Tests Show iPhone 3G Problems Hardware, Not Network Related.

Although we’ve already documented just how poor the iPhone 3G’s data performance is (at least at the moment), we wanted to see how the device stacks up against another AT&T 3G smart phone. So we grabbed a Samsung BlackJack II, an iPhone 3G, and took them with us on a 1.5 hour train ride from New York’s Penn Station to Long Beach, Long Island The results surprised us.

As the train moved from Manhattan to Queens and then deep into Long Island, we noticed that the iPhone would go from a full 3G connection to a slim one in a heartbeat while the Samsung BlackJack II would switch from 3G to EDGE while maintaining near-full signal strength. It also seemed as though the iPhone was  incorrectly reporting 3G connectivity when it had none.

We theorize that the iPhone is detecting a 3G signal that isn’t there or is just too weak to use, and that’s harming performance. Meanwhile, the BlackJack II accepts that there’s no 3G around and moves on to EDGE. This allows Web pages to load fine, albeit slower. The iPhone would simply report that no connection was available or a page couldn’t be found; or it would load a page in over a minute.

This morning on our trip commute back to the city, we experienced the same problems Mark reported in his earlier post. An ESPN Fantasy Football page would load quickly, but then a few minutes later, the Facebook Application wouldn’t be able to access the internet, or Gmail wouldn’t connect. When we fired up Pandora, we listened to two songs before the connection was too weak to connect for the remainder of the trip. Meanwhile, the iPhone was reporting a strong 3G connection all along.

From our evidence, we think the connectivity problems fall squarely on the iPhone itself, perhaps that Infineon 3G chip, and not AT&T’s network. Here’s why:

• Two identical iPhones report different signal strengths, even in the exact same spot.
• The BlackJack II, also on AT&T’s 3G network, is more efficient at reporting signal strength
• The BlackJack II maintained a longer, stronger, connection to the data network