Lab tests: Why Consumer Reports can’t recommend the iPhone 4.

It’s official. Consumer Reports’ engineers have just completed testing the iPhone 4, and have confirmed that there is a problem with its reception. When your finger or hand touches a spot on the phone’s lower left side—an easy thing, especially for lefties—the signal can significantly degrade enough to cause you to lose your connection altogether if you’re in an area with a weak signal. Due to this problem, we can’t recommend the iPhone 4.

We reached this conclusion after testing all three of our iPhone 4s (purchased at three separate retailers in the New York area) in the controlled environment of CU’s radio frequency (RF) isolation chamber. In this room, which is impervious to outside radio signals, our test engineers connected the phones to our base-station emulator, a device that simulates carrier cell towers (see video: IPhone 4 Design Defect Confirmed). We also tested several other AT&T phones the same way, including the iPhone 3G S and the Palm Pre. None of those phones had the signal-loss problems of the iPhone 4.

Our findings call into question the recent claim by Apple that the iPhone 4’s signal-strength issues were largely an optical illusion caused by faulty software that “mistakenly displays 2 more bars than it should for a given signal strength.”

The tests also indicate that AT&T’s network might not be the primary suspect in the iPhone 4’s much-reported signal woes..

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Source: http://shopping.yahoo.com

While the world continues to line up for the latest iPhone — reception problems and all — Verizon’s just-announced jumbo-screen Motorola Droid X has racked up a bevy of admiring reviews.

David Pogue at the New York Times calls the Droid X (slated to arrive July 15 for $199, with a two-year Verizon Wireless contract and after a mail-in rebate) a “big, beautiful contender” with an “almost-Imax screen” (4.3 inches diagonally, to be exact, or almost a inch bigger than the iPhone’s 3.5-inch display). The phone performs like a “speed rocket,” Pogue gushes, and benefits from Google’s “open and customizable” (and soon Flash-supporting) Android OS, although he also complains about a few nagging quirks (the security warnings before you download Android apps, the wonky screen rotation, the Wi-Fi-less Skype).

The Droid X battery “gets you through a full day easily,” Pogue continues, and there’s also Verizon’s “expensive but not-call-dropping network,” as well as the handset’s ability to act as a mobile hotspot for other Wi-Fi devices. That said, the Droid X isn’t for everyone, Pogue warns, saying that the “absolutely huge” shell makes you feel “as if you’re talking into a frozen waffle” when you’re making a call, and that although Android is a great OS for “technically proficient high-end users,” it’s “more complicated and less polished” than Apple’s iOS.

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Source: http://news.yahoo.com

This may be the season of the smartphone. Already, about one in five Americans has one of these devices, which have a wider range of features than a traditional cell phone. Carriers and handset makers are intent on getting smartphones, which also carry higher price tags and pricier service plans, into the hands of more users this holiday season. Here’s a list of some of the more prominent smart phones on offer before yearend.

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