Another iPhone "Don't hold your phone that way" fiasco but this time with HTC?

[010Twitch010]

So the new HTC myTouch 4G just came out the other a few days ago for T-Mobile. We just got 4 today, one for each member of the family. While I was playing around with mine I ran into some problems. Which is pretty much this, when holding my phone in landscape mode my wifi signal goes to crap. It even sometimes happens with the network bars just not nearly as much. The other problem I ran into is that I have my phone set to timeout after 2 minutes and it just doesn't timeout.

I have tested the wifi problem with 3 out of the 4 phones so I know it is not just mine.

I made a video of the problem and put it up on youtube, you can see for yourself here.

Anyone else having the same problems and what are your thoughts on this?

EDIT: had to fix the title.

 

[MJM128]

Uh oh Antennagate version 2!

 

[cletusaz]

So i just tested this with my mytouch slide, original mytouch, and vibrant. When i cup them like you do in your video thay all do the same exact thing.

 

[Bnice]

Who hold their phone that way in landscape mode? Hold the phone in a normal everyday function.

 

[MJM128]

Who hold their phone that way in landscape mode?

Many people do. It appears you're trying to shrug this off like many iphone users (steve jobs too) tried to shrug off the iphone 4 antenna issues. It's best to acknowledge flaws and move on from there.

 

[IOWA]

I sometimes hold my phones like that.

 

[jroc]

Many people do. It appears you're trying to shrug this off like many iphone users (steve jobs too) tried to shrug off the iphone 4 antenna issues. It's best to acknowledge flaws and move on from there.

Hold it like that for everyday use tho? I have an X, if I'm on my phone using the browser and hold it in landscape mode, I hold it so I can see all the screen....when texting in landscape mode I wouldnt hold my phone like that. The palm of my hand would be in the way of texting. I wouldnt be able to text good holding it like that.

Even when gaming in landscape mode, I wanna be able to see all the screen. I hold my phone so I can use both my thumbs in landscape mode. I can see someone maybe holding it like that viewing pics, but it doesnt look like normal everyday use holding it like that.

The video is no different than me cupping both hands around the bottom of my Droid 1 and it losing signal, reception. Thats the only way I can get the Droid 1 to lose signal holding it a certain way.

 

[Bnice]

Many people do. It appears you're trying to shrug this off like many iphone users (steve jobs too) tried to shrug off the iphone 4 antenna issues. It's best to acknowledge flaws and move on from there.

Not trying to blow off anything. I was just stating from what i see on an everyday base with folks holding their phones in the out side world.If you cover the antenna on most phones the signal will drop, the iphone was faulty design period.The way he's holding the phone is not a natural way of using the phone in landscape mode, now if he was playing a game or texting and he lost signal like he demonstrated in the video, it would be more valid to me.

 

[bmckenzie90]

Oh God. Jobs was right!? All phones DO have this issue!??! Everyone bashed Apple for saying that they were "holding it wrong" and that it's "not JUST the iPhone"...and now we realize he was right?! Holy crap, lmao.

I think it's time we come to terms with the fact that covering up a receiver/transmitter with something else (be it a phone's with your hand, or something else) is always gonna do something to the signal, noticeable or not. It's not that crazy of a realization, nor is it something that should be unexpected. You lose signal in basements, under large tree canopies, why would covering the antenna of your phone with your hand NOT make the signal go down?

 

[kezell]

I agree if you cup any phone like that its going to cause issues. Try holding it a tad different and see if the issue stays.

 

[PinkMirrorKirby]

So the new HTC myTouch 4G just came out the other a few days ago for T-Mobile. We just got 4 today, one for each member of the family. While I was playing around with mine I ran into some problems. Which is pretty much this, when holding my phone in landscape mode my wifi signal goes to crap. It even sometimes happens with the network bars just not nearly as much. The other problem I ran into is that I have my phone set to timeout after 2 minutes and it just doesn't timeout.

I have tested the wifi problem with 3 out of the 4 phones so I know it is not just mine.

I made a video of the problem and put it up on youtube, you can see for yourself here.

Anyone else having the same problems and what are your thoughts on this?

EDIT: had to fix the title.

Uh... that's the place were you are not supposed to touch, that's the antenna.

And you're not going to call people while holding the phone in landscape mode, are you?

 

[Rusty]

I must admit, I've never seen anyone hold a phone like that in my life.

 

[Member196159]

Oh God. Jobs was right!? All phones DO have this issue!??! Everyone bashed Apple for saying that they were "holding it wrong" and that it's "not JUST the iPhone"...and now we realize he was right?! Holy crap, lmao.

I think it's time we come to terms with the fact that covering up a receiver/transmitter with something else (be it a phone's with your hand, or something else) is always gonna do something to the signal, noticeable or not. It's not that crazy of a realization, nor is it something that should be unexpected. You lose signal in basements, under large tree canopies, why would covering the antenna of your phone with your hand NOT make the signal go down?

