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Comment by YooLi | Hacker News Reader

What would it take to convince you that it isn't a "Big 'oops'"? [Serious question]

I just checked my EVO manual and it specifically says where not to touch the phone (upper left). The difference seems to be that people learned where not to touch the iPhone and then made a huge deal about it as if it was something new.

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HTC EVO manual: http://support.sprint.com/global/pdf/user_guides/htc/evo/htc...

Page 169:

"To assure optimal phone performance and ensure human exposure to RF energy is within the guidelines set forth in the relevant standards, always use your device only in its normal-use position. Contact with the antenna area may impair call quality and cause your device to operate at a higher power level than needed. Avoiding contact with the antenna area when the phone is IN USE optimizes the antenna performance and the battery life. "

I'd be convinced if I actually held one in my hand and could either reproduce or not reproduce the problem.

I find it crazy how many people leap to either attack or defend Apple without having ever used one of the things.

A co-worker just showed me his new iPhone 4 this afternoon. I joked with him that he had interesting timing, and tried to show him the antenna issue. I've never used an iPhone 4, so I figured it would be easy to replicate the issue. It wasn't, and the reception at my office is terrible. I was able to drop a bar off by cupping most of the phone in both hands, but couldn't kill the signal completely. I think my co-worker installed the software update already, so perhaps this is partially why.

I have an iPhone 3GS and have put off upgrading because of the signal issue. I figured there was some media hype, but wouldn't have figured I'd be unable to replicate the issue.

would you be able to scan that page? seriously that would be great to see.

I can't scan as I don't have a scanner, but here is the manual on scribd. Page 169 of the actual manual or page 179 of scribed.

http://www.scribd.com/doc/32516924/Sprint-HTC-EVO-User-Manua...

Here's a screenshot: http://img96.imageshack.us/img96/7628/screenshot20100716at23...

thank you very much.

I had to laugh - I figured no one would actually read the manual :)

Generally I would agree with that. Except that location on the iPhone 4 is rather unfortunately placed. And even more so, when Consumer Reports weighed in. I tend to respect CR quite highly. If they say there is a problem, I tend to believe them.

I felt the same way about Consumer Reports until they kept releasing new 'reports' about things that generally looked like link-bait to me. They did their whole initial review of the unit without noticing the problem, i.e. it worked as they expected it to work. It wasn't until it was brought to their attention that you could touch the spot and change the signal that they did the followup report. Then they released something about duct-tape working. Then posted something else about bumpers working, etc. It makes it very hard for me to have confidence in their testing after that.

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