In a stunning rebuke of Apple, Consumer Reports announced it cannot recommend the iPhone 4 to shoppers because of its well documented reception problems when the phone is held by its left hand corner.
A Consumer Reports blog said the organization didn’t buy Apple’s claim that the signal strength issues were caused by faulty software that shows more signal bars than it should.
The organization’s own testing found that the signal strength can plummet by more than 20dB, enough to drop a call in a weak signal area, while other phones tested did not have the problem.
Ironically, the organization found that covering the left corner with a slice of duct tape fixes the problem just fine. (See the video below).
The conclusion is a reversal from Consumer Reports’ blog of July 2 that said, “Bottom line: There’s no reason, at least yet, to forgo buying an iPhone 4 over its reception concerns.”
The new blog on Monday admitted the iPhone 4 scored well in rankings other than reception and concluded, “If you want an iPhone that works well without a masking-tape fix, we continue to recommend an older model, the 3G S.”
But it also said the iPhone “sports the sharpest display and best video camera we’ve seen on any phone, and even outshines its high-scoring predecessors with improved battery life and such new features as a front-facing camera for video chats and a built-in gyroscope that turns the phone into a super-responsive game controller. But Apple needs to come up with a permanent—and free—fix for the antenna problem before we can recommend the iPhone 4.”
Source: Consumer Reports via AppleInsider
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