Hold on, are you saying that blocking an antenna from doing its job will make the signal worse?

Do you have a link for such a preposterous theory?


Sorry, I couldn't resist.

 

[No_u]

Hold on, are you saying that blocking an antenna from doing its job will make the signal worse?

Do you have a link for such a preposterous theory?


Sorry, I couldn't resist.

Yes! But instead of putting the antenna on the usual left side spot of the phone they actually put it on (the obviously more annoying) TOP!

My god. What were they thinking!

 

[bmckenzie90]

Hold on, are you saying that blocking an antenna from doing its job will make the signal worse?

Do you have a link for such a preposterous theory?


Sorry, I couldn't resist.

You guys crack me up. I'm glad someone read humor into that! =p

 

[2FR35H]

My thoughts on this is its a load of crap. Plus the phone is 4G why on earth would you use wifi when you have a data plan? and as other people have said I have NEVER seen someone holding their phone like you do ever! I mean you are gripping the top side who in their right mind grips the top?? if any gripping you grip the bottom! This is a non issue for 2 reasons

1.Your complaint is over wifi, with android you use 4G especially this android phone. They still only have unlimited data.

2. You grip the phone in an absolutely abnormal way for it to be considered problematic, iPhone's scenario was problematic due it happening in a normal way.

 

[IOWA]

My thoughts on this is its a load of crap. Plus the phone is 4G why on earth would you use wifi when you have a data plan? and as other people have said I have NEVER seen someone holding their phone like you do ever! I mean you are gripping the top side who in their right mind grips the top?? if any gripping you grip the bottom! This is a non issue for 2 reasons

1.Your complaint is over wifi, with android you use 4G especially this android phone. They still only have unlimited data.

2. You grip the phone in an absolutely abnormal way for it to be considered problematic, iPhone's scenario was problematic due it happening in a normal way.

1. T mobile doesn't have 4g. Hspa+ will never be 4g. It is permanently stuck in 3g land.

2. Even though I have sprint WiMAX, I still use wifi. Why? It's still faster. Last time I checked half (or better than). Of the ping, 3times the downstream and 3 times the upstream is a good thing. I not to mention less battery usage.

3. T Mobile's 3g and pretend 4g network suck. The coverage is sparse at best. I seriously anyone who wants to have a data intensive phone should stay away from t mobile. I unless your surrounded by free high speed wifi all day every day.

4. The grip. Yeah that looks like a funny grip but to each their own.

 

[n1oty]

1. T mobile doesn't have 4g. Hspa+ will never be 4g. It is permanently stuck in 3g land.

2. Even though I have sprint WiMAX, I still use wifi. Why? It's still faster. Last time I checked half (or better than). Of the ping, 3times the downstream and 3 times the upstream is a good thing. I not to mention less battery usage.

3. T Mobile's 3g and pretend 4g network suck. The coverage is sparse at best. I seriously anyone who wants to have a data intensive phone should stay away from t mobile. I unless your surrounded by free high speed wifi all day every day.

4. The grip. Yeah that looks like a funny grip but to each their own.

As regards your first point, the ITU has stated that none of the current technologies being implemented by any of the US carriers will be considered true 4G, regardless if it's Sprint's WiMax, TMo's HSPA+ or Verizon's LTE. Yet, they are all claiming THEY will be 4G soon with the rollouts they are preparing, even though that is just as incorrect as TMo's claims.

As regards your third point, your experience may be true in your area, but that is not the case in mine. I've been with TMo since the old Omnipoint days. I use my phone heavily for business, emailing pics from job sites, looking up information on the internet and receiving faxes on my phone. I've had great luck and good speeds for the past few years. I just upgraded to TMo's MT4G the other day after being a Blackberry user for a few years now. I have to say that the enhanced speed I'm getting on this phone and on this HSPA+ network are blowing me away!!!

John

 

[IOWA]

As regards your first point, the ITU has stated that none of the current technologies being implemented by any of the US carriers will be considered true 4G, regardless if it's Sprint's WiMax, TMo's HSPA+ or Verizon's LTE. Yet, they are all claiming THEY will be 4G soon with the rollouts they are preparing, even though that is just as incorrect as TMo's claims.

As regards your third point, your experience may be true in your area, but that is not the case in mine. I've been with TMo since the old Omnipoint days. I use my phone heavily for business, emailing pics from job sites, looking up information on the internet and receiving faxes on my phone. I've had great luck and good speeds for the past few years. I just upgraded to TMo's MT4G the other day after being a Blackberry user for a few years now. I have to say that the enhanced speed I'm getting on this phone and on this HSPA+ network are blowing me away!!!

