't think i can even do dual mode. My previous phone was an iphone 3g and it always had the same problem,

It's a common issue with the Iphone 4, I get around it by turning 3g off as the signal on the Edge network is much stronger.

That won't solve the OP's problem of complete signal loss as the phone already auto-switches to 2G if there's no 3G coverage available.

Manually turning 3G off will only improve things in situations where 3G signal is present but very weak.



What about other makes of phone? It's most likely to be an issue with signal not penetrating the building particularly well (or not at all) rather than a handset issue.

My 3GS had a terrible signal inside. My iPhone 4s hasn't lost signal yet, so I'm happy.

Yeah, I've found that my 4S is happier than my old 3GS in low signal conditions too.

My 3GS has no signal inside buildings and I'm on Orange. I came to the conclusion that Orange's coverage is worse than I thought, and that the iPhone isn't good enough to compensate. Worst phone I ever had. I'm now paying Orange £35 a month until 2013 and just got a contract with Vodafone for £15.50 a month because it actually works.

It works for me, yes the phone should auto switch if no 3g signal is present but what happens if the phone detects a weak 3g signal.... it will attempt to connect to it.
By forcing 3g off the phone will ignore the weak signal and default to either the Edge network or the standard carrier signal. I have done this on my phone, my partners and my daughters phone and it works every time.

Yeah, that's exactly what I said...

Weak 3G signal isn't the OP's problem. He's getting no signal at all.

Most smartphones seem to have worse reception than standard mobile phones.

It just happened that iPhones happened to be the worst because of the design.
It did however have bigger signal bars, no doubt so that the problem was of less note.