Testing a 'known good' iPhone 3G proves what?

Stephen Withers
Monday, 25 August 2008 13:18

Your IT - Mobility

There's a lot of noise about the iPhone 3G and how well it does - or doesn't - connect to 3G networks. But if you wanted to shed light on what's going on, would you test a handset that was working well, or one that was working badly?

In a worthy effort to inject some facts into a debate that's largely running on opinion and hearsay, Swedish newspaper Göteborgs-Posten (Gothenburg Post) had an iPhone 3's transmit and receive performance tested by Bluetest, a company that carries out such work for manufacturers including Motorola.

The result? "The values are completely normal, says Magnus Franzén, an antenna engineer with an MSc in Engineering Physics."

Minor differences were found between the iPhone 3G, the Sony Ericsson P1 and the Nokia N73, but they were apparently not significant.

However, Göteborgs-Posten reporter Eva Wieselgren observed "In my opinion my iPhone has worked perfectly", though she did note a tendency to switch from 3G to EDGE more frequently than expected.

So where does that get us? We already know that whatever the problem is, it does not affect every iPhone 3G.

The fact that no antenna problems were found with one handset that seemed to be working properly doesn't rule out the suggestion (originating with Swedish publication My Teknik) that antenna alignment is to blame. A mechanical assembly issue would explain why reception issues are only affecting a subset of iPhone 3Gs, even though they all use the same chips and software - assuming owners have installed the updates as they arrive.

What about iPhone 3Gs that aren't giving satisfactory reception? Pkease turn to page two.