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AFAIK the root cause of the iPhone 4 problem is due to closing the loop of the antenna using your finger to complete the loop (converting the metal from a line into a circle, thereby degrading its antenna characteristics).

You should be able to do this only on phones which have an external unsheathed antenna. Which other ones are there?




I had an older Nokia phone that had the antenna near the bottom of the device (to keep it away from your head), and when you had your hand on the device like you would hold an iPhone (fingers on one side, thumb on the other side) you would lose signal strength rapidly.

The same issue was evident in various blackberry devices.

Unfortunately the human body simply is a fantastic sink for RF frequency do the fact that we are mostly made out of water and salt. Yes, the iPhone is simpler in that it allows you to close the loop, but the issue can be found in multiple phones.

Sheathing or no sheathing, humans are hard to transmit through.




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