Recently, someone on YouTube posted a video of how your hand effects the signal strength on the Nexus One (via Engadget article). Based on the comments that came out of the article, I don’t think it illustrated just how terrible of an issue this is.

As my video illustrates, all it takes to lose two bars worth of 3G service on the Nexus One is for you to simply hold your phone. In low coverage areas, this can spell the difference between not having 3G, and having it. On top of which, a simple shift of the hand can cause drastic changes, like dropping a call or important data transfer.

I think this continues to show how much Google is lacking any kind of effective usability testing within their Android department. Sure, HTC put the phone through the ropes, but it boggles the mind to think how something this severe would have made it through.

Update (2/18):

I got a email from Google today about the problem. This is what they stated.

Thanks for your note. There are a variety of factors which feed into the quality of 3G connectivity on mobile phones, a number of which are dependent on the environment rather than the phone itself. For instance, a software update can’t address the experience of users on the edge or outside of 3G coverage areas.

We have taken note of your feedback and we are already working on this.

I really don’t see a software solution to this problem. It has everything to do with an extremely poor placement of the antenna. I empathize with the difficulty of where to put such things. They have to pay attention to growing concerns over radiation from these devices while holding them up to your ear. Which, is why they’ve started to place them at the bottom. It’s just, that phones should be single hand devices. In using them as such, people tend to cradle the bottom of the device with their palm, in order to free up their thumb to type on the screen. The default positioning of the hand on this device completely covers the antenna area.

I see no way of fixing this other than by moving the location of the antenna.