How Much Radiation Does Your Phone Emit?

Tawkon has developed an app for the iPhone, Android, and Blackberry that measures the radiation levels at any given time. The demonstration below shows how the radiation levels go up for each phone when a "death grip" is applied.

What's a death grip, you may ask? A death grip is a simple term used to denote a hand that has recently killed. What a troublesome thing to have.

In less criminal areas of the country a death grip is defined by: the way a person holds the phone so as to block most of the antenna, causing problems in reception and increasing radiation levels.

Apple's surprise press conference in July 16 to address the growing reception issues focused on dissipating the problem by spreading the blame. To Jobs all phone companies have trouble with the death grip. He then demonstrated how other phones' connections dropped when held in the same position. The other companies fought back, stating that their antennas were located in places that were not normally held, unlike Apple's:

"The antenna is located at the bottom of the Omnia 2 phone, while iPhone's antenna is on the lower left side of the device. Our design keeps the distance between a hand and an antenna. We have fully conducted field tests before the rollout of smartphones. Reception problems have not happened so far, and there is no room for such problems to happen in the future."

You can read more responses and quotes from competitors here.

What Tawkon shows in their app is that the answer is not so simple. Hand placement matters to all phones and when it's covered enough, the radiation levels rise to uncomfortable levels. There is a difference between having a high radiation level and maintaining a good connection (Android, Blackberries) to having a high radiation level and having a bad to no connection (iPhone 4). It's a simple fix for the iPhone 4 with a cover, so it's quite not the disaster people make it out to be.

The Tawkon App is currently only available on the Blackberry.