Why Do Some Phones Generate More Radiation Than Others?

Around the time of the iPhone 12 launch, 5G tech seemed even more consolidated than it is today. Qualcomm was only on its second-gen 5G modem and MediaTek had yet to announce its first-gen one, leaving Qualcomm and Samsung Exynos as the key 5G providers for phones.
However, according to ANFR’s own database of results, the Samsung Galaxy S20 Ultra with shared components produces significantly less RF radiation. It recorded 1.162 W/kg and 2.493 W/kg in the same categories.
Other factors are involved too. For example, as part of the 5G wireless layout in today’s phones, you’ll see RF “frontend” chips, as well as the core 5G modem. These include power amplifiers that control how much “juice” is put through the transmitter.
Then there’s the software, which governs how the phone behaves when signal strength is limited. Crucially, too-high levels of RF can be altered with a software update.
You might imagine that other phones in the iPhone 12 family would have similar results. But ANFR tested the iPhone 12 mini and iPhone 12 Pro and found that they were within acceptable limits.

Is France’s Testing Different From Everyone Else’s?
Each country, region, or group of countries, like the EU, has their own set of RF standards, but a couple of key standards are found across the world.
In the US, Canada, and South Korea, the standard is 1.6 W/kg, measured across 1 g of virtual tissue. In Australia, Europe, and most of the rest of the world, the standard is 2 W/kg, measured across 10 g.
The standard in the US and Canada is significantly stricter. It’s not just about the lower acceptable ceiling of RF; the smaller sample size of 1 g means peak figures can’t be spread out as much.
But France uses one of the most demanding tests—putting the phone at a 0-mm distance from the virtual body. The United State’s FCC website doesn’t actually specify required distance, but 5 mm is the standard—and those few millimeters matter in the world of RF testing, thanks to the way RF dissipates.
In all cases, the reading you see on one of these SAR reports is the maximum recorded from all of the phones’ wireless frequency bands.
There’s another thing to consider. You might assume that all phones are tested by official bodies in their respective countries. That’s the FCC in the US, Ofcom in the UK, the Bundesnetzagentur in Germany, and so on.
In reality, Apple and other manufacturers organize testing at independent laboratories to ensure that they meet the required standards and have the documentation to prove it.
The ANFR’s testing is more like a secret shopper operation, performing additional testing to check manufacturers’ homework. Three years after the fact, Apple was found wanting.

Is Mobile Phone Radiation Dangerous?
RF is one of the least dangerous forms of radiation. These are low-energy waves with longer wavelengths than visible light, ultraviolet, x-rays, and gamma rays.
They are in non-ionising electromagnetic territory, which means they don’t have sufficient energy to cause major damage by breaking chemical bonds or removing electrons from atoms. That interaction is what can make higher-energy types of electromagnetic waves, like gamma rays, cause cancer.
The situation is muddied by the damage light can cause, however. Most forms of ultraviolet light are non-ionising, and yet we all know that too much exposure to them can cause skin cancer. So what’s going on there?
Skin damage from higher-energy UV light waves can cause an increase in free radicals, which are unstable molecules created by the body in response to “environmental insults,” as Harvard puts it.
The simplistic view offered by certain lifestyle blogs is that free radicals are bad but can be countered with antioxidants. However, more recent research has actually found that some antioxidants can help speed up cancer growth. On this point, we’re out of our depth.
The specific research done into the effects of RF radiation from phones is also inconclusive. The World Health Organization stated in 2014 that, after a large number of studies, “no adverse health effects have been established as being caused by mobile phone use.”
A meta-analysis published in 2020 found that the results of studies appeared to vary based on the group enacting them, but it suggested that there is “significant evidence linking cellular phone use to increased tumor risk, especially among cell phone users with cumulative cell phone use of 1,000 or more hours in their lifetime.”
Still, a reaction to that meta-analysis by members of the Australian Radiation Protection and Nuclear Safety Agency suggested that the authors of the original analysis had unfairly maligned studies that suggested the opposite. To further muddy the waters, many of the studies in the original research are ancient in tech terms. More than 60 percent were published in 2010 or earlier, none after 2015. The fundamentals of RF may not have changed since then, but the hardware we use and the ways we typically interact with it certainly have.

Is RF Radiation Radioactive?
Radio frequency radiation is not radioactive, and it cannot make other objects radioactive. Neither can much higher-energy, more dangerous waves, such as gamma rays.
Instead, radioactive elements can emit gamma rays, alongside alpha and beta particles. These particles have actual mass, unlike gamma rays, which are composed of weightless photons much like RF emissions. All of these, unlike RF, are pretty dangerous in most scenarios.

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