Posted on 11/17/2010 7:05:10 PM PST by Swordmaker
Electronista reports, "The iPhone 4's disputed antenna has given Android a virtual sweep of the top phone rankings at Consumer Reports, the magazine's latest ratings showed today."
"A decision to avoid recommending the iPhone 4 has made Android-based Samsung Captivate the highest recommended smartphone on AT&T, leaving the iPhone 3GS in second place," Electronista reports.
Electronista reports, "When searched separately, the iPhone 4 held on to a 76 point score that would have given it the same ranking as the Captivate... . The magazine nonetheless reiterated that, without an actual design change, it couldn't put the iPhone 4 in the same company as some users would encounter serious reception issues. 'We agree with Apple that not all iPhone 4 owners will experience reception difficulties," Consumer Reports said. "But putting the onus on owners of a product to obtain a remedy to a design flaw is not acceptable to us.'"
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Consumer Reports is staffed by incompetent hypocrites and/or using Apple garner free publicity. Either way, or both, Consumer Reports' continuing charade is only damaging themselves.
Eric Zeman, InformationWeek, July 16, 2010:
I have both a Samsung Vibrant and Captivate on hand for testing purposes. In both phones, the internal antenna is apparently located on the back of the phone, towards the very bottom edge. When gripped around the bottom of the phone (with either hand) the signal strength drops almost immediately. The Vibrant went from three bars to zero bars in about five seconds, and the Captivate went from four bars to zero bars in about six seconds. When I let go, the signal returns immediately.
Many of the phones I review come with stickers on them. Those stickers often warn users of certain things. One of the stickers I've seen on many phones is one which warns users to avoid touching certain parts of the cell phone in order to not block the antenna. Covering the antenna of just about any cell phone made can result in a drop in signal strength.
Even when the Vibrant and Captivate lost signal strength, neither phone dropped a call, and I was still able to send text messages and surf the mobile web. With the iPhone 4, I never dropped a call or lost a data connection when it was suffering from the "death grip" phenomenon, either.
Samsung Galaxy S (AT&T Captivate) - "Death Grip" antenna attenuation - video one:
Samsung Galaxy S (AT&T Captivate) - "Death Grip" antenna attenuation - video two:
Samsung Galaxy S (AT&T Captivate) - "Death Grip" antenna attenuation - video three:
Consumer Reports has no credibility.
I am able to consistently reproduce a 10db drop in signal strength by placing my thumb across the two antenna contacts. I can’t reproduce it with any normal grip or with a case on, and the drop I see in field test mode hasn’t shown up in any real-world dropped calls or connections.
I don’t usually use Consumer Reports to make a choice on what to buy for anything.
I still think that folks oughta buy what they like. I do, and am very happy.
I still have my trusty iPhone 4. Still without a case and looking great, not a scratch on it.
Buy what you prefer and it’s okay with me. :)
My issue was really the juvenile-sounding language they used.
Most LCDs today do not have great color/contrast/black level. I am typing this on a Toshiba laptop that has roughly the same picture quality as my old IBM Thinkpad from 1997. In order to get CRT-level PQ, you have to get an expensive S-IPS monitor, but those have slow response times. I’ve actually been considering getting an S-IPS for my desktop PC.
However, most people are willing to sacrifice picture quality for having a monitor that is much lighter weight, easier on the eyes, and more reliable. Which is fine unless you do photo-editing or some other task that needs better PQ. LCDs are also good for people such as certain family members of mine who are in the habit of turning the brightness/contrast up to 100%. You’ll kill a CRT pretty quickly by doing that.
When you mention “early LCD monitors”, I take it to mean the old 4:3 monitors (circa 2002-05). Those didn’t really become that popular because there was nothing you could do with them that couldn’t already be done with a CRT. Then came the 16:9 LCDs which offered widescreen and DVI inputs. After that, no one would touch a CRT.
As far as NTSC/PAL monitors, LCDs don’t really do that good of a job because of having to deinterlace the video. I’ve seen LCD NTSC monitors in action, and they’re always choppy. Even on HDTVs, 720p video is smoother than 1080i due to the latter’s being interlaced.
I have an Android and completely ignore the bars since the never have any relation to call quality, which is usually pretty good.
However, I am disappointed with the phone. It does a lot of things pretty well, but the one major thing it does not do well is place and receive phone calls. I could place and receive calls 20x as fast on my Nokia of 16 years ago.
I don’t even use the phone. I tell people I’ll call them back or if I’m home I tell them to call the land line. The quality of the audio is so bad I can’t carry on a conversation.
Good observation. I’ve not once actually tickled the physical keyboard with my fingers. I’ve always been used to the onscreen keyboard instead of the physical keyboard since that is what I was used to.
The rumor mill is that the iPhone will come to Verizon early next year. When it does the Droid goes in the drawer for when one of my kids breaks (another) phone.
Consumer Reports... isn’t that the organization that lost the trust of most thinking people when it was found that they had fudged test results on the Suzuki Samuri, intentionally underinflating tires and/or other tricks to cause their reported rollover problems?
And that isn’t the first time they have been caught fudging numbers/results.
My step-father asked me a few months ago about the iPhone 4... he was trying to decide between the Samsung Captivate and the iPhone. He opted for the Captivate because of promised easier syncing of data...
He returned it two days later - reception issues.
Hello...
I didn't grip it in any precise way...to try to get it to attenuate.... just the way I normally hold the phone by the sides with my fingers. It was kind of moot for me as I have a rubber skin on it for protection anyway...just like I did on my 3G. So with that in mind I have very poor cell coverage at my airplane hangar up in the desert, and this phone works better there than any ATT phone I've had. Not real scientific but I do know that with my 3G I sometimes had to go outside the metal building to make a call. I can make solid calls inside now with the 4.
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