Motorola Jabs at iPhone 4 with New Ad

Motorola began running an ad in newspapers on Wednesday that’s clearly targeted at Apple’s iPhone 4 and free case offer. The ad features the Droid X and implies that the smartphone doesn’t suffer from signal strength loss issues.

Motorola’s ad states

At Motorola, we believe a customer shouldn’t have to dress up their phone for it to work properly. That’s why the DROID X comes with a dual antenna design. The kind that allows you to hold the phone any way you like to make crystal clear calls without a bulky phone jacket. For us it’s just one of those things that comes as a given when you’ve been making mobile phones for over 30 years.

The ad, available at Motorola’s Facebook page, claims that users can hold the phone anyway they want without having to worry about cell signal strength loss — an issue for the iPhone 4 that ultimately led to an Apple press conference.

In the case of the iPhone 4, holding the phone so the lower left corner is covered by your hand can cause the signal strength bars to drop. To appease complaints, Apple has begun shipping free cases to iPhone 4 owners.

Apple claimed almost all smartphones suffer from signal loss when your hand covers the antenna. To back up that statement, Apple posted a Web page demonstrating signal strength loss in several popular smartphones. Motorola’s claims don’t, however, jibe with Apple’s antenna performance Web page that shows the Droid X signal bars dropping when the phone is held in a natural position.

Regardless of whether or not Motorola’s Droid X performance claims are accurate, the ad is still clever and will likely go over well with smartphone owners that dislike Apple’s products.