Steve Jobs said all smartphones have this problem — hold it in a certain way and your phone signal goes down. Was curious so I wanted to try this one several of the phones I have here – the Galaxy S, Xperia X10 and Desire.
So I tried holding these 3 phones in every possible way to see if I could somehow affect the signal strength.
Fortunately, all the 3 Android phones have this built-in “Signal Strength” monitor which is measured in -dBm (an abbreviation for the power ratio in decibels). If you have an Android phone, you can see this by going to Settings -> Status -> Signal Strength.
The typical range of wireless received signal power over a network is somewhere between −60 to −80dBm which has a power of 10 pico-watts to 1,000 pico-watts. So as you can see, the phones we have below are in the -80dBM range.
We started out with the Samsung Galaxy S i9000 at -81dBm. When you clasp your hand at the bottom back part of the phone, the signal drops to -97dBm. Holding it just on the side did not affect the signal, just the back part (below the battery compartment)
Next one is the Sony Ericsson Xperia X10 which started out around -87dBm. It drops slightly to -93dBm if you clasp the bottom back end of the phone, just like the Galaxy S above.
With the HTC Desire, I could get a nice -75dBM signal hands-free but can easily drop it to -103dBm when you clasp the phone with both hands tightly — and bringing down the signal bar from 3/4 to 2/4.
So it’s really true that holding a phone in some way will affect its signal strength though it may vary from phone to phone.
Updated: Here’s a closer shot of the signal loss on the HTC Desire and Xperia X10:
@Bea
Actually, the so called “Death Grip” exists in every phone. Only that it is prominent in certain situations, and unlike the iPhone 4 where holding it normally (as provided already in most of the tech sites), you’d have to handle your phone “awkwardly” to reproduce the same effect.
@Efren Sy
I think Apple blew it by including the other phone companies in this fiasco of theirs (July 16 Press Conference, Cupertino, California), which entitles almost every other Filipino (or maybe not just us) who have the phones of Apple’s “rivals” to comment on the said issue.
Please also note that Apple had several chances to own up to the issue and rectify it right away. But what did they do? They dodged the issue and they continue to deny it even when they are now giving out free bumpers / cases (not to mention refunds in some parts of the world), which, in my opinion, is an indirect fess-up to their iPhone 4 woes.
I guess people here, even if they don’t own an iPhone 4 (yet), are just ticked off because of all the deceit being thrown around. We’re all consumers, and I’m sure we don’t want that happening to us.
You don’t have to own an iPhone 4 to see that there is something wrong (and I’m not talking about the signal issues). :)