Verizon iPhone and the Death Grip Myth

Lance Ulanoff - PC Magazine

Here we go again. Pundits and analysts are trying a dozen different ways to recreate the controversial AT&T iPhone 4 Death Grip on the Verizon iPhone 4. Many in the media appear convinced it's real and they're already calling for Apple to do something about it. Here's my advice to Apple: Ignore these yahoos and go back to building the iPad 2 and iPhone 5.

As I noted in my Verizon iPhone analysis and 12 Things You Need to Know follow up, if you have a weak signal, you can further weaken it by gripping the heck out of your phone. This is not consistent, and in fact I had trouble finding a weak enough signal to recreate this test. That to me is not a Death Grip issue.

Yet, here I sit watching an iLounge video where the host calmly walks us through how he can create a death grip when the Verizon iPhone has a somewhat weak signal. He proves the Verizon iPhone Death Grip's existence by loading and reloading the same Web page while trying a variety of grips and non-grips on the iPhone. He talks about how you can see how slow the page load becomes. My favorite part, though, is the introduction of a new hold: The Death Hug. To create this hold, you have to sort of cradle the Verizon iPhone 4 with both hands, actually obscuring part of the screen. Thank goodness for real-world tests.

I think I made my feelings pretty clear about the original iPhone Death Grip controversy. Apple sold millions of AT&T iPhone 4's last year and despite the media-furor, consumers did not line up at Apple Stores around the country demanding their money back.

That said, I knew that as soon as the Verizon iPhone finally arrived, this would be among the top questions: Does it suffer from death grip issues? That's why I did my own tests. Among the other Verizon iPhone 4 reviews I read, many, including Engadget's and Laptop Mag's don't even mention the Death Grip. My guess is they saw what I saw: strong signals everywhere and little chance to degrade a thready 2G-or-below signal.

However, interest in the Verizon iPhone isn't waning, so some, looking for something to write, have decided to push harder to find a grip style that can kill the signal. That's fine. The reality is you can hurt the signal of almost any phone by covering enough of its body with your hands. A weak signal will have trouble getting through all that flesh and bone on any mobile device.

I decided to run one more anecdotal test to see if I could recreate any kind of death grip with my Verizon iPhone. The iLounge one used a Web page. I went a tad more scientific and used a speed test, more specifically Ookla's Speedtest.net iPhone app (see slideshow above).

With Speedtest.net, I did a series of tests: One without much of a grip—really just resting the phone in my hand, another after I had done a death grip for a solid minute, then another without much of a grip right after that and, finally, the "death hug." For all of these tests I started with a 4-to-5 bar Verizon 3Gconnection (for as reliable as those bar visuals are).

The light touch grip gave me 1.04 Mbps (Megabits per second) download speeds and .72 Mbps uploads. The first death grip dropped me to .88 Mpbs down and .76 Mbps up—not exactly conclusive. Things got odder when I left the phone alone for a bit to do the grip-free test again. Now my speeds dropped to .83 mbps down and moved up to .87 mbps up. The Death Hug test made no sense at all: I got 1.54 Mbps down and .12 up.

So what does any of this prove? I don't know. When it comes to connection speed and quality there are so many variable at play. There's:

  • Initial signal quality

  • How you're holding the phone

  • What else might be going on the network at the same time (local convention in town? You signal could suffer)

  • Are your hands sweaty?

  • What are you downloading?

  • The servers on the other end

I've seen headlines that more or less state as fact the existence of the death grip. With all these factors at play, I don't see how anyone can be sure. What's more, I've watched how some are conducting their investigations and it's just plain ridiculous. People want to this to be real because it generates controversy and more and more stories. I like a good controversy as much as the next guy, but I prefer mine real and not manufactured. That said, the team in PC Labs will continue to test iPhone 4 connectivity strength and report on it, because that's our job, but I await conclusive proof.

My assessment remains unchanged. No matter which carrier you're on, the Apple iPhone is a good—dare I say great—smartphone that I'd happily recommend to anyone.