“Apple has been pushing the iPhone as a do-it-all device; it makes calls and is the best iPod ever. But it’s still a phone, and the audio quality is the most important aspect of that. To test the audio quality of calls made with the iPhone we use professional testing equipment; a HATS (Head and Torso Simulator) that simulates the human head and ear and an electro-acoustic analysis program called SoundCheck. The combination allows us to analyze the quality of the sound that the iPhone sends and receives,” Alfredo Padilla reports for WirelessInfo.
Sound Receive Frequency Response: This test measures the frequency response of sound the iPhone receives when it is used as a handset. This represents what someone talking to you over the phone sounds like. “iPhone compares extremely well to other phones. The iPhone scores higher on this test than all of the five comparison phones, and only one phone that we have tested so far (the BlackBerry Curve) scored higher. Whatever Apple is doing with the small speaker inside the iPhone, they are doing it right,” Padilla reports.
Sound Send Frequency Response: Measures the sound that is being sent from rather than received by the phone. “The iPhone’s performance in this test was very good; the frequency response only touched against the limits a little. The bass response is perhaps a little higher than we like to see; this could make your voice sound a little bit bassier than it really is. But overall, the sound quality is very acceptable. It scored almost identically to the Treo 750, slightly higher than the Nokia N95, and much higher than the BlackBerry 8800,” Padilla reports.
Handset Side Tone: Side tone is how you hear your own voice when you are on the phone. So you can hear yourself speak, handsets inject a small amount of your captured voice back into the speaker. If they inject too much, your voice sounds too loud and you start whispering. Too much, and you start yelling. “The ideal is about -18 decibels, but the iPhone seemed to have a problem here: we measured the side tone at -8.8 decibels. That’s pretty high, so you might find yourself whispering a bit when you use the iPhone. This is comparable to the -9.43 decibels that we measured on the LG Prada, so it may have something to do with the thin, candybar style that the two share. However, nobody complained about how loudly we spoke on the test calls we made, so the low side tone may prove to be less of an issue than you might think,” Padilla reports.
Full article, with graphs, and many, many more test of other aspects of Apple’s iPhone here.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Joe” for the heads up.]
The FUDsters just lost another negative spin angle.
A new business model has just been created by the iphone……..
Engineers, scientists, researchers, journalists, photographers, FUDsters et al all being paid big dollars to analysze and report their findings on the iphone!
I wonder……can a widget be developed to encompass that lot?
First post I hope.
I can’t wait for Vodacom (Vadofone) South Africa to get the exclusive rights.
my son called me using a demo at the Apple store… could have been the noisy store.. but the quality seemed lacking.. other than that it is beautiful technology.
The iPhone sounds good, they just need to get the volume up somehow….
I have good hearing and it is very difficult to hear through the earpiece if you are not in a slilent room.. The ringer and alerts are also very low, but movies and iPod functions through the speakerphone are adequate.
I’m sure it’s a software fix, maybe Apple were trying to conserve battery charge, but they definitely need to bring the volume up.
There are hundreds of posts on this issue at the Apple forums.
From the headline, I thought this would be an analysis of the iPhone’s capabilities as an audiophile device (ie. as a high end MP3 player) – not it’s quality as a telephone. Sheesh. It’s not exactly a very high hurdle to jump given the tiny audio bandwidth of a telephone signal.
What a non story.
There are hundreds of posts on this issue at the Apple forums.
————————
….Well there were hundreds of posts on the low volume iPhone issue.. It looks like the moderators have deleted the threads…
Rush was talking about the iPhone on his show today. He said it has one of the best audio reception of any landline or cell phone he had ever used. He has a cocular inplant for his hearing and thr iPhone sounded great with the implant.
@Reality Check
It’s eating you up inside isn’t it? I feel sorry for you and your pathetic life.
You are the non-story.
It makes your voice sound a little deeper than it really is? Cool. Get the Barry White thing goin’ on. I could see developers creating widgets that let you change your voice in numerous ways over the iPhone and selling that over iTunes. That could be sophomoric fun to use, for sure.
Breadman, “Reality Check” has ALWAYS been a nonentity on this site, so take what he says with an emetic and a grain of salt.
In fact, he is part of a dying breed of puerile MSFanBoys, and knows not what to do with his pathetic life. (I like your wording.) I know: Perhaps he and his mother can start going to Bingo games at the local church again, once her hip heals.
That would be nice.
My Nokia sounds so bad that my own mother doesn’t ever recognize me when I call her with it. She always thinks it is a prank caller, calling her “mom”.
I saw a review the other day on C|Net, a site that usually only has terrible things to say about Apple. Their initial review of the iPhone included very negative comments on its audio quality. So much for the integrity (and neutrality) of their testing and reporting…
Frankly, C|Net is so far up Steve Ballmer’s monkeyboy butt-slot that you can barely see their feet…
“Frankly, C|Net is so far up Steve Ballmer’s monkeyboy butt-slot that you can barely see their feet…”
And they could tell you what his spleen smells like. It’s not good.
“She always thinks it is a prank caller, calling her ‘mom’.”
Sorry. That was me.
@Midlothian
Actually, I’m noone’s “fanboy” – although my preferred platform is the Mac. However, you’re correct in noting that I do get off on bursting the bubbles of Apple-zealots on this site.
As for going to church, I’ll leave that to the smaller minds on this forum. I don’t believe in God, fairies or Father Christmas. Or much of what Apple’s marketing department says.
Small minds? I believe psychologists call your views “projection”.
@reality Check
Clearly you believe in nothing…I just wish you didn’t believe in writing MDN comments to ‘burst’ peoples’s bubbles…oh….I guess you do believe in something….in the pleasure of being desrtructiive rather than constructive.
That is a sign of a weak (or lazy) mind
interesting, the Blackberry Curbe is ahead of the iPhone. Actually, Blackberries are VERY good phones, and I don’t believe they’re even made in China.
Ah, to believe in nothing. What a terrible, devastating thing. Yes, my ex-boss was a believer in nothing too, Mr. ‘Reality Check’. He practiced his beliefs too, by not paying me my last weeks wages.
Don’t forget, “If you choose not to decide you still have made a choice”.
Only crazy people totally rule out possibilities – eg. if there is a God.
If there is not, then you have nothing to fear.
But if there is…
btw – the MDN magic word:
believe
Also, Mr. ‘Reality Check’ apparently did not even READ the article in question – meanwhile he presumptuously insults church attenders as ‘small minded’ and baits Apple fans on an Apple fan site while claiming his preferred platform is Mac.
There are none as small minded as ‘believe-in-nothing’ people like this.
Ok, I’m done.
btw again:
Micros**t sucks
The BBC are reporting O2 have won in the UK
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/6272226.stm
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