# The SBHonline Community Daily > Digerati Discussions! >  >  iPhone 4 reception

## Petri

We spent a few days in a friend's summer cottage in the Turku archipelago.  It's a beautiful place on an island so iPhone wasn't the first thing in my mind but I managed to do some testing..

Last summer the place didn't have 3G, just GSM/EDGE but my carrier has extended their network and there was 3G !


- iPhone 4 got ~3 bars on 3G, Speedtest was giving about 2 Mbit/s (without touching the antenna).   Easy to drop off from 3G to GSM by holding the phone.

- iPad 3G couldn't connect to the 3G, just full bars on GSM/EDGE.  Pretty painful for web surfing.  Now that I checked it, it was obvious -- there was only 900 Mhz 3G and iPad 3G doesn't support it.

- Nokia E66 was showing full bars on 3G.  Could drop a bar or two by "dead grip" but nothing worth mentioning.


My conclusion was:

- iPhone 4's antenna has the best reception Apple has done so far

- iPhone 4's antenna is probably the most interference prone antenna in any mobile phone

- Lack of 900 Mhz 3G on the iPad was something I hadn't thought about.

- Nokia makes superior antennas compared to Apple (no wonder considering the experience).


I just put my iPhone 4 for sale for 950 .  If it goes, fine, if it doesn't, that's ok too.  I'll be back on the iPhone when Apple makes better antenna design.

Apple's refund offer doesn't cover all my costs so I'm not going to use it.

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## Petri

Just delivered my one-month-old iPhone 4 to the buyer for 950  in cash.  Steve would have refunded only 710 .

This will be my iPhone-replaced for the next few months..  until Steve comes up with less interference prone antenna.

 

96 ..

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## Petri

Or perhaps..

http://www.solomobi.com/category.asp...e2&cate_id=117

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## Voosh

:P  I remember when we had pay phones everywhere around here and the calls were just ten cents. A few nickles more for long distance.  :laugh:

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## Petri

> :P  I remember when we had pay phones everywhere around here and the calls were just ten cents. A few nickles more for long distance.  :laugh:



"Insert more money to continue the call"..

My new cell phone subscription has a monthly fee of 66 euro cents ;-)  They would charge more just to sent the invoice on paper..  (0.95  for paper invoice, free with e-invoice)

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## Voosh

Sounds like a great deal. When do they break into the absurd USA market? I'll sign up.

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## BBT

Hope you get the same appreciation on the Nokia as you got on the iPhone.  What's amazing is pope still are paying a premium to get them a month later.

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## Petri

> Hope you get the same appreciation on the Nokia as you got on the iPhone.  What's amazing is pope still are paying a premium to get them a month later.



The temporary Nokia C5 costs 96, it's paying itself every month I don't have the iPhone as I won't be needing the fastest data service.  It will be just a phone, something the Nokia guys have been good at..  The resale value is meaningless and I most likely just keep it.  I didn't want to buy an expensive Android or high-end Nokia phone as I do want to get back to the iPhone as soon as possible -- I just don't want the crappy antenna.

Right now the iPhone 4 is shipping in just a few countries -- and at least UK, France and US are showing three weeks delivery times.  TeliaSonera who has the exclusive deal with Apple here, really messed up the iPhone 3GS launch last year and people don't expect much from them for the iPhone 4 either -- it's supposed to be available next week but there's no information at all.

A lot of people would prefer a "freedom iPhone" with a carrier of their choice.  Sometimes the carrier choice is more emotional, sometimes it's rational as the coverage isn't the same everywhere.

So no wonder some folks are ready to pay a premium for an unlocked, non-contract iPhone 4.   (The phone costs 739  in France so my 950  wasn't that over the top)

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## BBT

Whats a phone do?  :laugh:

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## phil62

Bob, a "phone do" is what your hair looks like from being trapped between your ear and said phone while waiting for your customer service rep to pick up!

Amy

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## BBT

Very good Amy.

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## Petri

Received the C5 today and now doing an unboxing experience.

This feels very much "Think Different".

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## Petri

It's a phone.  I enjoyed the wine more than trying to get the "smart" out of the device..

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## Petri

TeliaSonera started selling the iPhone 4 this morning.  No queues anywhere, though..

They have a big banner on their home page, with "Order" and "More information" buttons.  Too bad the buttons don't do anything.

I wonder if Apple knows what kind of a funny farm their selected carriers are?

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## BBT

Apple and iPhone 4 antenna vindicated in Norway newspaper

Friday, July 30th, 2010 at 1:44 PM PST

While the rest mediasphere is busy dishing out the negative spin on Apple and its iPhone 4 antenna reception issues, it seems that our European counterparts in Norway are seeing iPhone 4 performance thats just as good and bad as the competition. The Oslo-based Verdens Gang is the largest online and print newspaper in the country, which makes it all that much more significant when the rag declares that the iPhone 4 is free of any manufacturing defect and performed as expected in the remotest edges of the Telenor wireless network.

