HTC: Eris has 35-times fewer complaints than iPhone

HTC Corp. said its phone model named by Apple Inc. Chief Executive Officer Steve Jobs as having antenna signal problems received 35-times less complaints than for the iPhone 4.

"The phone that was called out in the Apple press conference, the HTC Droid Eris, has experienced a customer inquiry of less than two-one hundredths of one percent - 35 times less," than the iPhone 4, Taoyuan, Taiwan-based HTC said in an e-mailed response to Bloomberg News questions today. Jobs said July 16 that 0.55 percent of customers of Apple's newest phone called with complaints about radio frequency performance.

Jobs last week offered a free case to buyers of Apple's iPhone 4 after customers complained about losing signal strength when the device is held in certain ways. "Every smartphone" has this problem, Jobs said, listing some devices made by HTC and Research In Motion Ltd. as also having lower reception.

Motorola Inc. Co-Chief Executive Sanjay Jha responded the same day, saying his company's own devices don't have the same antenna shortcomings as the iPhone 4. Jobs didn't address Motorola directly.

"It is disingenuous to suggest that all phones perform equally," Jha said in an e-mailed statement. "In our own testing we have found that Droid X performs much better than iPhone 4 when held by consumers."

RIM, SamsungJobs also named RIM's BlackBerry Bold and Samsung Electronics Co.'s Omnia II as having reduced reception when gripped in certain positions."Samsung mobile phones employ an internal antenna design technology that optimizes reception quality for any type of hand-grip use," the Suwon, South Korea-based company said in an e-mailed statement today.HTC, the world's largest maker of handsets using operating systems from Google Inc. and Microsoft Corp., posted record sales last quarter as demand for Android-based models climbed. Apple in March accused HTC of infringing its patents for user interface, hardware and underlying architecture, with the Taiwanese company retaliating with a lawsuit in March aimed at the iPhone, iPod and iPad."It is well understood by the industry that if enough of a phone and its antenna is covered, the radio frequency signal will be" reduced to some extent, HTC said in the e-mail. "At HTC, we carefully engineer our phones to ensure that this effect is minimized in real-world use."