IPhone 5 showing no network when auto selected for carrier, select manually signal ok, software of hardware problem?

Question

Hi,
I have a iPhone 5, since day one I have had poor reception, 1 bar, when my daughters Samsung S3 has 3 bars, same network btw. It makes me feel I bought the wrong phone.  If one more person at Three or Apple tell me to restore my phone to factory settings, I am going to scream. Also when network is selected as auto, the phone, when it feels like it goes to no service.  It is only when I select the network manually, does it get a signal.
The phone is still under Apple's 90 day support, I was reminded today by a Apple rep of this. After the 90 days I would have to buy Applecare for any software related problem.  So basically if Apple do not ressolve the problem with my "not fit for purpose phone" within the 90 days, I will have to pay for it. This is not good customer service Apple, I am someone who has believed in your productsas I have an iMac and iPad. I waited years to get an iPhone because I had the 3GS, which I thought was crap, the iPhone 5 convinced me to give the iPnone another try, I have had nothing but problems with it, previous phone was a Samsung Galaxy Note, no problems at all.
Has any one else had this problem with the iPhone 5?, I thought it might be Apple's dreaded aerial problem that caused so many problems on the iPhone 4.
I would be grateful for some suggestions, I have already been advised to use it as an expensive doorstop, not funny.
Many thanks.

Answer 1

Well I had the exact same problem with my Iphone 5s, I tried many things such as turning the airplane mode on/off, restarting the device and also did a network settings reset. Nothing helped.
The next thing I did was to do a general reset via iTunes to factory settings (Made a backup first. Very important if you can connect to iTunes, it's a MUST). When the phone booted-up again, I had to ''activate the phone. But to activate it, I needed a connection with a network. But that was the whole problem so I was stuck and couldn't do anything with the device.
So I called the Apple support centre. We tried a few things, they all dindn't work. The last option (which worked for me) was to do a recovery (I have no idea what this reset is called)  via the device+ iTunes.
To perform the reset, please follow these steps and hopefully it will work for you as well.
1. Open iTunes
2. Connect your USB cable to the computer, NOT to your device yet.
3. Power Off your device, and be sure that it is Off.
4. Press the home and hold it.
5. Connect the USB cable to your phone. You will see a iTunes logo on your device, you can release the home button.
6. Do a recovery via iTunes. iTunes will now recover the phone.
If it doesn't work the first time, try again. I had to do it twice and luckily it worked the second time.
I hope that this will help, Good luck!