Is The Death Grip Standard On Phones? Lets Test It

July 17, 2010 | By WenWP

The world we live in seems to have been turned today with the accusation by Mr Jobs that all phones seem to have a problem with you hold it “Wrong”, so I will give this a try on my HTC HD2.

The test is simple. I take one hand cover the whole bottom of the device for thirty seconds, and do that again with two hands. Since my phone calculates bars correctly, I know that I am certainly beginning this with 4 bars (in my small office).

No Hand:

The no hand test was simple. Place the device on my table, and see if it gets any signal changes while not being held. The bars stayed consistently at 4 for 30 seconds, and so I went to the second test.

One Hand:

After holding my device for 30 seconds with my hand covering the left side completely from top to bottom, my 4 fingers holding the right side and my palm resting on the bottom. After doing all that my phone lost 1 bars, and stayed at 3 bars for the 30 second testing time.

Two Hands:

After holding the device almost unethically complete, it seems the bars have dropped quite significantly this time. For the 30 seconds, half way through it, the bars dropped 2 lower than the three we had with the one hand on both sides.

This seems to show that Mr. Jobs was right, all devices have this issue. But as you can tell, I do not say problem because with the HD2 and other well designed phones. It is not truly a problem, we might loss a few bars (that we actually had) and still get great service. I tried this out with the Samsung Vibrant, Droid Incredible, and HD1, and they all lost a view but never dropped a call or anything.

So we cannot truly say we are death grip free because we aren’t. What we can say is, we do not have any problems with our death grips, we love our grips, and only when we hold it super tight can we see a big drop in bars.

When I was done with the test, I returned to device to its stand and the bars reverted to a very comfortable 4.

Update: This only happens to our devices when they have 3G since 3G is a weak signal. Now if you are on Edge or on a 2G connection. This will not happen to your device, so that is why some of you do not loss any bars.

About Wen M

Working for WMPU is awesome. Love to write personal articles, and I do it very often. I am the reviewing editor (self appointed), so you will see alot of reviews and giveaways from me. I own quite a few devices not just Windows Phone but Android and others. I live in Minnesota, USA and love traveling to other places.

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Tagged apple, bug, Droid, htc, htc hd, htc hd2, iphone, Issues, windows phone

Alex K

I held one's iPhone and made it go from full 5 bar to no service in 20 sec or so using only one hand.
I tried the same experiment with my HTC Touch Pro:
No Hands: 4
One hand: 2
One hand tight: 2
Two hands: 1

P.S. I even hurt my hand after holding Touch Pro so tightly, but I couldn't make the phone lose a signal. Why Steve Jobs just can't admit it, that "brilliant engineering" to put antenna outside wasn't so brilliant?

http://intensedebate.com/profiles/erlern erlern

+ 10 It wasn't brilliant.
http://www.facebook.com/muneebmufti Muneeb Mufti

same here … just tired the death grip on my HD1….on table 4 bars… one hand death grip 4 bars… 2 hand grip 3 bars… both hands completely covering sides and back…. Silly Grip…. 2 bars…..

apparently HTC had the antenna design figured out some good 2 years before launch of iphone 4
drphysx

HTC phones do not suffer from issues like that. Of course, you can shield the antenna of any phone with your hand. But the iPhone 4 is the ONLY phone with an antenna design that lets you bridge the antenna with other metal parts, which is a completely stupid design.

And of course, while you can shield any phone's antenna, they're usually designed so that you can hold them naturally without losing reception. This, again, is very different from the iPhone 4's "death grip", which is the natural way of holding the phone. Again, totally stupid design.

By the way, HTC have actually patented the external antenna design. But somehow, their designs work. I guess they're simply the better company

David

i can't get my hd2 to lose a single bar no matter how I grip it and how tght I grip it. And I'm on edge…that thing is liable to go at any second as it is.

http://intensedebate.com/people/WMPerson Wen(WM)

Yes, thats the thing.
Your On Edge… Edge is very strong.
If I hold my HD2 when it has 2 3G bars…. It will drop to Full Edge bars.

http://twitter.com/ST0808 @ST0808

That is not true, I have 2 H bars on HD2 but the phone does not drop to 3g or edge no matter how I hold it.

murdats

its not the attenuation of signal when holding the phone that is the deathgrip, all wireless devices get that, the death grip is the complete disabling of the wireless by 'holding it wrong'
TSB

Though an unscientific test, I couldn't make any bars disappear on my Blackberry Storm2. Gripped hard, soft, covered phone back, bottom, sides, etc.

Of course, RIM has been dealing with bad networks since that's all there was when they started…
GTRoberts

I've tried the same "death grip" (or any grip for that matter) on…
10 different HTC's (4x Snap, 2x HD2, 4xTouch Pro's and 2x TP2's)
15 different Nokia's (3110, 3720, 6210i, N95, N96 & a N97)
8 different Blackberries (9000 and 9700s)

and *NONE* of them lost or gained any signal strength.

Apple is LYING through its teeth… and surely the rest of the world knows this?????

http://intensedebate.com/people/WMPerson Wen(WM)

Let me ask you this… Were you on 3G or Edge?

