Does Your Phone Suffer from a Death Grip Like the iPhone?
Remember when Steve Jobs responded to criticism about the iPhone 4's antenna by asserting that a whole lot of other phones have a similar problem? That touched off a firestorm -- phone owners and manufacturers alike weighed in on the matter, taking issue with Apple's attempt to deflect attention from their own engineering disaster.
Well, if you're curious if your own phone (or your potential next purchase) is susceptible to a death grip capable of dropping calls and killing data transfers, you're in luck. PC World recently took a road trip to do some real world testing with five phones: the HTC Nexus One, the HTC EVO 4G, the RIM BlackBerry Bold 9650, the Motorola Droid X, and the Samsung Captivate.
PC World determined the iPhone's loss in signal strength when you "hold it wrong" (24dBm) and then used that as the benchmark for the other phones. Here's what they found:
- The Samsung Captivate had the greatest amount of signal loss -- about 30 dBm.
- The other phones fared much better, dropping 14 dBm or less.
- No matter what the potential loss in signal strength, any loss is far less likely to happen than on the iPhone because gripping the magic spot requires holding each of the phones in an awkward, unnatural position.
