Precisely! So to infer that only 0.5% of iPhone 4 users ever had a problem is quite incorrect; we don't know how many called AT&T about dropped calls, and that may in fact be a reflection on the phone, not the network.
The real number is undoubtedly higher than 0.5%; how high is anyone's guess, but 5% is not out of the question.
Will Comsumer Reports investigate the signal loss of the BB phone and HTC phone demonstrated during the press conference? After all it was just a Gizmodo article that started this whole thing.
I thought it was an Ars Technica article with the first measurements of signal loss?
Regardless, CR tests phones the same way, and to date they haven't had a problem with other phones. In fact, CR even said the iPhone 4 was very good except if you touched the antenna wrong. It's part of their standard test - measure actual signal strength for all phones.
The difference, of course, is that the iPhone 4's antenna is exposed and uncovered (bare metal). That explains the problem, and why other phones may have lost some signal, they did not lose it to the degree of the iPhone 4.
(note: Apple's pictures of other phones losing signal strength is interesting and all, but unless Apple knows how signal strength is mapped to displayed bars for all those other phones, it's really nothing more than pretty pictures used to distract from the real issue. After all, we already know that Apple was calculating their bars wrong, and can change the display in software; who's to say that BB, HTC, Samsung aren't wrong with their displays, too?)
Consumer Reports actually shuould retest the phone after the latest software update. They should also compare the iPhone signal loss against other phones that exhibit similar signal drops.
I'm pretty sure they will. We have to wait for Apple to finish the software update, first...
As a smart device, I don't think there's a better one on the market than the iPhone.
As a phone, it sucks eggs. Both of mine, and the two my employees have, drop calls constantly. I never had that problem with my three other AT&T phones. Nor did my employees have that happen on their Blackberrys. Thinking it was AT&Ts 3G network,I used the phone for several weeks on the Edge network: still dropped calls.
The phone is also much weaker than the Razrs and Sony were....it took me a couple weeks to realize all the spots in my work and home high-rises where my other phones worked but the iPhone won't.
Also, getting in and out of elevators, and walking around building cores, causes the phone to get confused with dropping and reconnecting to the network: necessitating a hard boot every couple days.
While it's the best at everything else, it's a crap phone. Total crap. I'd get something else if it weren't so good at non-phone applications.