John

Well upgrading from a Blackberry anything is going to seem faster. T-Mobiles 3G network(undisputed fact here, btw) is the smallest out of the big four. Period. And T-Mobile claiming they have the largest any network is just asking for legal trouble, because they don't.

 

[2FR35H]

1. T mobile doesn't have 4g. Hspa+ will never be 4g. It is permanently stuck in 3g land.

2. Even though I have sprint WiMAX, I still use wifi. Why? It's still faster. Last time I checked half (or better than). Of the ping, 3times the downstream and 3 times the upstream is a good thing. I not to mention less battery usage.

3. T Mobile's 3g and pretend 4g network suck. The coverage is sparse at best. I seriously anyone who wants to have a data intensive phone should stay away from t mobile. I unless your surrounded by free high speed wifi all day every day.

4. The grip. Yeah that looks like a funny grip but to each their own.

1. Neither does Sprint, Verizon, Nor AT&T. WiMax and LTE aren't 4G technology. They are Pre-4G. So what is your point? WiMax 2 and LTE-Advanced are the only 4G defined by ITU standards and those two technologies won't be ready for another 5 years.

2. You pay for a unlimited data plan and probably $10 extra for your '4G' no need to waste that money. But if you want to thats fine. Oh and the fact that there are so little amount of cities that actually have this '4G' sprint advertises.

3. No they don't actually, I don't see how you can say it does when you are with sprint! At least t-mobile users such as myself don't have to pay extra for some slow fake '4g.' Let me ask you this what are your average speeds? I know in many real world tests t-mobile's HSPA+ has proven to do better than sprint's WiMax. Lets not even forget sprints '4G' network is just borrowed from clearwire. Sprint technically speaking doesn't even have their own '4g' network. That makes this whole 4G war between t-mo and sprint irrelevant. T-Mobile does though

example of average data speeds in comparison. Don't Believe the Hype: Sprint "4G" Slower Than T-Mobile 3G, Report Finds

4. Right to each their own.

 

[IOWA]

1. Neither does Sprint, Verizon, Nor AT&T. WiMax and LTE aren't 4G technology. They are Pre-4G. So what is your point? WiMax 2 and LTE-Advanced are the only 4G defined by ITU standards and those two technologies won't be ready for another 5 years.

2. You pay for a unlimited data plan and probably $10 extra for your '4G' no need to waste that money. But if you want to thats fine. Oh and the fact that there are so little amount of cities that actually have this '4G' sprint advertises.

3. No they don't actually, I don't see how you can say it does when you are with sprint! At least t-mobile users such as myself don't have to pay extra for some slow fake '4g.' Let me ask you this what are your average speeds? I know in many real world tests t-mobile's HSPA+ has proven to do better than sprint's WiMax. Lets not even forget sprints '4G' network is just borrowed from clearwire. Sprint technically speaking doesn't even have their own '4g' network. That makes this whole 4G war between t-mo and sprint irrelevant. T-Mobile does though

example of average data speeds in comparison. Don't Believe the Hype: Sprint "4G" Slower Than T-Mobile 3G, Report Finds

4. Right to each their own.

I average about 6-8mbps on WiMax.

Sprint is the majority stakeholder in Clear, so yes it is their network.

When Sprint says a city is covered, they mean it. It's not sparsely sprinkled like T-Mobile.

WiMAX 2 will be ready for deployment early 2011 (and it's 100% backwards compatible, so my EVO & EPIC will recieve all the WiMAX 2 Glory). Your wrong.

Don't believe the antecdotal evidence with those sites you posted, as they've long known to be anti-Sprint, and even when they are wrong, they don't even formally apologize or advertise their error as with other carriers, they just do a quiet retraction like it never happened. (How can you get more bias than THAT?)

Biased reviews are usually not valid reviews.

Another thing people do is over emphasize the downstream bandwidth. What is your line condition Noise? Packet loss? Upstream bandwidth(biggie)? Ping? Latency to and from the home server? Backbone(another biggie)? Capacity of the technology per tower? Distance the radio signal can travel before suffering significant degradation?

WiMAX (and LTE) Trump HSPA+ in every aspect of these, and all of these matter more than you or anyone here may think. Especially with more and more bandwidth intensive applications coming out every single day, and most if not all of these factors that can make or break your experience.

So next time before you bring up some antecdotal numbers saying "oh look x is bigger than y so it must be better!" maybe you should figure out the other variables and do a little more research before posting something someone will come and debunk.

 

[2FR35H]

I average about 6-8mbps on WiMax.

Sprint is the majority stakeholder in Clear, so yes it is their network.

When Sprint says a city is covered, they mean it. It's not sparsely sprinkled like T-Mobile.

WiMAX 2 will be ready for deployment early 2011 (and it's 100% backwards compatible, so my EVO & EPIC will recieve all the WiMAX 2 Glory). Your wrong.

