HTC Touch Diamond Cell Phone Review - Audio Quality
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Marianne Schultz Published on October 14, 2008 Comment on this |
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| The Touch Diamond doesn't stun us with its audio quality, though it does receive sounds better than its predecessor. Where it doesn't do so well is in the audio it sends, failing to even send sounds at various frequencies. Its sidetone level, the amount of your own voice piped back to you so you can hear how loudly you're speaking, is a bit on the high side, and you may compensate by speaking more quietly than you really need to. | |
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General Audio
Smartphones have become so powerful that they do much more for us now than just handling phone calls, 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 sidetone, which is how 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 (8.24)
This 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 results chart for the HTC Touch shows that hits the limits in a couple of places. At the frequencies where the blue line representing the Touch Diamond's performance hits the lower limit, sounds at the these frequencies will be transmitted more quietly than they should be. At the next area where the Touch Diamond's performance curve touches the upper limit, sounds at these frequencies will be transmitted more loudly than they should be. Had the limits been exceeded in any area, the phone simply would not transmit those sounds at all, resulting in choppy sound on a call. Other than this, the Touch Diamond doesn't do too badly, scoring slightly better than the iPhone 3G and its predecessor, the HTC Touch.
| Cell Phone | HTC Touch Diamond | Nokia E71 (Unlocked GSM) | iPhone 3G (on AT&T) |
| Score | 8.24 | 7.55 | 8.13 |
| Received Sound Frequency Response Graph |  |
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| Cell Phone | HTC Touch (on Sprint) | Samsung Ace (on Sprint) | Blackberry Curve 8320 (on T-Mobile) |
| Score | 7.44 | 8.18 | 8.30 |
| Received Sound Frequency Response Graph |  |
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Sound Send Frequency Response (7.01)
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 evaluating 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.
In this test, you can see that the Touch Diamond did not perform well, exceeding the limits in many areas. This means that the Touch Diamond will simply fail to transmit sounds at the frequencies where it surpasses these limits. This wouldn't be so bad if this happened in one isolated range of frequencies, but it happens throughout the entire frequency range. This performance earns the Touch Diamond one of the lowest scores among our comparison phones, though it is slightly better than its predecessor, the HTC Touch, which scored 6.56 in this same test.
| Cell Phone | HTC Touch Diamond |
Nokia E71 (Unlocked GSM) | iPhone 3G (on AT&T) |
| Score | 5.84 | 6.90 | 9.37 |
| Sound Sent Frequency Response Graph |  |
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| Cell Phone | HTC Touch (on Sprint) | Samsung Ace (on Sprint) | Blackberry Curve 8320 (on T-Mobile) |
| Score | 7.64 | 6.68 | 9.88 |
| Sound Sent Frequency Response Graph |  |
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Handset Side Tone (5.84)
Side tone is the amount of your own voice piped 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 try to adjust. 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. The Touch Diamond's side tone is 21.16dB, which means you'll hear your own voice more loudly than you should ideally, and will probably compensate by speaking more quietly. If you're mindful of this as you talk on the Touch Diamond, it probably won't be too much of a problem for you, but if not, the people with whom you speak may have trouble hearing you if you compensate for it based on what you're hearing.
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