Consumer Reports Continues to Wait to Recommend iPhone 4

Consumer Reports simply will not recommend Apple’s iPhone 4 to its readers. Why, you may ask? Well, they say that until Apple decides to offer customers a free, easily accessible case to solve the “death grip” issues that the iPhone 4 has been facing, they cannot endorse the smartphone.

The so-called “death grip” was noticed by iPhone 4 customers from the start. It occurs when a user grips the phone with a full or whole hand grip. Holding the device this way causes significant issues with the connection speed when uploading or downloading data and with the reception of the phone in general.

Due to all of the problems concerning the “death grip,” Apple decided in July to offer customers a free case or bumper to fix the issue. If you had already purchased a case, they even offered to refund you the money that you had spent on it. Unfortunately, Apple decided to only keep this offer up until September 30th.

Now, Apple is saying that they are going to discontinue this offer all together, instead of waiting until the 30th. They say that the antenna issue “is even smaller than we originally thought.” They feel that this justifies ending the free case or bumper offer.

Consumer Report feels that this is unacceptable. They have said, “Our tests found the Bumper successfully mitigates the iPhone 4's reception issue, which was a weak point in the phone’s otherwise-stellar performance in our tests. We agree with Apple that not all iPhone 4 owners will experience reception difficulties with the device, but putting the onus on any owners of a product to obtain a remedy to a design flaw is not acceptable to us. We therefore continue not to recommend the iPhone 4 and to call on Apple to provide a permanent fix for the phone's reception issues."

I believe that Consumer Reports is definitely right. I feel that it is ridiculous that Apple is discontinuing their offer to provide a case or bumper for the iPhone 4. They made the mistake, so they should be the ones taking full responsibility for it. It doesn’t matter if not everyone experiences these reception issues. Apple’s goal should be to satisfy all of their customers, especially when it comes to something as important as reception and uploading and downloading data.

I feel that Apple is making a huge mistake by discontinuing their free case program, but will it affect sales of the iPhone 4? I’m guessing that most likely it won’t. Although I wouldn’t want to deal with the issues, the iPhone has a prestigious enough reputation to keep the sales coming in. If you’re considering a new smartphone, the “death grip” is something that you should definitely consider before settling on the iPhone 4.

Not interested in the iPhone? Check out some other great smartphones like the Motorola's Droid X or the HTC EVO 4G.

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Completely Green Phone from Sprint

Sprint is now introducing the newest edition to there environmentally friendly line of phones. The LG Remarq is an adorable, compact, eco-friendly, sliding messaging phone that is complete with a QWERTY keyboard.

So some of the basic specs on the Remarq include the fact that it has excellent call quality and features access to social networking apps. You can easily update your Facebook or Twitter status with the phone. It does only have 22 MB of internal memory, but it has a microSD slot, so if your looking to improve its memory you can just pick yourself up an inexpensive micoSD card to beef everything up.

Another one of the drawbacks to the Remarq is its poor photo quality. Its 1.3 MP camera just doesn’t seem to get the job done. The camera is even awkwardly located which makes picture taking somewhat inconvenient.

Although the LG Remarq does not posses all the high-tech features in many of the phones today, its still a nice, easy to use, affordable messaging phone. Also, the Remarq is made from almost 100% recycled or recyclable materials. Even the packaging is recyclable, and all images and text on the box and instruction manuals are made from 100% soy ink. It received the Green Tech Approved award.

The Remarq is a perfect phone for kids or teens buying there first cell phone. It is now available through Sprint for free after a $50 mail-in-rebate. This really is a great value.

If you're looking for a touch phone from Sprint with a ton more features, read all about the HTC EVO 4G.

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The New HTC EVO 4G from Sprint

If you are looking for the best possible phone for Internet surfing look no further than Sprint’s new HTC EVO 4G. It is the nations very first WiMAX phone, and it features more Internet than any other phone in the United States including the HTC Droid Incredible and the iPhone 3GS.

There have been WiMAX handhelds in the U.S. before but they weren’t fully functional and capable 3G phones. The EVO comes standard as a fully operative 3G smartphone with the option of boosting it to a 4G experience. Even in 3G form though, the EVO is an incredible phone for Web users.

The EVO has a very simple design. It features a 4.3-inch screen with 800 x 480 resolution. Unfortunately, the screen is incredibly reflective making it very difficult to see anything outdoors, but it looks fantastic inside. The phone is completely reliant on its touch screen and therefore has no physical keyboard. Although it has decent touch response, it is not even close to being as simple or accurate as the iPhone’s touch screen keyboard. One feature that can be quite useful on the EVO is the kickstand that can be found on the back of the device. This can be utilized when viewing videos and such.

Although there is the 4G option with the EVO, calls cannot be made over the 4G network as of now. Unfortunately, Sprint is not exactly known for their outstanding 3G network. The call quality with the EVO is certainly not the best. The calls are loud but not exactly clear. They are more rough and harsh sounding.

The phone runs Google Android 2.1 OS with HTC’s Sense UI extensions. There are car mode options, FM radio, two different GPS options, a Twitter client, a social-networking client called Friend Streaming, Microsoft Office and PDF document readers, and Sprint’s streaming TV.

So many may ask what the difference is between using the device in 3G mode or 4G. As merely a 3G smartphone the EVO is still quite impressive, but when utilizing 4G with the EVO, there is more Internet access available with a faster response time. Almost everything that you will be streaming to the phone will not have to take any buffering time. With 4G coverage, web pages stream anywhere from 40 to 250 percent faster than when using 3G.

The problem with Sprint’s 4G network is that only a few dozen cities are covered under the network. Also when using the 4G network, battery life is not even close to being as good as when in 3G mode. The advantage is that you can easily switch back and forth between 3G and 4G. It seems best to utilize 3G most of the time and only using 4G when you need an extra boost.

As mentioned before, the EVO does wonderfully when handling the Internet. You can flip through different web pages quite quickly, zoom in on pages with a mere pinch, and select different browsers from the Android market. The phone comes standard with an 8 GB memory card which is all the memory you could possibly need.

The HTC EVO features two different cameras. On the front of the smartphone there is a basic 1.3-megapixel camera, and at the rear of the phone is an 8-megapixel camera with 720p hi-def video recording. Although they may not take the best pictures, they are much better than most camera phones.

Overall, the HTC EVO 4G is the best available phone from Sprint. It is in the same category as the HTC Incredible, Google Nexus One, and the iPhone 3GS. Although it has its issues with call quality, the phone is still the best Internet browsing phone available to date. If you like to utilize Internet on your phone, the EVO is the phone for you. It will be released by Sprint on June 4 for $199.99.

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Looking for help with travel and technology? Then call a Tech Travel Agent at 800-736-8772. Or see this link for a Laptop Rental on your next trip.