Does the bumper really help the iphone 4 with signal and the metal band?

Fair to say the jury is out on this one. There's alleged to be a v4.01 iOS update coming this week, but again that's speculation. I'd wait a couple days to see how this shakes out but I don't believe you'd be disappointed at all with the new iPhone 4. Apple will do what it takes to keep their customers satisfied.

The search button in the upper right corner is your best friend

I have seen no difference with any case i have tried so far... just FYI

Approximately 1,000,000 iPhone 4s have been sold. There will be approximately 1,000,000 opinions on this issue.

Stedman

My point is " which of the 1,000,000 opinions are YOU going to be happy with?"

Stedman

In my experience the bumper helps the signal some. Even with the bumper there is some signal degradation.

I also think the bumper is ugly. It's also cumbersome. Want to put the phone in a dock, gotta take the stupid bumper off. Want to find the silent switch? Hunt for it with the bumper on. etc, etc

The bumper does not solve the problem I am still loosing bars. This is not a fix at all.

My friends have experience the same situation

I bought a case and it helped tremendously.

I've tried 2 different cases with my iPhone 4. No help with the signal loss at all. And I can watch both WIFI and 3G signals decrease dramatically when I hold the phone my usual way (left hand, gripping the bottom and left side).

I have the same signal issues with the bumper also. There are people on this board who resort to being smart "alecks" if someone posts something without searching to see if there is already a thread on the topic. Just ignore the rude folks and ask anyway. If there is a prior thread on the topic someone will nicely point it out.
Back to topic....I'll be surprised if a software upgrade fixes this issue. We will see what, if anything, apple does to solve this problem.