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Android vs. iPhone 4 Signal Strength Bars Comparison

thisisauniqueid writes "In light of the clamor over the iPhone 4 Grip of Death, AnandTech recently reverse-engineered the phone's signal-strength-to-bars mapping. Because Android is open source, we can determine the corresponding mapping for Android in combination with the 3GPP spec referenced in the source, allowing the signal-strength-to-bars mapping for both Android and the iPhone 4 to be plotted on the same axes. This shows that the iPhone 4 consistently reports a higher percentage signal strength (as defined by the fraction of bars lit) than Android GSM devices at the same signal strength."

12 of 253 comments (clear)

  1. noise floor? by X0563511 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    These measures aren't very useful without considering the noise floor...

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    For large sets, this will be our guide even unto death, for the LORD will work for each type of data it is applied to...
  2. Summarising... by Kupfernigk · · Score: 5, Insightful

    All mobile phones have tradeoffs in antenna design in order to look pretty, because people don't like visible external aerials. Apple have come up with what should be a very good design but compromised it by not coating the metal in a dielectric layer. Apple have created bad publicity for themselves by coming up with a BP-like response to the complaints, but this won't affect their sales because Apple buyers don't take any notice of negative publicity for Apple products.

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    From scarped cliff or quarried stone she cries "A thousand types are gone, I care for nothing, no not one."
    1. Re:Summarising... by BasilBrush · · Score: 4, Insightful

      this won't affect their sales because Apple buyers don't take any notice of negative publicity for Apple products.

      It won't affect sales because in normal use, the iPhone 4 has better reception than previous iPhones. If there was a real problem, that would affect sales, but the average phone buyer doesn't read slashdot and gizmodo, and so doesn't get put off by this sort of hysteria.

  3. So... by Anubis+IV · · Score: 4, Insightful

    ...they independently confirmed a bug that Apple had already confirmed?

  4. Re:dB attenuation? by Brian+Recchia · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Probably 99% of the population has no idea that -80 dB is extremely good and -100 dB is awful. Further, the curve is logarithmic, which makes things confusing because most people are only particularly familiar with linear.

  5. Re:Well duh ... by Hal_Porter · · Score: 4, Insightful

    What the difference between a Mac fanboy and a bicycle?

    Slap a chain on a bicycle and it doesn't blog endlessly about how being chained up is an improvement.

    --
    echo -e 'global _start\n _start:\n mov eax, 2\n int 80h\n jmp _start' > a.asm; nasm a.asm -f elf; ld a.o -o a;
  6. Re:dB attenuation? by BitZtream · · Score: 4, Insightful

    They don't know that right now.

    Switch every phone over to display dB directly and everyone in the world would understand it in 6 months, though some would bitch about it for years to come.

    People don't need to know what the numbers MEAN, they need to know that at 100 it doesn't work, and at 96 just barely works, but 80 is golden, and they'll figure that out fairly quickly.

    Of course in reality all people really want is the phone to give them a good reason why they lost their call, can't get calls or have shitty data rates, and that could more accurately be represented with a simple block of text when the users asks and a green or red light in place of the bars.

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  7. Can someone please get a RFEE to explain things? by xtal · · Score: 5, Insightful

    IANARFEE, but I am a EE who works with RF.

    For all of the millions of dollars being lost on productivity aimlessly discussing 'bars'..

    Can someone please dissect the antenna and then connect it to a calibrated spectrum analyser? This is so mindbogglingly trivial to do it is beginning to hurt my soul. I do similar exercises at work with new, untested antenna designs. I am sure I am not the only one.

    For comparison, do the same to other phones and publish actual measurements of received signal drops and the effect from the disturbance caused from closing your hand around the antenna. This is similar to how touching an old rabbit-ears style antenna effects the picture on a analog TV broadcast, if the effect is as I suspect.

    Voila! An actual, meaningful assessment of what the phone bars mean in real numbers from a calibrated instrument.

    An uncalibrated receiver, such as the iphone, is not a proper tool to do this.

    *grumble* *off my lawn* *grumble*

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    ..don't panic
  8. Re:Well duh ... by noidentity · · Score: 5, Insightful
    Huh? This variation expresses my view:

    Why does a Mac critic have a problem with the chain on a bicycle?

    It restricts what you can do with the bike.

  9. Re:Well duh ... by MobileTatsu-NJG · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I am saying that I hear a LOT more from people saying what Apple fans would say than I am from the actual fans. Especially in threads that nothing to do with either.

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    "I like to lick butts!" by MobileTatsu-NJG (#32700246) (Score:5, Informative)

  10. Re:Well duh ... by node+3 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    What the difference between a Mac fanboy and a bicycle?

    Slap a chain on a bicycle and it doesn't blog endlessly about how being chained up is an improvement.

    Then why is it always the Google fanboys who go on and on about the chains?

  11. Re:dB attenuation? by Tumbleweed · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Why not leave user interface design to people who know that there are a lot of colorblind people out there?