Higher SAR, Worse for Health

It is reported that the specific absorption rate (SAR) shows a great variation from one brand of Korean-made handsets to another.

According to the Oct. 9th report by an internet news company “ZD Net,” the SAR of the handsets, which are manufactured by Korean companies such as Samsung Electronics and LG Electronics and exported to US, varies from 0.665 W/kg to 1.45W/kg. Thus, all of the Korean-made handsets have satisfied the limit of less than 1.6W/kg requirement, which is the official guideline set up for the health of cellular phone users in Korea as well as in US.

The report also discloses that all the handsets of Samsung ranged from 0.665 to 1.45 in the terms of their SARs, and LG’s 8 models showed the 0.669 to 1.41 range. StarTec 7860 of Motorola recorded the lowest among all the handsets on sale in US, or 0.24W/kg.

The SAR refers to the electronic waves per mass, which are absorbed by the body when a person uses a particular handset. Therefore, the bigger the figure is, the greater the possible harm to the body is. In response, each country regulates the SAR to the head of the user so that it should be lower than a certain level. The current limit in Korea is 1.6, which is equal to that in US. On the other hand, Europe and Japan are a little more generous in this respect. They allow it up to 2.0 W/kg.

Tae-Han Kim freewill@donga.com