Tongfamily Website

Well, there is nothing like real world testing. It looks like all these complaints about the iPhone are because this is wireless, so you can have deadspots close together and because networks are being overwhelmed and in the US the network is spotty.

AppleInsider | Repeat tests show iPhone 3G doesn’t suffer from faulty hardware

Wieselgren reported that the lab found that all these iPhones to “have no problems with the 3G communication in the test chamber. They send and receive signals in a fully normal manner. They do not disconnect earlier than the others we have tested when the signal becomes weaker.”

Wieselgren reported that at one location where a Sony Ericsson phone displayed full bars, one iPhone 3G showed low 3G reception while the other indicated it was on EDGE. When attempting to download a web page however, Wieselgren wrote that “the Sony Ericsson with all the 3G bars makes it in 46 seconds. For my iPhone with Edge it takes 32.

The lab findings refute the speculation of financial analyst Richard Windsor of Nomura Securities, who issued a report two weeks ago that accused the iPhone 3G’s Infineon chipset of being faulty and possibly requiring a massive recall to resolve. Infineon said it was not aware of any problems with its chips, which are also used by Samsung.

A broader, informal study conducted by Wired that involved 2,600 users in different countries suggested that the iPhone 3G’s problems were more likely due to limitations of carriers’ networks, particularly AT&T in the US, where users reported 75 percent of the zero data results from dropped calls and less than half of the average data throughput compared to users on European carriers.

Citigroup analyst recently reported similar 3G problems with dropping to the slower EDGE network or even cutting out entirely when using RIM’s new BlackBerry Bold on AT&T’s 3G network. The Bold uses an entirely different cellular chipset than the iPhone 3G.

After lab results demonstrated that the iPhone 3G’s antenna actually functions normally, critics complained that the tests didn’t represent their own experiences. So the tests were performed again on two phones that had been experiencing severe problems for some users; the verdict was the same: no hardware problems found.