iPhone named worst phone in world

LONDON - Millions own an Apple iPhone and tout the thousands of apps, cool touchscreen and nifty media player. But now a British Web site is calling the iPhone the "worst phone in the world."

Back in June, the iPhone was named CNET UK's editors' choice . Now it's been deemed "rubbish." Among its gripes: the call quality. "Call quality on the iPhone is pathetic, and it's mostly because of the tiny speaker. It has to be aligned with your ear canal with the accuracy of a laser-guided ninja doing cataract surgery, or else the volume cuts down to nothing as the sound waves bounce uselessly around your ear shells," its editors write . "The microphone is similarly craptastic, letting in all and sundry sounds to pollute your important calls, from fire alarms to passing unlicensed mopeds."

Next the editors said that dropped calls and failed access to 3G data areas are all too common. "It drops calls, fails to connect and doesn't even ring sometimes -- not for everyone, but more often than any other phone we're currently using," they said.

Much has already been written about the short battery life of the iPhone, and CNET UK's editors didn't leave it off their list. "If you turn off 3G, GPS and Wi-Fi, you can squeeze a weekend out of the iPhone 3GS... but why would you want to, without the best features of the phone?"

The one ounce of praise CNET reserved for the iPhone is that it is that it's the best handheld computer out there. "For all these features that make smart phones live up to their names, the iPhone does a bang-up job. Just don't try to actually make a phone call on one."

Verizon Wireless has been aiming to shift attention away from AT&T's iPhone by running an ad campaign featuring a series of "iDon't" statements, which are meant to promote its new Motorola Droid phone . The Droid is set to go on sale on Nov. 6.