Samsung Vibrant (Galaxy S) Deathgrip - Do Bars Matter?

[ColonelChaos0]

Thumbed down. For one, the iPhone FLAW drops more calls than a Thai hooker. Vibrant may drop bars, but I never had a dropped call. Biased review. Fuck off :3

[TechliciousMedia]

@ColonelChaos0 Did you even bother to watch the video or read the related post on our site? The whole point of the video is that dropped bars don't correlate directly with dropped calls and that Apple's claim they don't have an issue because other phones will reduce bars when held in the hand doesn't hold water.

[lestatrequiem2006]

I don't even get the point of making such videos ? I mean, every antenna loses signal when covered with human flash, EVERY PHONE, it's a rule of biophysics.

On the contrary this video tends to minimize the Iphone4 flaw, which is a design flaw, the flaw of the iphone that not any other phone has, is that by putting only one finger on the black band on the left side it will lose as much signal as any phone covered with one or two hands.

[TechliciousMedia]

@lestatrequiem2006 If you watch the video again (and read the related story on Techlicious), I think that you will see that it supports the argument that there is an issue with the iPhone or the AT&T network. We made the video as a floow up to Steve Jobs recent press conference where he made the point that all phones lose bars, which is true. But losing bars is not the same as dropping calls. And, we show the Samsung is still able to function with "less than zero" bars.

[AriyannaGal]

I just got the galaxy s a few days ago and I have noticed that it doesn't even matter if you hold the phone or if it is sitting on a table, the bars fluctuate constantly, stays at 0 bars for prolonged periods and if I scoot it over 1inch it goes back to full bars for a second then back down, but it never has had a problem making or dropping calls so far, I just want to see a video of the opposite and see how well it receives calls with 0 bars. Has anyone had a problem receiving calls w 0 bars?

[MamiSoooPrecious06]

well every phone has a "death grip" its really not that serious cuz no1 really holds their phone with all 5 fingers. i put my hand over my nokia 5310 and it drops calls within 5-10 seconds, my blackberry 9000 drops calls left and right if it gets too hot..

[MrImaginecreativity]

Your the Best!! ! thanks for the review great phone

[0mega101]

the bar is just software issue, unlike iphone will actually drop call, iphoen need to stop pay gimmeck game that all phone has death grip fact is make call or not is what it matter.

[mrmufakka]

I've noticed this with my Galaxy S (Vibrant) as well. I can have no bars and still get over 3Mbps download speeds and no problem making calls. This DOES sound like a software issue. Sorry Apple, I imagine you wish you had this problem.

[Abo741]

Lmao how about you hold the phone like a normal person and see how many bars it has, not cup it as hard as you can in a retarded position that no one uses while talking on the phone. Even with 0 bars it's not a problem, but I don't think it should lose bars nevertheless.

I tried at T-Mobile store today, unless I cupped with both hands I got nothing to happen..

[TechliciousMedia]

@Abo741 As we've said before, the effect has nothing to do with how hard you cup the phone, it is simply a question of whether you are blocking the antenna on the bottom of the phone. It's quite normal to hold it from the bottom of the phone when making calls, because the top part is against your head and the Vibrant's slim profile makes it tricky to grip just from the sides. You also have to hold it for about 10 seconds before the phone bars start registering the decrease.

[usernamecheckedOK]

@TechliciousMedia And to be able to block the antenna, you have to cup your hand around it for the signal to get worse. On the other hand, iPhone 4 you only have to NUDGE the antenna to kill the signal. See the difference?

It doesn't take a genius to understand that blocking a signal weakens it. Just as it doesn't take a genius to realize that having an unprotected antenna will cause the signal to get distorted when you touch it. That's why Apple are hiring Antenna Engineers now, genius shortage

[StrategicMac]

Same thing on the iPHone. I can death grip the iPhone 4 and still make and receive calls. If the calling area is good, the phone will probably still work.

[TechliciousMedia]

@StrategicMac Can you let us know if you able to make and receive calls with zero bars showing on the iPhone 4?

[StrategicMac]

@TechliciousMedia @TechliciousMedia Yes. I would upload video but all I have here is my little flip camera. I start off with about 3 bars. Then I drop to 1 or none. It fluctuates back up to 2 or 3 even while death gripping the crap out of the phone. During all of this I am able to make and receive calls.

[StrategicMac]

@TechliciousMedia

What you might want to try is 3G data while death gripping. I can run a speed test while not death gripping and my 3g data speed down is a little over 1.8Mb/s. When I death grip I can make the speed test stop, but it averages about 300Kb/s.

[TechliciousMedia]

@StrategicMac We looked at speed testing, but we were getting significant variability in speed (anywhere from 300 kbps to 3mbps) even with four bars, which made it impossible to test the impact of signal reduction. There is obviously a lot going on to impact the speed beyond the connection quality.

[perfectcheeseburger]

Fact is, with the iphone when the bars drop bcus of the death grip you can't make a call. With samsung, even with the death grip & bars down......... YOU CAN.

