Samsung joins the crowd, rejects Apple's Omnia 2 antenna claims
By Tim Stevens 
posted July 20th 2010 9:31AM
posted July 20th 2010 9:31AM
Why is Samsung being rather more polite? Because it's full of really nice people? Or, is it because the iPhone 4 is stuffed with Samsung memory chips? We'll let your level of cynicism be your guide here.The antenna is located at the bottom of the Omnia 2 phone, while iPhone's antenna is on the lower left side of the device. Our design keeps the distance between a hand and an antenna. We have fully conducted field tests before the rollout of smartphones. Reception problems have not happened so far, and there is no room for such problems to happen in the future.
Steve's just being a jerk.
@Revolutionary
In summary,
Our phones are real phones. Your phone is not a phone. It's bullshit of you to push the blame on others, so stop being childish and push the blame on others, or else we might not put S-AMOLED screens on your iPhone 5. - Samsung
@Revolutionary
I was surprised apple went with the 'everyone is doing it' defense. So if all phones lowers signal when antennas are covered, why the hell would you put it on the outside right in the left corner where you touch? Obviously this was a defense they pulled out of there butts to make the issue seem better than it is and had nothing to do with the iphone4 issue. Sammy is right on: keep the antenna as far as humanly possible away from the hand, on the inside of the phone.
@Revolutionary
Hey if samsung's making phones thats competing with the iphone, how come samsung is providing apple chips? just wondering
@sky2earth They supply loads of stuff. HTC get their AMOLED screens from them, for example
@Revolutionary
Yeah... I dont really give a damn what Steve is or isnt. So long as theres a free case in my mailbox soon.
What an unfortunate flaw with such an awesome phone. Sigh. Guess I'll have to wait for iPhone 4G to come out to see if the Mac Nazis are telling the truth.
@sky2earth
Because the Samsung smartphone division, and the Samsung chip set division, are both separate parts of the company. And Hey! They're both interested in making as much money as possible.
@sky2earth
They sure have sold a lot more of those chips recently than Omnia 2 phones.
@sky2earth
This arrangement of selling parts as well as finished products is common with Asian companies. American companies are unique in doing one or the other.
Apple should be more polite BECAUSE it has Samsung chips. Not the other way around. Samsung has nailed it with the Galaxy S series anyway and I have high hopes from it.
@Revolutionary
I hope the governement looks into this and find Steve and his minions guilty of lying to the masses. What a childish way to side-step a problem.
@Revolutionary
Yawn...
If I move to the very edge of 3G coverage I can get any phone to drop calls, there's no denying that, unless you are implying you have a phone that works without coverage at all. The only difference is that the iPhone 4 apparently has a little less tolerance, but you can simply avoid the issue using a case or by not touching the damn antenna if you're in a low signal area (seriously, how f*ing hard is that)? That said even without bumpers or taking care not to touch the antenna, the issue only affects less than ONE whopping PERCENT of all iPhone owners enough to return it (note: these are release statistics that I trust a whole lot more then 1000 iHaters commenting on Engadget).
Now, I take it other phones have less issues, which is probably true since they have the antenna on the inside. Even if other phones have 100 times less issues than the iPhone 4, the difference -by construction- is STILL less than ONE PERCENT of all iPhone owners.
Now you go look up the consumer satisfaction statistics of other phones or appliances and check how many dissatisfied customers they have that return the product. I'm pretty sure one percent is still among the lowest return percentage of any phone. So either people who dislike Apple are still desparately trying to convince themselves the iPhone really sucks with statements such as 'it can't even make calls', or they are implying lots of people buy iPhones that suck at making calls but don't care enough to return them.
@drange
Why the fuck am I still even commenting on this by the way... /care
@Revolutionary How can you guy high rank this a-hole for these remarks.
@dswatson83 good post. this is a simple matter in my mind. My phone losses bars when I pick it up sometimes, but it doesn't drop the call or loss data connections. Sometimes, my phone will switch from 3g to edge, annoying as hell I know, but it won't drop the call or the data connection.
Steve Jobs is playing spin doctor. He told just enough of the truth to make his bullshit sound legit. At the end of the day, Any Iphone4 with the antenna issue needs a condom. My phone doesn't need one to function properly. Nor does my sister's 3GS, my brothers MyTouch 3GSlide or my girlfriend's Droid.
@iPhone 4
It's because I am right, you dick.
@drange
I Phone users put up with the problems because they want the "style" of the IPhone, I think IPhone would really start to suffer, if HTC brought out one that looked better than the IPhone.
I have the HTC Desire, since pre launch, never had 1 problem.
