Despite having a redesigned antenna, it appears that the CDMA version of the iPhone 4, or at least the one offered by Verizon, has similar reception issues to the GSM version, which launched back in June 2010. Once again, if you hold the iPhone 4 in a certain way, for a few seconds, the reception on the device will start to take a hit.
In the course of conducting its standard suite of iPhone 4 performance tests, iLounge discovered the phone can lose substantial cellular signal strength when held in the prior "death grip" position, as well as Wi-Fi signal when held in a different "death hug" position. In both cases, data reception is either noticeably slowed or completely stalled. A video demonstration shows the findings:
Thankfully, the issues can be fixed in the same way as with the GSM version of the iPhone 4: buy a case. Keep that in mind if you're planning to purchase an iPhone 4 from Verizon. Alternatively, you can just wait till this summer, when the iPhone 5 will likely arrive.