Watcher

On both my Omnia 2 (i8000) & HD2 (T8585), they both dropped 2 bars when I used both hands to cup the bottom of the phones where the antennae are. This does NOT constitute a "death grip" as there is still signal available. At most a "restrain grip" or a "drunken boss grip"
p3ngwin

a death grip was coined to define the "death" of the signal to such an extent that the call was dropped. no other phone has loss of signal so much that it kills the call.

what Steve jobs said was smoke and mirrors, as usual to deflect blame to "physics" and AT&T's network.

from Apple and the iPhone being the problem, the Apple conference distanced Apple from the equation, and tried to make it look like the iPhone wasn't magical and revolutionary….it suffers the same limitations as every other phone apparently. then Steve compares the iPhone4's reception to the previous iPhone 3GS. here he tells us in the same presentation that the iPhone4 is both BETTER at reception, and also dropping more calls than last gen.

what? how can the new iPhone be BETTER at reception, but drop more calls (regardless of how he downplayed the >1 dropped calls data) ?

that 15 min presentation was a load of bullet-dodging bullshit.

after distancing the Apple company from the iPhone4 by presenting the device as a victim of physics and crappy networks, Apple finishes by saying that the company loves all it's users and will bend over backwards to fix a problem that isn't theirs. well done Apple, you're so generous to give out freebies to help us poor victims, you're such a charitable company!

nice try Steve.
Sebas

do you guys know why it didn't work?
i'll quote Steve here eh

10:41AM Q: I can't get my Bold to drop right now, maybe you can show me how to do it?
Steve: You may not see it in certain areas.
Krekiere

"we might loss a few bars (that we actually had)" => I laughed pretty hard on this
Guest

It supposedly does make a difference where you are so in my opinion tests are only valid if you test iPhone 4 and other phones in the same spot and when all are registered to the same network. Also, bars don't really matter since manufacturers use different algorithms. What matters is call quality or data transfer speed.
So a test is simple – with prerequisites I mentioned try and call somebody and say let them count out loud and you try to reproduce the problem. Do the same with each phone and you'll have an answer.

My only phone is a G1 and while I stay in a patchy signal area I can't really make it lose any bars. Unless of course I go to the kitchen where I lose 3G all together.
http://intensedebate.com/people/__Diego__ Diego!

Steve Jobs, you are an idiot selfish narrow minded man.

And with lying, you show no respect for your shareholders and most important for your customers.

Farewell apple, it's been nice seeing you. Bu-bye!

http://intensedebate.com/people/WMPerson Wen(WM)

Haha,
Dont get ahead of your self.
Nothing well really change, a few people mad doesnt mean anything. Apple will still sell their ass off.

hvakrg

A bit off topic, but what ROM is used in this test?

http://intensedebate.com/people/l3v5y l3v5y

I think it's a version of Energy ROM.

http://www.facebook.com/J88NYR Jonny Rose

My HD2 in my current room has 2 bars, death grip with 2 hands… has 1 bar.

http://www.facebook.com/J88NYR Jonny Rose

That was in the uk with 2g signal.

Ganser

No matter how I hard I hold and grip the phone ( one hand or two, 20 seconds or 1 minute) it never looses signal strength..
HD2
http://intensedebate.com/people/Parrotlover77 Parrotlover77

This is fascinating. I didn't know covering the phone had a perceptible reception effect on any signal. Obviously the iPhone 4 antenna design is the bulk of its problem, but this is just enough FUD from Jobs to make the Crapple faboys happy, even if the effect on other phones is minimal to nonexistent in comparison.

I see the update to this post shows that Edge/2G is stronger signal less prone to the effect. Phone calls don't happen over 3G, so this means that you shouldn't get any dropped calls at all from this effect.

What about 4G/WiMax? I know this is a WM forum, but I'd love to see if the EVO has this issue on its 4G. Can anybody test?
DESI

We have an iPhone 4 in Chicago, with no Death Grip/dropped calls. Why does this seem to be only affecting some people?
brian

when the iphone 4 problem was first talked about i tried it on my hd2 and did notice i would lose a bar just by picking it up sometimes but it didnt affect anything. and it doesnt always happen
dave

isnt hspa better than 3g? so why does the first pic show 3g and when holding with one hand show hspa? even though it dropped a bar I dont thing its a good comparison

http://intensedebate.com/people/l3v5y l3v5y

AFAIK, the "H" is only shown when doing data transfer, and it drops down to "3G" when not doing data. HS*PA is an extension of 3G, rather than a separate standard.

dave

my phone always shows H even when no data is transferred. I rarely see 3G

http://erst0r.de brandi

lol. briliant, You are right, Two bars of HSDPA is in signal quality even better then the 4 3G bars…
When I have just 1 bar of HSDPA and I hold my hd2 veeeery thight with both hands it sometimes drops back to 3G, but not every time… Seems to belong on the direction you hold it to. But i'd never hold the phone like that, since you cannot control it anymore with both hands covering the bottoms

http://intensedebate.com/people/l3v5y l3v5y

HSDPA is usually shown when downloading/updating, and it shows 3G when not doing any transfer. Might be wrong.

Anonymous

ur right