YONKERS, N.Y., July 12 (UPI) -- U.S. products-review magazine Consumer Reports said Monday it would not recommend purchasing Apple Inc.'s iPhone 4 because of persistent reception problems.
It said the fourth generation of iPhone, released June 24 in the United States, Britain, France, Germany and Japan, has an antenna-design flaw -- contradicting claims by Apple the problems were a software issue.
Consumer Reports said its engineers tested three separate iPhone 4s and found that when the bottom left corner of the iPhone is touched it can lose about 20 decibels, or enough signal strength to drop a call, especially "if you're in an area with a weak signal," the magazine said in a blog post and accompanying video.
"Our findings call into question the recent claim by Apple that the iPhone 4's signal-strength issues were largely an optical illusion caused by faulty software that 'mistakenly displays 2 more bars than it should for a given signal strength,'" the magazine said.
It also said the AT&T Mobility LLC network did not appear to play a big role in the iPhone4's signal problems.
Consumer Reports also tested several other phones, including 209 predecessor iPhone 3GS and Palm Inc.'s 2009 Palm Pre multimedia smartphone, and said "none of those phones had the signal-loss problems of the iPhone 4."
"Bottom line, we can't recommend the iPhone 4 until Apple fixes this design flaw," Michael Gikas, senior editor of electronics at Consumer Reports, said in the video, reversing a July 2 Consumer Reports blog post that he new iPhone's issues weren't yet a reason to forgo buying the device.
Apple had no immediate comment.
