Bought a Sony Ericsson Xperia ray

[Raymond]

Yeah my wife found that out herself that she had to hold the iphone in a special way so that the reception doesn't drop off.

As for my phone, there's no reception even I placed it on the table.

[hellnoire]

Only have a screen protector, wonder if that will affect the reception?

The stock firmware that came with my Galaxy S2 was the same way. Screen protector isn't the problem, at least not for the S2. What did work was flashing a "stock" ROM. [It wasn't my carrier's ROM, but a different carrier's ROM, though still have enough the same that my carrier would never notice the difference... and now that my phone is actually rooted and unlocked, if my carrier complains, I repay the phone charge and walk to any other carrier in Canada.]

If you look up custom ROMs for your Xperia Ray, you might be able to find a ROM that has better reception, since some of them are limited on their frequency. Keep in mind, if you do this, you might as well root your phone too, especially seeing as the special firmware would kill your software warranty, can't say if it would break the hardware warranty either. Though... you can always flash stock firmware back, so it's not like your carrier or Sony would know...

[Raymond]

Rooting phones is something very new to me. I guess I'll have to start reading up.

[hellnoire]

Rooting phones is something very new to me. I guess I'll have to start reading up.

I can't speak for a Sony phone, but for HTC and Samsung, it's pretty simple. Usually just fire a custom firmware then flash a stock firmware after a first boot of the custom. Keeps it so you're rooted, but it's not as easy to find out, so you can send it back for any issues.