Friday, June 2, 2006
Which Phones Make Your Head Glow?
Posted by Ed Hansberry in "THOUGHT" @ 02:00 AM
According to the FCC, a phones SAR rating is "a value that corresponds to the relative amount of RF energy absorbed in the head of a user of a wireless handset. The FCC limit for public exposure from cellular telephones is an SAR level of 1.6 watts per kilogram (1.6 W/kg)" I'm not really sure what that means. Per kilogram of what? Phone, brain matter? It would seem having a fat head would make you less susceptible to this radiation which, by the way, has not been shown to have any harmful effects on your gray matter. The safety of those around you while you drive and talk, however, is not in any way assured.
So, back to the point of this article, which is to show you a bunch of numbers so you can go "hmmm..." but not really glean anything useful unless you know the difference between an Ohm, Watt, Volt, Amp and know how to measure all of them in picoseconds. (The particularly astute among you will know I made some of that up.) CNet has made a list of the lowest SAR rated phones in the US, which includes a few Windows Mobile devices, and the 10 phones voted most likely to to cause you to lose memory as cells are slowly cooked by the low powered microwave you talk on every day, most of which are Motorola phones, and one Palm Treo 650, all scoring above 1.50 striving to hit the maximum "safe" level of 1.6 W/kg. Other phones of interest:
• Palm Treo 700w - 1.26
• Palm Treo 700p - 1.48
• HTC Wizard - Way low, three values given at .233, .184 or .079, depending on what radios are on.
• HTC Universal - Unknown. Not for sale in the US so they didn't need FCC approval I guess. No telling what that beast is pumping out. ;)
• HTC Tornado - Levels between .59 and .83
So, I have no idea what all that really means, and be honest, you don't either, but those PalmOS devices sure do crank out the juice. 8O That's my new leave-them-bewildered comment at the counter as someone reaches for a Treo 700p. "Hey, great device, but it approaches the maximum safe radiation dose allowed by the FCC, and almost 20% more radioactive than this Treo 700w, and the 700w can actually multitask." :devilboy:
So, back to the point of this article, which is to show you a bunch of numbers so you can go "hmmm..." but not really glean anything useful unless you know the difference between an Ohm, Watt, Volt, Amp and know how to measure all of them in picoseconds. (The particularly astute among you will know I made some of that up.) CNet has made a list of the lowest SAR rated phones in the US, which includes a few Windows Mobile devices, and the 10 phones voted most likely to to cause you to lose memory as cells are slowly cooked by the low powered microwave you talk on every day, most of which are Motorola phones, and one Palm Treo 650, all scoring above 1.50 striving to hit the maximum "safe" level of 1.6 W/kg. Other phones of interest:
• Palm Treo 700w - 1.26
• Palm Treo 700p - 1.48
• HTC Wizard - Way low, three values given at .233, .184 or .079, depending on what radios are on.
• HTC Universal - Unknown. Not for sale in the US so they didn't need FCC approval I guess. No telling what that beast is pumping out. ;)
• HTC Tornado - Levels between .59 and .83
So, I have no idea what all that really means, and be honest, you don't either, but those PalmOS devices sure do crank out the juice. 8O That's my new leave-them-bewildered comment at the counter as someone reaches for a Treo 700p. "Hey, great device, but it approaches the maximum safe radiation dose allowed by the FCC, and almost 20% more radioactive than this Treo 700w, and the 700w can actually multitask." :devilboy:
