AT&T Fuze Cell Phone Review - Audio Quality
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Marianne Schultz Published on April 24, 2009 Comment on this |
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| The sound received by the Fuze has some issues, with frequency ranges where sound is artificially amplified and others where it will cut out and not be heard at all. The sound it sends is very good in contrast, and the person on the other end of the line should have no complaints about what they hear from you. Side tone, the amount of your own voice piped back to you to help you gauge how loudly you're speaking, is too low and will prompt you to speak more loudly than you need to compensate. | |
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General Audio
Smartphones these days can do anything from providing you with full PIM management to helping you stay up-to-date with your friends via Facebook, but how well they work as a phone is still an important factor, in which audio quality is a key component. We test performance in three areas - the audio you hear while on a call, the audio sent from the phone, and how much of your own voice is piped back to you, called side tone, which helps you gauge how loudly you're speaking. We do all of this using guidelines defined by international audio experts and testing equipment and software that cell phone manufacturers use themselves - we use a head and torso simulator (HATS) made by Bruel & Kjaer and the SoundCheck software by Listen, Inc. For more information on how we do our audio testing see this article.
Sound Receive Frequency Response (7.22)
The Fuze didn't do too well in this area with its performance results showing that sounds across some of the frequency range will be artificially amplified and others will be cut off, resulting in choppy sound to you on a call.
Our sound receive frequency response test focuses on the quality of the sound received by the phone, and our testing equipment examines how well the phone transmits the voice of the person with whom you're speaking and it does this by transmitting a set batch of known sounds at specific frequencies in a test call and analyzing what is heard through the phone's speaker. On the chart, the outside limits that a phone should not surpass are prescribed by the red lines, and ideal performance would manifest as a smooth curve through the middle of the area defined by the outside limits.
The Fuze's sound received frequency response chart
In the Fuze's performance results chart, you can that it exceeds the lower limit in the lower frequencies, then vacillates to exceed the upper limit at frequencies just below 1,000 Hz, and then stays near the upper limit above 1,000 Hz for a good bit. Where it exceeds the lower limit, sounds will cut out completely. Where the performance curve exceeds the upper limit, sounds will be artificially amplified to a large degree. While this won't impede your ability to have a phone conversation, you will encounter some issues. The Fuze demonstrates the lowest performance among all of our comparison phones here.
| Cell Phone | AT&T Fuze | Nokia N96 (unlocked) | Blackberry Storm (on Verizon) |
| Score | 7.22 | 7.26 | 8.38 |
| Received Sound Frequency Response Graph |  |
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| Cell Phone | T-Mobile G1 (on T-Mobile) | HTC Touch Diamond (on Sprint) | Apple iPhone 3G (on AT&T) |
| Score | 8.98 | 8.24 | 8.13 |
| Received Sound Frequency Response Graph |  |
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Sound Send Frequency Response (9.01)
Compared to its sound receive frequency response test and to our comparison phones, the Fuze does very well in this test, presenting virtually no issues with the sound it sends on a call.
This test focuses on how well your voice is sent by the phone through its microphone. Our testing equipment and software evaluates this by transmitting a known range of sounds through the phone's microphone on a test call, and then analyzing how the sounds are actually transmitted by the phone. As with the sound receive frequency response test, the red lines show the outer limits which should not be surpassed, and ideal performance would be a smooth curve through the middle of these limits.
The Fuze's sound sent frequency response chart
As you can see from the Fuze's sound sent frequency response chart, it stays within the prescribed limits the entire time, indicating that sounds it sends will not be cut off or artificially amplified to an extreme. This is the best performance relative to all of our comparison phones.
| Cell Phone | AT&T Fuze | Nokia N96 (unlocked) | Blackberry Storm (on Verizon) |
| Score | 9.01 | 8.73 | 7.79 |
| Sound Sent Frequency Response Graph |  |
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| Cell Phone | T-Mobile G1 (on T-Mobile) | HTC Touch Diamond (on Sprint) | Apple iPhone 3G (on AT&T) |
| Score | 8.42 | 7.01 | 8.34 |
| Sound Sent Frequency Response Graph |  |
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Handset Side Tone (5.05)
Side tone is the amount of your own voice intentionally routed back to you through the phone's speaker that helps you judge how loudly you're speaking. If a phone's side tone is too high, you may think you're talking too loudly and the person you're speaking with may have a hard time hearing you when you adjust by speaking more quietly. If a phone's side tone is too low, meaning less of your voice is piped back to you than the ideal level, you'll think you're talking too quietly and may end up speaking louder than you need to as a result. The ideal side tone level, as defined by audio experts, is -18dB relative to the volume of your own voice. The Fuze's side tone is -22.95 dB, meaning that it's piping back less of your own voice to you than the ideal, leading you to believe that you're not speaking loudly enough, for which you may compensate by speaking more loudly. Relative to our comparison phones, the Fuze is one of the worst performers with the iPhone 3G putting out a side tone level closest to the ideal.
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