Johan Sanneblad

We compare the results with those of a Sony Ericsson P1 belonging to Bluetest’s CEO Mats Andersson, and my Nokia N73. The P1 is a little better at receiving signals and the N73 a little better at transmitting signals. But the difference is small. The difference between the iphone’s and the P1’s receive sensitivity is 2 dB.

From gp.se

The Swedish magazine GP did a test of an iPhone using a test chamber and compared the 3G reception with a Nokia N73 and a Sony Ericsson P1. Their tests showed that they all had comparable performance, even with WiFi and Bluetooth switched on!

This test was done twice with the iPhone. Once with wlan, gps and bluetooth switched off and once with everything switched on. This was to see if it would have difficulties keeping the network connection due to noise from the other signals. But there was no difference.

I haven’t experienced any glitches or issues myself with the 3G reception of the the iPhone, leading me to believe that this might be a rare issue with some early production units.

Update: The magazine went out and borrowed three iPhones from disgruntled users, and found out that the phones did in fact have as good reception as any other phone. So it was nothing wrong about their phones. Interesting reading.

Update2: AT&T has now given their explanation to why this poor reception does not affect all units. Apparently all iPhone units pre 2.0.2 request too much transmission power, which causes issues for all other iPhones within the near proximity. Weird stuff.