Verizon iPhone 4 has antenna ‘death grip’ problems, too

February 9, 2011 By Andrew Couts

Despite design changes, tests show the Verizon iPhone 4 has similar antenna problems to the GSM version. Antennagate 2? Not likely.

We hate to tell you this, but your most dreaded nightmare is about to come true: The Verizon iPhone 4 has antenna problems! We know, we know; it’s horrible. Too terrible to fathom, really.

Actually, it’s not that bad. At least, it’s nothing compared to the issues with the AT&T version, which caused the “Antennagate” fiasco that had the tech community up-in-arms this past summer, and pressured Apple to give away a bunch of bumper cases in order to tamp-down the scandal.

In the course of doing their standard hardware testing, the good folks over at iLounge discovered that, despite changes to the hardware and slight design adjustments, the Verizon iPhone (which hits stores tomorrow) loses signal strength when held in a certain way.

“[T]he CDMA iPhone 4 can still lose substantial cellular signal strength when held in the prior ‘death grip’ position,” says Charles Starrett at iLounge, “as well as Wi-Fi signal when held in a different position, in each case noticeably slowing or completely stalling the reception of data.”

According to Starrett’s tests, the Wi-Fi signal drops when the phone is held with two hands in landscape orientation. Specifically, Speedtest results reveal that the phone’s 1.1 Mbps download speed drops to a mere 0.1 Mbps when held in the “death hug.” A significant drop, yes. But will it spark Antennagate 2.0?

We doubt it. Why? First, it’s hard for a scandal based on the same bit of damning evidence to bubble up twice. In other words, everyone already knows that the iPhone 4′s antenna could, potentially, cause users problems. So even though Apple claims to have fixed the antenna issue in the Verizon version, nobody is going to be particularly surprised if it still has some quirks.

Second, sales figures show that people really just want an iPhone, no matter what. Depsite Antennagate, Apple couldn’t keep AT&T iPhone 4s on the shelf. And pre-orders for the Verizon iPhone broke the company’s first-day sales record. This little hang-up won’t have any effect, whatsoever. (But that doesn’t mean new Verizon iPhone customers should eschew a bumper case.)

Watch iLounge‘s test of the Verizon iPhone:

Showing 4 comments

Tristan Thomas at 7:41pm 11th February 2011 Listen, this is foolishness. The iPhone 4 does NOT have an antenna issue. The death grip is false as Apple has proved. Don't believe? There proof is right here: http://goo.gl/KfKsv
1. ioman at 8:30pm 11th February 2011 I would tend to agree. I think this is all way too overdone. Gizmodo started this rumor and freaked out a ton of people in the process.
Dan at 6:50am 9th February 2011 Death grip, death hug who holds there phone that way? So far no problems here for a normal cell user
1. Ken Jones at 6:57am 9th February 2011 Everyone holds their phone that way, when typing in landscape mode. Every time I turn my Galaxy S horizontally to type out a text, I hold it with both hands and type using my thumbs. The antenna issue with iPhone 4 actually only happens with a small percentage of hardware, but it's still a real issue. The irony here is that everyone should always buy a protective case of some kind for smartphones, because no matter how careful you are you're going to drop it at some point, and even Gorilla Glass can be damaged...and a protective case prevents the iPhone 4 antenna issue entirely. Basically the antenna issue shouldn't be a problem for people because they should be using cases to begin with.