Don't believe the antecdotal evidence with those sites you posted, as they've long known to be anti-Sprint, and even when they are wrong, they don't even formally apologize or advertise their error as with other carriers, they just do a quiet retraction like it never happened. (How can you get more bias than THAT?)

Biased reviews are usually not valid reviews.

Another thing people do is over emphasize the downstream bandwidth. What is your line condition Noise? Packet loss? Upstream bandwidth(biggie)? Ping? Latency to and from the home server? Backbone(another biggie)? Capacity of the technology per tower? Distance the radio signal can travel before suffering significant degradation?

WiMAX (and LTE) Trump HSPA+ in every aspect of these, and all of these matter more than you or anyone here may think. Especially with more and more bandwidth intensive applications coming out every single day, and most if not all of these factors that can make or break your experience.

So next time before you bring up some antecdotal numbers saying "oh look x is bigger than y so it must be better!" maybe you should figure out the other variables and do a little more research before posting something someone will come and debunk.

Just because you don't like the result doesn't make it biased. Nope its still clearwire's network. Either way you still have to pay extra $10 and t-mobile doesn't that in itself makes t-mobile better. The point of this all is that you need to sit down and be quiet because you still are paying $10 extra for a non-4g network regardless of whether or not you need extra equipment to take advantage of 4G doesn't matter your network is still 3G! end of story and t-mobile user get average of 5-12mbps and the ability to hit 21mbps I personally have seen it hit that peak of which also the network is to be upgraded again from 21mbps to 42mbps next year...which will in turn raise average data speeds significantly. I think you personally need to do more research because you came into this trying to say you know t-mobile's coverage when you are on sprint. Pshh please. You are still 3G now and until WiMax 2 actually happens, so your network is definitely not better than anyone elses. Especially when your network is slower. That is in fact the point. "sparsely sprinkled" hah! that is highly absurd. Still the largest 4G network., whether you like it or not these are facts.

My experience has been absolutely great with t-mobile.

 

[IOWA]

Just because you don't like the result doesn't make it biased. Nope its still clearwire's network. Either way you still have to pay extra $10 and t-mobile doesn't that in itself makes t-mobile better. The point of this all is that you need to sit down and be quiet because you still are paying $10 extra for a non-4g network regardless of whether or not you need extra equipment to take advantage of 4G doesn't matter your network is still 3G! end of story and t-mobile user get average of 5-12mbps and the ability to hit 21mbps I personally have seen it hit that peak of which also the network is to be upgraded again from 21mbps to 42mbps next year...which will in turn raise average data speeds significantly. I think you personally need to do more research because you came into this trying to say you know t-mobile's coverage when you are on sprint. Pshh please. You are still 3G now and until WiMax 2 actually happens, so your network is definitely not better than anyone elses. Especially when your network is slower. That is in fact the point. "sparsely sprinkled" hah! that is highly absurd. Still the largest 4G network., whether you like it or not these are facts.

My experience has been absolutely great with t-mobile.

<-- there isn't an eyeroll icon big enough to explain how I look right now concerning your post. Seriously.

You ever hear of a coverage map? Science? Facts?

No, must all be foreign concepts to you.

Here's an Idea --> Here's tmobiles current 3G Coverage map.

(that sparsely sprinkled phrase fits that map pretty good eh?)

vs Sprint

who also happens to roam on Verizon.

and just for kicks, here's ATT 3g:

Hell even CRICKET has Tmobile bested for coverage!

 

[2FR35H]

<-- there isn't an eyeroll icon big enough to explain how I look right now concerning your post. Seriously.

You ever hear of a coverage map? Science? Facts?

No, must all be foreign concepts to you.

Here's an Idea --> Here's tmobiles current 3G Coverage map.

(that sparsely sprinkled phrase fits that map pretty good eh?)

vs Sprint

who also happens to roam on Verizon.

and just for kicks, here's ATT 3g:

Hell even CRICKET has Tmobile bested for coverage!

LOL are you kidding me? You just gave a map for T-Mobile's 3g and even more so that map isn't even updated? are you serious right now? You are seriously gonna give me a unofficial t-mobile 3G coverage map when this is about 4G? what is wrong with you?

Here is T-mobile's official 4G coverage map

http://t-mobile-coverage.t-mobile.com/hspa-mobile-broadband#

Here is T-Mobile official 3G coverage Voice and Data

http://www.t-mobile.com/coverage/pcc.aspx

Nice try

for someone that cries about bias you seem to be giving me quite a bit of false info with t-mobile now I just gave you correct information on T-Mobile. Please unless you have T-Mobile don't try to know any t-mobile customers experience or even so much present non official coverage maps for t-mobile.

 

[2FR35H]

Here let me get you a screen shot of T-Mobile's 4G