Consumer Reports: Skip iPhone 4
online.wsj.com
online.wsj.com
Consumer Reports didn't say anything that could be meaningfully construed as "skip iPhone 4".
What they said is that they can't put their "Recommended" marks on it until Apple addresses the antenna problem.
They also pointed out that the phone garnered the highest rating score on their latest smartphone ratings. That's pretty damn far from telling people to "skip it".
Lazy reporting.
Which means "skip it".
They've done the same thing with vehicles, saying "We love this vehicle...but the reliability record isn't good so we don't recommend it." Not recommending it = you should skip it.
Of course I take all Consumer Reports reviews with a grain of salt. They're good at reviewing dishwashers and power washers, but their reviews of tech are usually seriously lacking.
IIRC they also explicitly said to choose 3GS over 4G.
Nonsense. There is a whole vast middle ground between "recommended" and "you should skip it".
Consumer Reports is about helping people make educated choices, not some remedial "yes/no" recommendation. They rate the iPhone 4 very highly but have a reservation about it. You have to strain pretty hard to read that as "skip it".
(I do agree with you about the questionable quality of their tech reviews, though. I do find them frustrating at times)
They wrap up by saying "Get a 3GS instead". Could they be any clearer?
They are ABSOLUTELY saying skip it. Should anyone listen to them? Of course not. They're whoring for attention, and their credibility testing tech is dubious. They're also the ones who a few short days ago were telling us that the iPhone 4 has no reception problem.
>Consumer Reports is about helping people make educated choices, not some remedial "yes/no" recommendation.
Uh...no. CR "recommended" lists are the yes. Everything else is a no.
You're really desperately trying to colour their statements that couldn't be clearer.
However, unlike Anandtech, CR failed to even mention how the phone holds calls given certain signal strengths or drops in signal strength.
Also, one wonders about their lab, since CR failed to find the drops from comparable smartphones that Anandtech found, reportedly around 9 - 14 dB, and failed to explain how each phone's drop affected call retention, sound quality, or data rates.
Not all radio tuners or antennas are created equal; just look at WiFi 802.11n data rates from different vendors given the same signal strength.
Reviewers need to stop focusing on signal strength, and test actual call handling.
Doing a real test (instead of "oh, now we see what you meant...") would have been great PR for Consumer Reports.
Odds are you'll get a free bumper case and asked to leave. Problem solved.