UA News

Brian Klug, a UA senior and Honors College student, was one of the first engineers to detect problems with the Apple iPhone 4 antenna. His work has generated nationwide news coverage as he continues to review other products.

Brian Klug, who writes product reviews for a hardware analysis company, had eagerly awaited the arrival of the iPhone 4. 

With the device in hand, he began his daily use and usual run of tests to check the product's feel and usability, battery life and charge, backlight, Javascript, page loading capabilities, sound, display brightness, performance and other features. 

Early on, Klug, a University of Arizona senior and AnandTech.com writer and contributing editor, detected a problem with the antenna and – within days of the product's release – became one of the first reviewers to publicize the issue.

"I am pretty much addicted to looking at the signal numerically, in dBm (ratio of power in decibles) so it became a matter of putting together a few ways of holding it and taking measurements," said Klug, a UA Honors College student studying optical sciences and engineering.

He and co-author Anand Shimpi, who launched AnandTech.com, found that the device would experience a decline in signal strength when it was held in four different ways. 

The two eventually published the first quantitative evaluation of the phone's antenna to verify that the problem did, indeed, exist. The review was immediately picked up by a number of news agencies and consumer magazines across the nation.

So popular and in-demand are his reviews that CNNMoney.com is now running a syndicate of the articles Klug produces.

He already has reviewed Apple's iPad, MacBook Pro, the Nokia N900, AT&T 3G MicroCell and numerous other products.

In the future, Klug plans to post reviews on the AT&T Palm Pre Plus, Motorola Droid 2, an Asus 3D 120 Hz display, the VG236, the Sprint Epic 4G, Verizon's Fascinate and Samsung Galaxy S devices, among others. 

A Tucson native, Klug has long been interested in electronics and recalled being fascinated with dial-up cabel modem. 

And while in middle school, he got his first handheld gadget – a Handspring Visor Prism. Today, he pretty much lives by the iPhone 4, Nexus One, Latitude XT and MacBook Pro.

"It was kind of common then to have a powerful desktop but the real excitement was in mobile," he said. "I found that very interesting and really cutting edge – something you could carry around with you all day."

Initially interested in fiber optics, telecommunications and photography, Klug opted to study at the UA because of its strong programs in the College of Optical Sciences.

"It made sense to stay here," said Klug, also a student researcher with the UA's Artificial Intelligence Laboratory and Imaging Technology Laboratory. 

He has since taken a strong interest in electrical engineering. 

"I had a passion for electronics but part of me still wanted to write," said Klug, who wrote for publications while in high school.

His attraction to AnandTech.com resulted in a desire to merge writing and science.

"I love the site in that it is in depth," he said.

"One thing that has ready paid off is doing things very carefully and making sure they are thought out," Klug added. "This is all just a learning experience for me. It is definitely a job that combines all these things."