There are quite a few people in my work who are IPhonies who battle me over which is better, and even they are not upgrading due to the problems with the IPhone 4.. not many people with sense want a product that is half arsed. Rushed out to beat the competition.
Well, Jobs was partly right with the Bold 9700: I can get that piece of junk to lose nearly all its bars with a left-handed deathgrip, but it doesn't happen all the time. Then again, I really hate that phone...truly piece of shit software and browser. RIM really needs Android, but I digress....
@dgoulston
Yes, you've completely convinced me, it's all about the style. I mean, there's like only 2 factors involved in deciding which phone you want to have: reception in areas where coverage sucks, and style. So everyone here likes reception in low signal areas more than style, and everyone who has an iPhone 4 only likes style and doesn't care about anything else. It all makes sense now...
Seriously how black & white can your world be, it's like all of Engadget is full of autists.
@Revolutionary I thought that Steve said himself to the App Store developer with regards to a "Trailer" app, that "you can't blame others on their mistakes/fraud if you yourself are doing it"
@Revolutionary
The sad thing is that far more people will have heard Apples FUD than these rebuts however sober, however rational.
Apple's public bullying will only result in increased retaliatory competition, and while they are a wildly successful vendor, they do not have enough of a monopoly to guarantee their indispensableness in the market.
@Revolutionary
I guess this guy is being a jerk too?? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zJxZ4YN3yw8
@Revolutionary
Or how about this jerk? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LROTHrTR92k
@LordThree
Your kidding, right?
I love my iPhone 4 as much as the next guy, but sticking your head in the sand doesn't make a design flaw(A bad one at that) go away. Also, a lot of Android phones are very well designed and look great. And unless I'm mistaken, the iPhone was plastic until just recently and you never had a problem with that did you? Besides plastic has some advantages over glass(Mainly, durability).
Although I think the internet has blown the flaw way out of proportion, if Steve addressed the "non-issue" its because there is an issue. Also, its thanks to all the bad press that were getting free cases(Come on, you cant say no to free).
@BrandonHarris
Get my point, Steve's being a jerk because he vaguely acknowledged the problem. He could have just acknowledged it, without backstabbing Samsung and others. There's no need for it. The antenna design in the iPhone 4 is a serious fail.
Btw, you will only experience signal degradation if you hold it extremely tight.
@drange
lol ok I did simplify my response somewhat.
The IPhone 4 and HTC Desire are not far off from each other on Specs
(ok the desire actually works,.. but hay had to get a small dig in there)
But HTC is not a well known brand, and does not look as good as the IPhone, and a lot of the people I speak to do choose the IPhone due to its looks/company they know.
I'm not talking about everyone, maybe its just a London thing.
I will admit I have never liked the company apple. because I feel they are not at all centred around customers, and more around control.
D
@sky2earth
because they would like to make a profit?
@Revolutionary Chew on this Samsung: http://m.youtube.com/#/watch?desktop_uri=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DBolQ9o_-Q68&v=BolQ9o_-Q68&gl=US
@Revolutionary
Interesting Development: "RIM Pulls “Death Grip” Videos from YouTube"
http://theurbangeek.com/2010/07/20/rim-pulls-death-grip-videos-from-youtube/
@Revolutionary
True that. Haters going to hate.
@coolkams03: "Samsung has nailed it with the Galaxy S series anyway and I have high hopes from it."
Actually the Galaxy S has the same reception problem. Check out this video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LROTHrTR92k
@hero785
Wow... You are so stupid... Go get a job with a telecommunication's company take their RTT courses and then find out that the only company that is telling you the truth is actually Apple.
Their is a reason phones come with Stickers telling you where the antenna is and don't touch there.
@Wesscoast Google makes a nice profit and they are very open with their products.
@sky2earth It's like Microsoft. They are obviously in competition with Apple when it comes to PC os's, but they still make MS office for mac and own lots of stock in Apple incase things go south for them. Plus, it is a way to sell yet another product to yet another consumer.
@dswatson83
Hey, you're comment is waaaaay up there, but I wanted to give you a +1.
If you know antennas are a problem, why exacerbate the issue by making the antennas external and gapping them at the lower left corner?
I don't disagree that there are antenna problems, I think that Steve gambled that the strength of an external antenna would shine through the problems and he was dead wrong.
@Revolutionary
Don't too hard with SJ.