According to the newspaper, tests were conducted using the iPhone 4, HTC Wildfire, Nokia E71, and the previous-generation iPhone 3GS, to compare wireless reception performance. The report indicates that all the handsets in the test exhibited the Death Grip problem whereby a tight grip on the device would cause an attenuation of signal and a loss of signal bars. Whats important here is not that all the test phones showed antenna attenuation when held in a particular way, but that the iPhone 4 reportedly did not drop calls due to this loss of signal strength.

To take things a step further, the newspaper tested both voice and data services whilst being held in the Death Grip. The results are actually quite surprising. VG found that data services on the iPhone 4 and iPhone 3GS proved to be superior to their HTC- and Nokia-made counterparts when gripped tightly and covering the cellular antenna. The report states that, while voice calls suffered sound quality problems, the calls themselves were uninterrupted. But, when data services were used, only the iPhones in the test were able to open web pages successfully, while the other test phones floundered.

So, whats the issue here? Some say that the problem may have to do with the AT&T network in the US, which is spread much thinner than mobile networks in Norway. The sheer size of the US means that cell towers are much fewer and further between than cell towers in Norway  a country smaller than the US state of California. Consumer Reports claims that the problems are actually not related to any problems with the AT&T wireless network.

Whatever the case, the iPhone 4 is a great piece of hardware that hasnt failed the IntoMobile team since we started using it on iPhour launch day last month. Death Grip issues aside, we cant fault the new Apple smartphone for dropping calls any more than other AT&T handsets have in the past.

[Via: VG and AppleInsider]

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## Petri

I think it has more to do with the fact who is testing than what the network is.

I'm in a country the same size as Norway (neighbours up in the north actually) but with better GSM/3G networks for various reasons, from historical telco competition to early liberatisation, Nokia's influence (if any) and reasonably flat unlike Norway.

I never had a dropped call with the iPhone 4 but I could see deteriorating during calls and when surfing the net in my palm.  No need for any "death grips", no need to shortcut the black plastic in the lower left corner.  Very different from the experience with 3GS which worked just fine.

All my friends with iPhone 4 have managed to repeat the problem, in at least two different 3G networks (I don't know anyone using the third 3G network).  They acknowledge the problem but either don't find it bad enough, or are using cases anyway.

PS. There are rumours that Apple would have changed something in the antenna design for the second wave of iPhone 4 countries..

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## BBT

I am sure you are correct just wanted you to see Norway article. My experience on SBH with 3 phones is they all had the same bars and reception. This only agreed with what I have been saying that the problems seem more AT&T related. Maybe AT%T signal is just weaker.

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## Petri

It's quite possible, most likely in fact, that AT&T's network has been built with different targets.

AT&T uses 850 Mhz for rural 3G and 1900 Mhz for city 3G.  Here the 3G networks use 900 Mhz for rural 3G and 2100 Mhz for city 3G.

However in Norway Telenor uses only 2100 Mhz 3G, there's no 3G in the rural areas.  In other words, Telenor's network is very different from what our carriers or AT&T have.  Looking at the coverage maps (http://www.telenor.no:80/privat/dekning/index.jsp for Telenor), Telenor's calculations look very similar to what my carrier uses but the AT&T 3G map is quite different.

PS. Telenor is the official iPhone carrier in Norway and probably a big ad spender in VG..  VG's owner and Telenor seem to have had common businesses.

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## amyb

Voosh-If that phone and cabinet are in your house, note I have the same Lennox figure with the lady and the fan! Just sayin', Amyu

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## andynap

> Voosh-If that phone and cabinet are in your house, note I have the same Lennox figure with the lady and the fan! Just sayin', Amyu




Amy- I think that is a stock picture. Do you have that phone too. LOL

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## BBT

> Originally Posted by amyb
> 
> Voosh-If that phone and cabinet are in your house, note I have the same Lennox figure with the lady and the fan! Just sayin', Amyu
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Amy- I think that is a stock picture. Do you have that phone too. LOL



Phil makes her pay to place a call.

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## Voosh

Yeah. Sorry if I didn't give copyright info on that old Bell Phone. Good Gawd! It's just a phone. 

The other day our phones got dunked in the water. My ancient Nokia was fine. Kathy's new "smartphone" took a bit of work to revive (Like, getting it apart, pulling chips, running a hair dryer on parts, using Q-Tips on contacts and "greasin it." We're in touch again. No problem (just the usual BS.))

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## amyb

OK on the stock photo-I was thinking Kathy and I shared a hobby. Having 3 sons, I became a porcelain doll collector just for my own fun thing to do.

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## Petri

http://www.appleinsider.com/articles...the_works.html

There's no antennagate..  whoops.

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## BBT

Not to argue with the engineers here but since I carry both the BB bold and the IPhone 4 when I land and turn on my phone thenIPhone always gets a signal first and my emails come through first.  Happened again last nightnwhen I landednin SJU

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## Petri

That's mostly because of the software and overall better hardware, very little to do with the antenna (and especially nothing to do with the "antenna-gate").  Basicly your iPhone just boots faster, find the network faster and the e-mail push/poll/whatever works faster.

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