After briefly considering jumping ship to Android via the Evo prior to the iPhone 4 launch, I've stuck to my Apple fanyboyism for one more round of contracts.

Should be able to post first impressions later tonight. Apple would only ship it to the address on file with AT&T, so it's waiting at home for me now.

I decided to jump ship for the Droid X and Verizon. I've played with other Android gadgets and decided that now's the time to make the jump. I suspect it's not much of a coincidence that the ship date for the Droid X is only one week after the expiration of my AT&T contract for my iPhone 3G.

First impressions are pretty positive so far. The screen is quite impressive, and text in every app is noticeably sharper. Managed to try out FaceTime with someone, and as advertised it just works. Hard to say how often I will use it though, especially with the current iPhone 4 to iPhone 4 limitation.

It will take a bit to get used to the new design, similar to moving from the initial iPhone to the 3G/3GS. It's similar enough, but just different holding it that the little things like the flat back stand out.

Camera wise, it seems much improved over the 3GS. Much less noise visible in lowlight shots.

As far as the Droid X, I am only now getting up to speed on it, as I missed the announcements earlier today. I'll be curious to hear how it works out for you, especially coming from the iPhone. Overall from the quick impressions out there, it looks to be a decent Android phone, thankfully with physical buttons. Didn't really care much for the touch sensitive ones on the Evo.

What about reports that holding the edges drops the signal to nothing? Are you experiencing this? It seems grabbing the antenna edges detunes it quite a bit at least in some cases. I would have though it pretty obvious that Apple had thoroughly tested the antenna design before producing millions of them but maybe not.

Stu

They were totally going to test that, but in the middle of doing so there was this thing with a bar...

But seriously, wasn't that guy someone who worked in the antenna department?

I played with a new iPhone for about 80 seconds tonight. A friend at a show we went to had one, and the screen is definitely very very nice and it's extremely hard to distinguish pixels even up close. The phone was snappy, and the camera was noticeably faster than my wife's 3G.

The only negative I could gleam in such a short hands-on was that I don't like the feel of it in my hand as much as the 3GS. It's not that I missed the curved back, but the sides definitely don't feel as nice.

The Droid X is a pretty cool phone. As much as I'd love that big screen, though, I think I prefer the size of the Incredible/Nexus One a little more. It's sort of the sweet spot for me. Mostly I'm just happy that Android devices are reaching a point where there's decent selection of good hardware. Now we'll just have to wait and see when they catch up to some of the specs that Apple just dropped with the iPhone 4

The guy was a programmer and if reports are accurate then he worked on the software for the baseband i.e. radio. You'd need to be an EE which specialises in RF if you wanted to do the antenna.

Alledgely the problem is only the signal meter that is displayed and not with actual reception.

Gizmodo sure know how to milk a story for all its worth. Are there enough updates on that story with an iPhone in various positions? As this is Gizmodo, the next update will probably say that its been confirmed that iPhone 4 has 0 bars if you put your genitalia up against it.

I have mine now, just waiting for it to sync all my apps over to it.

I had a quick play before syncing and so far it all just feels/looks amazing. The screen really is something special, the camera is very fast and the whole thing is hugely snappier than my 3G.

Yeah except one guy seemed to show data throughput dropping way off when holding.

Stu

Somewhere, deep inside Google's Android group, there must be an argument brewing about how they should support multiple display resolutions. They don't have the luxury that Apple has of only having to worry about one new display at a time.

There already exist a multitude of display resolutions for Android devices. (Including at least 854x480, 800x480, 480x320, 400x240, and 320x240.) I haven't had the opportunity to look into that yet, but one assumes that they've already addressed that problem.

Engadget is saying it's happening with their unit every single time they hold it left-handed. Don't know how true this is, but I guess we'll see once everyone gets theirs today...

When I say resolution, I'm not just talking about screen size but pixel density. Apple radically increased the density of its pixels for the same-sized screen, and this required some non-trivial changes in the software. I'll bet that Android would require similar surgery.

There's a significant difference in ppi between, for example, The G1 (Dream) and the Nexus One: 180 v. 254. There were some applications that were updated to take advantage of (that is, not look absurd on) the higher res devices. Given, it's not the doubling that happened at the release of the iPhone4 (163 v. 326), but it's not nothing.

Looks like I can replicate the bars dropping here at work, going from 5 bars down to 2 depending on how I hold the phone. And yeah, it's definitely impacting signal. Two speeds tests from the same spot with the phone in the exact same orientation and space, just changed how I was holding it.

Ouch.

Also, it sucks that your iPhone gets better upload speeds than my "business class" broadband connection.

Wouldn't that be an expected behavior for *any* phone?

Well, I was right about Phones4U being incompetent. After waiting half an hour, my reservation papers were scrutinized, and I was told by the store manager they didn't have any 32GB models for Orange and would I like a 16GB one instead, I declined, much to his and everyone else in the store's surprise. Apparently the store manager knew this fact several days ago but the girl that took my deposit yesterday didn't. Luckily I only wasted 30 minutes, if I'd been waiting hours it would've been a different story, I also got my deposit back.

The most amazing thing is that by way of recompense he said I could have a 32GB 3GS instead! I politely informed him that if I'd wanted one of those I could've just walked in and bought it yesterday.

I had a go with one in the Apple Store in front of the drooling fanboys queued up outside. It is really nice, and while I'd really like to have one before we go to London next week, I'm now happy to wait until I can just walk in off the street and buy one then and there.

For some reason, I'm imagining a roomful of gasps, backs of hands to foreheads, and, perhaps, a few ladies going faint.

It certainly raised a few eyebrows. Since everyone else was seemingly pretty desperate to lay their hands on one at any cost (several people had been turned away from the line at the Apple Store) it was obviously unthinkable that I might turn such an offer down.

Following Bitt's description, I'm now also picturing monocles dropping.

It definitely wasn't a monocles-type crowd in there. Not a glass of Port in sight!

Not to this extreme. The big problem is that the really slow speed came from when I held the phone in portrait mode like I would normally when using it. The fast speed came from moving my hands to touch the top and bottom, similar to how it would be held in landscape mode.

I'm curious if the same thing happens on, say, a 3G with its plastic casing. To rule out (or rule in) antenna-grounding-to-body issues. In other words, narrow down whether it's your body mass blocking the signal, or your skin touching the new metal casing, that's the issue.

If the iPhone 4 is in the Apple rubber case then you can grasp it any way you want and it doesn't affect the signal.

When they announced that you'd actually be holding onto part of the antenna, I did wonder how they worked around problems like this. I'm not good at RF or analog design so I just assumed that they'd come up with something.

It's definitely my skin touching the metal case in a certain spot (lower left side) that is causing the issue. I used a single post it note to sit between my skin and the phone, and had full signal strength again.

Thats where the WiFi antenna meets the cellular antenna. What happens if you turn off WiFi and touch that point?

The speedtests above were done with wifi off.

Quick response already, but I suppose expected with how much it's being talked about. It hasn't been a problem when I'm talking on the phone, but it is definitely an issue when I'm holding it in my left hand to use apps.

I'll let the insanity die down around the Apple Stores, and try out a bumper case this round. Been using all the previous iPhones without a case, and holding them the same way without this being an issue.

I am very much enjoying my HTC Evo. I am especially happy about the Android "Locale" app.

Steve says don't hold it like this.