After initially saying that the iPhone 4′s reception issues were no big deal, Consumer Reports has changed its tune, saying they can no longer recommend it. They just got around to testing it, you see.
Their engineers have apparently just completed testing of the phone and have discovered it has the reception issues everyone else has known about for weeks:
When your finger or hand touches a spot on the phone’s lower left side-an easy thing, especially for lefties-the signal can significantly degrade enough to cause you to lose your connection altogether if you’re in an area with a weak signal. Due to this problem, we can’t recommend the iPhone 4.
In order to come to this conclusion, they performed what appear to be some pretty legit testing:
We reached this conclusion after testing all three of our iPhone 4s (purchased at three separate retailers in the New York area) in the controlled environment of CU’s radio frequency (RF) isolation chamber. In this room, which is impervious to outside radio signals, our test engineers connected the phones to our base-station emulator, a device that simulates carrier cell towers. We also tested several other AT&T phones the same way, including the iPhone 3G S and the Palm Pre. None of those phones had the signal-loss problems of the iPhone 4.
This, of course, begs the question of why the hell they recommended the phone without actually testing it. Isn’t Consumer Reports known for doing serious, unbiased testing before releasing their definitive opinions? So why did they rush to recommend the phone, even going so far as to say that the issues people were having were overblown, when they hadn’t even really tested it?
P.S. It’s my opinion that you shouldn’t use duct tape to cover up the problem spot on the iPhone, as CR recommends. It’ll leave a gummy residue afterwards, and you’ll have to use gum remover to clean it, which can’t be good for the gasket surrounding the glass, and I’m not sure it won’t affect the glass’s oleophobic treatment as well (I’m unsure of that second part, but I wouldn’t risk it.)
[Consumer Reports via Consumerist]
lolsnarfsnarf
Tuesday, July 13, 2010 at 8:44 AMThe recent glow in the dark bumper that wraps itself around the metal frame, should be replicated, but with clear material. That would make a quick, invisible cover for the issue.
Or just redesign the phone and swap the handsets (and re-use the swapped ones). Apple are too stingy for that though.
olearymo
Tuesday, July 13, 2010 at 9:15 AMooh! a clear one. that actually does sound like a really good idea.
I think it’s stupid to have to use one at all, but if i was an iphone 4 owner (i’m not) the clear idea would actually be great, lolsnarfsnarf
mark
Tuesday, July 13, 2010 at 9:39 AMWhy can’t they just coat the metal with on non conductive material in the factory? It’a a simple fix. i would think something like a Diamond CVD Coating would work
James
Tuesday, July 13, 2010 at 1:32 PMan obviously biased review from an organisation that clearly is run by google lol
cflow
Tuesday, July 13, 2010 at 3:33 PMSurely conventional clear sticky tape will do the job? It’s cheap and easily can be reapplied when needed.
3M could do a whole campaign with Apple…
Steve M.
Tuesday, July 13, 2010 at 7:02 PMHow to lose all of your credibility in two easy steps:
1) Recommend something
2) Retract your recommendation, revealing that you never actually tested it to begin with