[chipinsalsa]

I must also add that the bars sometimes go away when I have it sitting on my desk.

[chipinsalsa]

I can also confirm that when the phone has 0 bars, everything still works; data, messaging, calls. The calls never drop and I've only had a website fail to load once.

[0mega101]

htc hd2 same issue, you get drop bar when you hold like that, problem is widespread, but seem like is more commont to newer touch phone than older one.

[sami1y5]

i don't have this problem. i got my phone two weeks ago and i'm absolutely loving it

[lil0egy0kid]

The problem here is that the algorithm for the bars is completely incorrect.  So when you cover the bottom "death grip" The bars really only drop one or two at max but its shown as 4-5 bars dropping that's why you can still make calls. Because what is being displayed on screen is not what is actually happening. It is a non issue and samsung will probably fix it in the next update.

As for like like the iPhone I used one in person other than the chrome trim (which is a darker color) no ip clone

[TechliciousMedia]

@lil0egy0kid It's not that the algorithm is "incorrect", it's that the algorithms on phones aren't standardized and so, cannot be correlated well with an a phone's ability to make calls. Likewise, there are other issues that can affect call dropping that are not related to the number of bars on the phone.

[bawksybabee]

This is because the phone's bars are just improperly calibrated.

[3t3rn1t1]

Hi,! I've a samsung galaxy s and work perfect, the firmware used in the film is old. Infact the phone call without problem to difference the iphone

[TechliciousMedia]

@3t3rn1t1 We're using Firmware ver 2.1 update 1

[tarunrad]

have you experienced dropped calls or bad call quality as a result of this bug ?

if so then it's a issue ,otherwise it's nothing that serious !

the thing is I can make bars drop on many phones , but it only becomes a problem if it affects daily use ! The iPhone 4 OTOH is a different story all together !!!

[TechliciousMedia]

@tarunrad Yes, that's the point!

[tarunrad]

@TechliciousMedia didnt answer my question ? so did you drop calls yet ???

on the iPhone quite a few people have reported poor voice quality even cnet and other reputed sites have done tests showcasing the poor call quality with the phone held normally ! So is it really comparable to the iphone 4 issues ?

[TechliciousMedia]

@tarunrad Apple showed other phones exhibiting the "death grip" dropping bars to show that the iPhone 4 wasn't the only phone with issues. But dropping bars is not the same as dropping calls, as we demonstrate in the video. The Vibrant is too new to know whether it will have a dropping call issue similar to the iPhone 4, but in our limited experience, and based on what we've read from others, it does not.

[Dargakis]

that iPhone-clone looks almost like the real thing. Where did you get it? I love that it still has last-years iPhone look :-D

But they even copied the death-grip? :-P

Are they stupid? They should have only copied the design and OS, NOT the flaws :D

[minhphan86]

@Dargakis guess who makes most of the components in the iPhone 4? Samsung. LOL Apple don't invent all that sht like you Apple fanboy thinks they are.

[ColonelChaos09]

I don't like this. Obvious Apple fanboy.

[TechliciousMedia]

@ColonelChaos09 Hey, great insight. Thanks for adding to the conversation.

[kroneage]

haha... this was funny, cuz it proves Apples bar fix is a hoax. But we knew that from the fact that they only now after 3yrs, say they're stunned to find that out. That spoofing bars as higher doesn't get you a better signal. But here it appears to be the opposite. The difference then is in the hardware approach with iP4's three 2yr old Radios w/3 antenna's, instead of Samsung's new latest Broadcom combo SoC w/ GPS, WiFi Direct, Bluetooth 3.0 and dual band 3G/4G VOIP Baseband radio w/1 antenna! 

[tahnayetahna]

what do you think to make this video ?!!!

just look at your fingers ! you use too many force and big pressure on the phone!

do you want to say that Galaxy S is the same as iStupid(iphone) ?

iStupid lose antenna with a single touch , not need to holding it in your hand like this one !!!!

[TechliciousMedia]

@tahnayetahna How much pressure you put on the phone isn't important, what matters is whether you're covering the antenna. I did not apply any special "tight grip" for the video and was able to replicate the bars dropping with other phones as well.

Both the iPhone 4 and Vibrant drop bars, yes. But the Vibrant did not drop the call, even with "less than zero" bars. The point of the video (and detailed in our write-up on Techlicious) is that it is not really the bars that matter.

[Youpartyte]

@tahnayetahna why the hell are you flaming this uploader? He just wanted to show the true flaws of the iphone 4. Every single phone drop bars if you hold it with the death grip. However, the point in this video is to show that dropping bars don't translate to dropping calls. If it did, this video would have proved Apple's conference a day ago correct. I appreciate this uploader for uploading this video.

[TechliciousMedia]

@Youpartyte Thank you! If you really listen to what we say in the video and read our accompanying story on Techlicious, that is exactly the message.