[Gllug] iPhone 4 or Android phone

[Andrew Back]

On 16 July 2010 11:16, James Courtier-Dutton <james.dutton at gmail.com> wrote:

<<SNIP>>

> Well, "What, aside from being able to make phone calls" seems to be
> only what the reviews are interested in.
> I have not seen any that measure how good the phone is at making calls
> in marginal circumstances.
> I have a Nokia smartphone and also an old Nokia 6310.
> In my office, I have no problems making calls with the Nokia 6310.
> The Nokia smartphone has problems all the time with voice cutting out
> and stuttering.
> Colleagues in the office also have problems with other smartphones,
> E.g. Samsung ones, Blackberries etc..
> So, I conclude that the reception problem is fairly common amongst all
> smart phones.
>
> There is a very good reason for this, and I don't think the
> manufactures will be able to cure it any time soon, which is, I think,
> why everyone is keeping quiet about it. It is a very simple reason;
> The CPU in smart phones is faster than old Nokia 6310 phones, and that
> gives off more interference so as a result the signal to noise ration
> for smart phones is always going to be worse than the Nokia 6310.
> Hopefully, these iphone4 signal problems will start reviewers testing
> other phones.

That's an interesting theory. I'm assuming that by suggesting that
faster application CPUs leads to more interference, you are
attributing this to the fundamental clock frequency moving ever closer
to GSM/UMTS frequencies. I haven't looked into the reality, but if I
were a manufacturer I'd keep a good few MHz "guard" between both the
CPU clock fundamental and 1st harmonic, and the radio channels in use.
Nice thing about CPUs is that you can simply shift the clock a few MHz
to avoid problematic frequencies... You'd think this would suffice
given that we've had full duplex radio systems for years, where the
uplink and downlink frequencies are not a million miles apart and the
circuitry is all on one PCB. RF designers are pretty smart.

I'd be more inclined to attribute experienced poorer reception on
smartphones to the fact that there might be less space for optimal
placing/sizing of an antenna. Just a wild guess, of course.

Cheers,

Andrew

-- 
Andrew Back
mailto:andrew at osmosoft.com
http://carrierdetect.com
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