[bostonnerd]

No offense Knottyrope, but these polls cropping up all over are basically useless (other than entertainment value).

1) Cellular RF transmit/receive between tower and handset is very low powered and can be affected by ambient temperature, leaves on trees, multipath distortion, case density, and yes, a hand.

2) Bars on any handset are a meaningless indication of call or data connection success (unless there is no signal at all)

3) GSM and CDMA have quite different behavior in handling their respective protocols.

4) As long as the error correction logic in the handset can correct within a certain threshold the call will go through and/or the data will flow (simplistic but makes the point).

5) Even if you drop from full bars to one it's possible for a voice call to be made/received

6) Antenna design is probably one of the most mature disciplines in EE. Even Marconi had a pretty good idea what was required and the effects of unintentional grounding. Any Freshman EE student can explain it.

7) RIM, HTC, Nokia, et al have been doing this for a long time. They also have talented RF Engineers. If they thought an external antenna design was feasible they would be doing it as it does have a lot of advantages if you can figure out the RF issues it creates.

8) Apple chose to go with this design for whatever reason. Their RF Engineers were well aware of the downside risks of using an external antenna.

Again, no offense.....