LG Chocolate VX8550 Cell Phone Review - Audio Quality
The Chocolate certainly has some aesthetic flair, but did LG favor design quality over audio quality? As the main function of a phone is making calls, we do very thorough testing on audio quality. Our software is a professional audio analysis program,
SoundCheck, by Listen, Inc. Our hardware is a Head and Torso Simulator, or H.A.T.S., by Brüel & Kjær. Each of these are used by cell phone manufacturers in product testing. For our tests we use the phones as a handset held to the ear. We keep a more detailed description of our audio tests
here. We are also developing more tests, such as testing the performance of the speakerphone or measuring voice distortion.
Sound Receive Frequency Response (8.27)
This test analyzes how well the phone can reproduce a received frequency. The results essentially describe how accurately the phone reproduces the voice of someone calling you. The above graph shows the phone's frequency response in blue, and the upper and lower limits for frequency response in red. These limits were set by an international group of audio experts. Ideally a phone's frequency response would be a smooth curve bisecting the area between those limits; the closer a curve gets to the limits (or indeed goes over them), the further off it is from the standard, and the lower the score it gets.
This graph is very similar to the graph of the old Chocolate. The line is a relatively smooth curve and doesn't exceed the limits, meaning that the Chocolate accurately reproduces received frequencies and voices should sound clear and easy to understand.
| Cell Phone |
LG Chocolate VX8550 (on Verizon)
|
Sanyo M1 (on Sprint) |
Motorola Razr V3m (on Sprint) |
| Score |
8.27 |
4.76 |
8.12 |
| Received Sound Frequency Response Graph (click to view) |
 |
 |
 |
Sound Send Frequency Response (8.06)
This test determines how well the phone handles sending frequencies. Again, the new Chocolate performs more or less the same as the old one. It remains within the limits for the most part, only touching them slightly when it does. The spike near 4 kHz remains, so your voice could sound a little tinny to the person on the other end of the line. However, this is a relatively minor issue, and the performance of the Chocolate in this test is very acceptable.
| Cell Phone |
LG Chocolate VX8550 |
Sanyo M1(on CARRIER) |
Motorola Razr V3m(on CARRIER) |
| Score |
8.06 |
8.40 |
7.34 |
| Received Sound Frequency Response Graph (click to view) |
 |
 |
 |
Handset Side Tone (9.85)
Side tone refers to how loud your own voice sounds through the speaker. Side tone is important, as people naturally speak louder when they can't hear their own voice. The standard has placed ideal side tone volume at 18 decibels. The Chocolate averaged about 17.85, which is very close to this target. This means you shouldn't feel the need to whisper or yell.
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