For someone who has hard time with his hubby@wife@gf@bf, buy i4, then you have the solid reason why you can't be contacted. Thank for the antenna design... ;-))
@Revolutionary The iPhone 4 is a real phone, omnia 2 isn't, it sucks, and in this picture, they are deliberately not touching the area with a death grip, iPhone 5 will not have an amoled, engadget and apple showed that the retina ips was better, but so similar that it's down to personal choice, apple has no reason to use samsungs lower quality, worse viewing angles, less pixel density screens, not to mention harder to view in sunlight, and bettery sucking
@Revolutionary Maybe in your dreams....
@Siryj You mean 4GS? Coming this holiday season...stay tuned.
@sky2earth
You do realize this is common in the industry, don't you ? Samsung has been supplying panels to Sony. Panasonic supplies plasma panels to others. Ducati supplies engines to Bimota, etc etc.
And now your point was ?
That guy in the picture is holding it wrong. You need to death grip it to get it to lose the signal.
I can't believe how much press this issue is getting. The reported data says 1% more dropped calls than the 3GS. The 3GS outnumbers the iPhone 4 by 10:1 so it could be a little more eventually but it's not like you can't make a call nor is it all that easy to drop a call in real-world situations.
It does happen with other phones too but naturally you don't know where the antenna is so even if you do block it, you don't know about it.
The funniest part of all this is the complaints coming from people who have not and never will own an iPhone 4 (yeah Revolution, that means you - 'ooh I bought an EVO instead', did you bollocks). The 3 million plus people who own them ain't sending them back. You can call them apologists or sheep or whatever. If they're happy with what they got then how is it a problem?
If the iPhone 4 doesn't reach 50 million sales by the year's end then the reputation may have been tarnished but if it gets close then I guess you guys are going to be so dazzled by your own hate you will just implode.
How can it be that something you know beyond all reasonable doubt to be so flawed is so popular? It can't be, noooooo. *implosion*
@Revolutionary Why would Apple want the Shitty AMOLED when they already have screens that are better in most categories.
@That guy 2 'worse viewing angles' 'bettery sucking' ?
You do know AMOLED is known for having great viewing angles and using less energy than LCD displays, right?
Also, people should really stop being at each others throat, it's making me think that the real reason for the existence of these companies is to make fanboy destroy each other. SERIOUSLY - It's pretty clear that Apple/Microsoft/HTC/Samsung/WhoeverTheHellYou'Fight'For doesn't need you to stick up for them on a comments section of a gadget blog.
I mean c'mon guys. These companies clearly can make it on their own. Hence the huge amount of money they own. Can't we all just hold hands, skip around and enjoy the products we enjoy, whatever they be? D:
...Pretty please? D:
@Revolutionary Every cell phone I've own (besides my old iPhone 3GS) came with an instruction manual, and at the very front or back, it'll say where the antenna is and warns not to use your hand to cover that area or else you might experience degraded signals or dropped calls. Why are all these companies now saying their phones don't experience any of that affect when their very own instruction manuals state the opposite.
The case fix works for all phones. My naked EVO gets dropped calls if I hold the bottom, but I always it's always in a case, so this doesn't bother me at all. I don't understand why all these iphone 4g owners are complaining. Just put on a damn case a be done with it like the rest of us cell phone users.
@Siryj Go to the store, see if it bothers you. If you have the money buy it and use it for two weeks. If you drop a call take it back for a full refund and buy a different phone
Don't listen to these buttplugs. None of them have any fucking clue. All of them saw one or two videos online of signal drop and they made up their minds. Most of them were praying for an issue like this to blow out of proportion cause they are riding androids dick
Use the phone as you normally would any other phone and if it drops a call get a refund. That's what I did and I'm more than happy with the iPhone 4. Plus I get a free case now.
There is a reason most of the reviewers (and Jimmy fallon) didn't notice the issue during the review process. If normal use didn't expose the reviewers to the issue, it's a good chance you won't notice either. But if you do.... Ditch the fucking thing.
While I agree with their stances, none of these companies are providing any proof that they do not suffer from signal degradation.
@peestandingup
There's no need for proof.
There are users like us, who use these phones.
I once owned the Omnia 2, and I didn't have that sort of problem.
When I switched to the iPhone 4, bam, I was pissed off.
I returned it, and got the EVO.
I'm a happy EVO user.
@peestandingup
Did you not read? Unless you are holding your phone in such a way that it covers the bottom of the phone, the degradation doesn't exist.
Same with Iphone 4... hence the reason lefties are having such a problem.
@Revolutionary Yea, perhaps you just didn't notice it on your Omnia because you weren't listening to other people bitch about it or believing everything you hear like a sheep. Unless you were looking for trouble, you won't find it. Just like on an iPhone 4.