Cell
phones and radiation:
10 best and 10 worst
"Until all the facts are in,
it doesn't hurt to be cautious."
10
Best Phones
(lowest radiation)
Samsung
Impression (SGH-a877)
Motorola
RAZR V8
Samsung
SGH-t229
Samsung
Rugby (SGH-a837)
Samsung
Propel Pro (SGH-i627)
Samsung
Gravity (SGH-t459)
T-Mobile
Sidekick
LG
Xenon (GR500)
Motorola
Karma QA1
Sanyo
Katana II
10
Worst Phones
(highest radiation)
Motorola
MOTO VU204
T-Mobile
myTouch 3G
Kyocera
Jax S1300
Blackberry
Curve 8330
Motorola
W385
T-Mobile
Shadow
Motorola
C290
Motorola
i335
Motorola
MOTO VE240
Blackberry
Bold 9000
Can't find your phone? Check the entire
list of 1,000 phones or search for your model. If your cell phone
isn't on EWG's list, then search the Federal Communications Commission
web site to get your
phone's SAR* value. You can then compare it to the models in EWG's
guide to see how it stacks up against the competition.
Buying a new cell phone isn't your only option for limiting your exposure
to cell phone radiation. Keeping your phone away from your head and
body is the best thing you can do.
Here are some tips adapted from EWG's
guide to reducing cell phone radiation exposure:
Use speakerphone
or a headset. There's no consensus on whether it's safer to go with
a
wired or wireless headset, but headsets emit less radiation than
cell phones.
Send text
messages instead of talking. Phones use less power and therefore emit
less radiation to send text than voice. It also keeps radiation away
from your head.
Stay off
the phone when you have a poor signal. Your phone will emit more radiation
to get the signal to the tower when there are fewer signal bars on
your phone.
The
Apple iPhone, for those who are wondering, is somewhere in the middle
of the approximately 1,200 phones that were tested. Incidentally,
if you're wondering where your BlackBerry is on the list, the FCC
doesn't mandate handset makers to reveal radiation levels, so many
of these devices aren't on the list.
*SAR
is a measure of how much radiation is absorbed by the body when the
phone is sending a signal to the network. Your phone only emits radiation
when you talk or text.
Now
you know!
